Rear Lamp Production Line Improvement Using Time Study

Authors

  • Rosli Bin Yusop

Abstract

In order to survive in a competitive market environment, companies need to select and apply
proper methods to minimize costs and optimize their productivity. Work-study is a widely recognized
productivity improvement method in manual intensive industries. The establishment of work standard times
is one of the critical phases in a production improvement scheme. It will provide some important inputs for
any possible improvement activities. In this work, a company that produces replacement parts for
automotive has been chosen as the subject of production improvement study. As a response to the incoming
demands, the company needs to establish a standard time in one of its manual production lines to show its
customers about the company's readiness to increase its production rate. The standard time will be used to
calculate the production line’s current output. A time study is performed in one of its human-intensive usage
lines. A proper study procedure based on a systematic work measurement technique has been performed in
order to obtain the most accurate and realistic result. The important factors such as time allowances and
performance ratings were properly integrated into the study. Through the analysis, the workflow in the
workstations was affected by the inspection and checking activity which unintentionally increase the work
element-time. As a result, it increases the time taken to complete a certain task which also increased the
standard time. The standard output is calculated, once the total standard time is obtained. Based on the
current situation, the standard output for the rear lamp production line is 50 units in 8 working hours. After
careful observation in the workstations, certain work activities were considered redundancy and
unnecessary. Once the work activities are removed from the workflow, the production rate is increased by
6%. The new production standard output is 53 units in 8 working hours. Based on this study, the company
will be able to plan for future output and necessary improvement activities.

Published

2020-01-31

Issue

Section

Articles