A study was carried out in an automobile fuel injection pump manufacturing assembly line. An aluminium housing which passes through 22 different work stations arranged in a sequence gets assembled with different components and comes out as an assembled fuel injection pump ready for performance test. Such assembly lines were not very productive as they were established 15 years back when lean line concepts were not yet matured and lot of non value additions were part of the line. This work was selected to make the assembly line highly productive as cost reduction was one of the major focuses of the company.
This study focuses on improving the productivity, reduce the space and lead time and finally reduce the overall cost of production. The methodology used in this study is lean line design. Value stream was mapped (VSM), identified all the NVA's (Non value additions) and eliminate/reduce using lean tools and techniques like VSM, Line balancing, Stab Chart, Customer takt, Kanban, Ergonomics, Time study etc. Results were validated through various trial runs.
Study during experiment revealed that the non productiveness is mainly due to excess number of operators and improper balancing of line. More lead time and space was due to unnecessary lengthy stations and conveyors, inventories in the line and no control on production process. All such wastes were reduced using scientific methodology and results were validated. Productivity improved by 66%, reduction in space was around 50%, throughput time reduced by by 31% and lead time reduced by 75%.
Lean line design, Takt time, Bosch production system, MTM (Method-Time Measurement) analysis
