Large inventories and manufacturing inefficiencies in plant

Assignment Help Operation Management

Reference no: EM132241534

ABC Inc. manufactures metal tables and chairs at its plant in Paxton, Illinois. Recently hired general manager, Bob Behar, is concerned about the large inventories and manufacturing inefficiencies in the plant. The Paxton plant has two separate assembly lines – one for chairs and one for tables. Demand for chairs is significantly larger than tables, so Bob decides to tackle the table assembly process for first. Bob has recently hired a summer intern, Eileen Mayer, who he asks to study the table assembly line and suggest ways to improve the process. Having recently completed a course on operations management, Eileen decides to create a value stream map for the process. Over a period of several days, she collects the following information about the process.

The Assembly Line

The assembly line operates one 8-hour shift per day, 5-days a week.

The Product

ABC makes one type of folding table. The table has two bent metal tubes that form the legs and a formed sheetmetal top.

Raw material storage

Raw material for the table assembly line consists of the formed sheet-metal tops which are manufactured in the sheetmetal forming department elsewhere in the plant, and steel tubes for the legs. The tabletops are made in batches of 2000 and brought to the assembly area and on average the amount of tabletop inventory is 1000.

Cut tubes for the legs are delivered by steel supplier, Steely Hollow, every week in batches of 4000 tubes, so there are on average 2000 tubes in inventory. In addition, there are hinge pins, fasteners, rubber feet and cardboard boxes that are required. These are ordered in large bulk quantities and stored at the respective assembly stations.

Hole punching

Holes for the hinge pins are punched in the tubes. There is no set-up time for this operation but tubes are punched in batches of 100. Eileen observes that the punching station can produce 120 hole-punched tubes every hour. She notes that there are approximately 2500 hole-punched tubes in a work-in-process storage area waiting for the bending operation

Leg Bending

In this operation, the hole-punched metal tubes are bent in the shape of a U. There is no set-up required for this operation. The bending operation requires 1 minute per tube and there are two bending stations that work in parallel. There are approximately 3000 bent tubes awaiting assembly.

Hinge assembly

Two bent U-tubes are assembled to form the folding base of by inserting hinged pins. There are two hinge assembly stations and assembly requires approximately 2 minutes for each table base. There are no setups required. Eileen observes that there are about 1200 assembled table bases waiting for final assembly.

Table Assemble

The tabletop is mated with the table base at the final assembly station. The operation requires careful adjustments and takes 3 minutes per table. There are three assembly stations. Assembled stations are transported immediately on a rolling conveyor to packing to avoid damage to the table.

Packaging

The assembled table is packed in a card box for shipping. Each table requires approximately 45 seconds to be boxed and there are two packaging stations. Packaged tables are shipped to BigMart twice a week. On average, therefore there are about 500 packaged tables waiting to be shipped.

Planning and Scheduling

To understand how the different stations received instructions about their daily schedules, Eileen spent a day with the production planning department. She learned that BigMart sends a monthly forecast of demand for tables electronically on the 25th of each month. In addition, a firm order for the week’s requirement is faxed to ABC on the previous Wednesday. ABC’s, planning department then looks at inventories and creates a work order for the week and a paper schedule is given to each station, except the Packaging station. Packaging does not need a schedule since it immediately packs whatever is made by Table assembly. The planning department also sends a weekly order for tubes to Steely Hollow, and tabletops to the sheetmetal forming plant.

To assist Eileen please answer the following questions

Draw a Value Stream Map for the table assembly process. Show all material flows, information flows and inventories. Draw a timeline showing processing times and waiting times.

Calculate the Takt time for the table assembly process.

For each step of the process, calculate the cycle time in minutes and the capacity utilization

Calculate the total lead time and total processing time in hours and minutes.

Reference no: EM132241534

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