JGT Task 1
Shuzworld to: Alistair Wu, Operating Director from: subject:
Production and Assembly Line Recommendations date: cc:
Cynthia Crownshield, Hetty Tarbox, Dieter Handel
A. Shuzworld Plant Workflow Recommendation
The recommendation is that management reorganizes the production process down to five stations, with appropriate tasks in each station to produce the required work boots.
A1. Justification
The assembly line is budgeted to produce six work boots in a 40 hour week. This is equivalent to 480 minutes of production time in one eight hour day. The line can make 48 boots in an eight hour shift. This leaves a cycle time per boot of 10 minutes. In order to figure how many workstations are appropriate for the cycle time of 10 minutes, I calculated the total task time of the boots by the cycle time. The total task time is 46 minutes, divided by the cycle time of 10 minutes; leaves minimum necessary workstations of 4.6 or 5. This gives the production line the most efficiency. The assembly line was previously working with 8 stations with the longest cycle time of 10 minutes. There were several stations that had over 5 minutes of idle time. Idle time increases waste through not using employee’s time efficiently. By combining several of the work stations less idle time was created making the process more efficient. The fewer work stations also decreases the amount of time used to move items from station to station which is additional wasted time in production. When figuring the efficiency rate of the assembly line I multiplied the number of stations by the longest cycle time, and then divided that by the overall task time to make a pair of boots. The original process of the assembly line was operating at 58% efficiency. When I recalculated this using the 5 stations with a cycle time of 10 minutes, the efficiency rate was 92%. This is a significant increase. It would be recommended that the employees cross train in performing the tasks to help keep the process moving
Production and Assembly Line Recommendations date: cc:
Cynthia Crownshield, Hetty Tarbox, Dieter Handel
A. Shuzworld Plant Workflow Recommendation
The recommendation is that management reorganizes the production process down to five stations, with appropriate tasks in each station to produce the required work boots.
A1. Justification
The assembly line is budgeted to produce six work boots in a 40 hour week. This is equivalent to 480 minutes of production time in one eight hour day. The line can make 48 boots in an eight hour shift. This leaves a cycle time per boot of 10 minutes. In order to figure how many workstations are appropriate for the cycle time of 10 minutes, I calculated the total task time of the boots by the cycle time. The total task time is 46 minutes, divided by the cycle time of 10 minutes; leaves minimum necessary workstations of 4.6 or 5. This gives the production line the most efficiency. The assembly line was previously working with 8 stations with the longest cycle time of 10 minutes. There were several stations that had over 5 minutes of idle time. Idle time increases waste through not using employee’s time efficiently. By combining several of the work stations less idle time was created making the process more efficient. The fewer work stations also decreases the amount of time used to move items from station to station which is additional wasted time in production. When figuring the efficiency rate of the assembly line I multiplied the number of stations by the longest cycle time, and then divided that by the overall task time to make a pair of boots. The original process of the assembly line was operating at 58% efficiency. When I recalculated this using the 5 stations with a cycle time of 10 minutes, the efficiency rate was 92%. This is a significant increase. It would be recommended that the employees cross train in performing the tasks to help keep the process moving
References: Heizer, J. H., & Render, B. (2010). Operations management (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.