Continuous Improvement at Golden Elevator Company
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Date
2013
Authors
Aseel Jaber
Ghanya Boriny
Nabeel Ahmad
Noora Habash
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Abstract
Overview Structural issues are one of the most important issues to think about economic development policies. Has made economists understand the structural role in economic development, where the movement of labor from the traditional activities to modern industries working to raise the level of the economy and investment rates. Industrial revolution led to the development of production plants, in addition to large societal changes. In the beginning of the industrial revolution in the factories steam and then moved on to electricity, where he played to rely on machines and automated assembly lines instead of using labor a major role in increasing the efficiency and reduce production costs. Later been using automation to replace workers, and this has contributed to the development of computer the robot. Introduction about Golden Elevator Company Golden Elevator (GE) factory was established in 2011 in the east industrial zone province of Nablus. GE factory was built on an area of 5000 , which was formed from the integration of Al-Arda Company and Al-Fouad elevators and electrical stairs company, which was distinguished by its full elevators installation and maintenance services and guarantee. The company has gained good reputation, merchandise quality is guaranteed and prices are outstanding compared to competition, all during a period of time not beyond a couple of years. Due to all of this, the partners decided to establish the GE factory for the production of elevators. GE is considered the first factory in Palestine that produces elevators, and based on mutual cooperation agreement between the founding partners and between Nippon. (Company brochure). 8 Problem Statement Production systems improvement is considered one of the main domains of application of Industrial Engineering. The current unstable economic and political circumstances in Palestine make it vital for manufacturers to reduce cost, waste and lead-times and continuously improve productivity and quality. After visiting GE Company on several occasions, initial investigation shows that the company is facing problems in its production system configuration, plant layout and position of work in progress. Furthermore, as the factory is full of hazards that can be rated as dangerous, the company lacks interest in a safety regulations, hazards control and risk elimination. There were previous projects that discussed improvement in factory operations; however, this project differs in two aspects, the emphasis on the improvement of the production system itself and the field of application to an elevator production company. Therefore there are several problems. Felt of during our visit to the factory and through the study and interview with the management, chief engineer and workers, these problems centered in three main problems: Methodology Our methodology includes starting with a complete study of the plant and discovering obstacles, inefficiencies, and problems in the production system. The next step would be to propose different solution alternatives based on careful analysis. Then modeling and evaluating each alternative either analytically or by Discrete Event Simulation, and selecting the best alternative. Due the problems that have been mentioned previously, we studied several alternatives. Implement the lean manufacturing for job shop is the best solution for GE problems. 9 The implementation of lean manufacturing on (Just in Time) prevents and eliminates waste in the processes. Waste being classified as part of the seven wastes; Transport, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Over-processing, Overproduction, and Defects. All of these wastes have a direct impact on the costs, they are non-value adding operations (operations that the customer would not be happy to pay for and add no value to the product or service that you provide). "Many studies have shown that we only add value for around 5% of the time within our operations; the remaining 95% is waste! Imagine if you could remove that 95% wasted time and effort". (Benefits of Lean Manufacturing | Why Implement Lean?) Typically Lean Production will improve; Quality performance, fewer defects and rework (in house and at customer). Less Space Required. Higher efficiencies, more output per man hour. Improved delivery performance. Faster Development. Greater Customer Satisfaction. Improved employee morale and involvement. Improved Supplier Relations. Objectives and Benefits of the Project The main objective of the project is to improve the production system mainly by increasing the production rate, reducing lead-time, work-in-progress and waste. Other objectives include developing a safety function, creating a management system that can increase the level of organizing in the companys operations. The project is important for a set of reasons; this effort once applied it should help the company to improve its market position, its competitiveness and increase its 10 profits, which will demonstrate the importance of industrial engineering principles to Palestinian companies, and how they can make difference. Lean manufacturing Lean manufacturing used in precision industries that it production rate are small, precise and complex manufacturing. Lean stands on the exact duration of the production and based on improved different manufacturing processes in this duration to eliminate waste and extra inventor. Greck and his wife after they understand lean principle they implement it on the shop floor and on the business and explain it and explain the changes to the employee of the company but their some problems from lean principles that they not implement it because of the average of the probabilities of the jobs larger than the probabilities of the tools that difficult to expect. They implement Lean in order raw materials where the purchasing manager used just in case principle means produce only when the customer order and this leads to reduce inventor in the paths but this make the employee asking that is there any jobs must do it because paths become clear from backlogs . Greck explain that this change because that in the past they were to consider the amount of money that will be payed to get the material and to inventory it but nowadays after the purchasing manager and the general manager coordinate together where order the material process became before two days from use, and this leads that the money that they save it payed on things increase productivity for example purchasing new tools. After that they have been simplifying manufacturing process. In general, the same manufacturing processes needs the same duration but in greck's factory it 14 needed different duration each once and because of this they searched in the processes since they discover lost time in this processes. To discover this loss in time they asked the employee questions and answered. First employee said that he must stop the work to looking for the gauge that he need?? Second employee said he lost time when he searches on the tools?? The solution of this problem is purchase a lot of tools and put it near the worker. Greck and his wife said that manifestation in saving money being deceptive for example, there is a machine in the factory is multifunction that can do the job for 100 in, the administration decided to purchase holder tall only for this job, but the employee said that there is a lot of holder tall in the factory because their minds limited on the current time not in the future, while purchasing extra holding tall reduces the cost in the future. They eliminate things lose time for example, the reduce the time when the employee spent when they searched on the robes that used to join the big parts because it neat from the air and they solve it by purchasing a lot of this amount for reducing the time that looking for it. Lean versus Traditional Manufacturing Companies that depend on traditional methods of production (by sales manufacturing) needs to produce and storage in inventory to use it when their needed, by another words this is a push system. But lean manufacturing depend on the concept that says the production should be drive by actual customer needs and demands, this products pulled through by customers' actual requirements. A lean system can produce products in higher quality, lower quantities, with low and committed level of inventory, with shorter lead times, at lower costs that traditional manufactures of mass production produce. (Lean versus Traditional Manufacturing) 15 We conclude the definition of lean that represent as: A Philosophy that incorporates a collection of tools and techniques into the business processes to optimize time, human resources, assets, and productivity, while improving the quality level of products and services to their customers. (Rachna Shah, Peter T Ward, 2003) stages for manufacturing. Conclusion Through our study of the Jerusalems gate elevator manufacturing process, and through our reading of required duration for the completion of each process we talked to the manufacturing responsible engineer and to the workers to providing us information about the manufacturing processes from their experience and they provide us the required time for each process in the best conditions, and in the worst conditions, and through these readings we calculate the pert analysis by using MS project Then we worked on the division of production processes into three groups, each group containing the manufacturing processes which are interrelated with each other so that these three groups start at the same time in parallel. The length of time needed to end the elevator manufacturing processes become approximately ten days after it was before division fourteen days. Then we worked on classification of workers who required to end each process separately and determine the required number of each worker and we identified the workers who in pressure of work then We tried to remove the pressure from workers by using ms project. We also note that there are some workers have not work on some days and this is because of their work in another job at ALARDA Steel Factory it is a combined factory with the GOLDEN elevator factory. After we are doing our project, we are rearrange the stages for manufacturing the elevator as show in the appendices in figure 24. 44 Recommendations Through our research and our attempts to continuous improvement in manufacturing processes elevators we were able to find a solution to several problems, the most important are: we worked to reduce the length of required time to manufacture elevator, where we underestimated the time required to produce the lift from fourteen days to ten days and this is very good improving, it is working to increase the productivity and allows the plant to accept more orders without the risk of delay delivery . We worked to remove the pressure from some of the workers, which was as a result of lack of the work organization. There became a work distribution without need to increase the number of workers to finish the required work on time. We worked on identifying the critical path, which is considered the most important in the manufacturing processes