Computer aided assembly planning using MS Excel software – a case study

The issue of planning assembly operations remains crucial decision-making area for many of manufacturing companies. It becomes particularly significant in case of small and medium enterprises that perform unit or small-scale production, where the option of applying specialized software is often very limited – both due to high purchase price, but also due to its applicability to single unit manufacturing, that is executed based on individual customer orders. The present article describes the possibility of applying the MS Excel spreadsheet in the planning of machine assembly processes. It emphasises, in particular, the method for using the spreadsheet in subsequent stages of the process, and the identification of possible causes that have impact on problems with the planning process. We performed our analysis on the basis of actual data from one of the machine industry enterprises that manufactures in central Poland.