Laboratory Assignment 5: Production Systems, Operations Strategy

[To be submitted in Word format]

1.1 List in tabular form below at least 5 examples of ETO, MTO, ATO, MTS products
Type of Examples
Product
ETO
MTO
ATO
MTS

1.2 For the products mentioned below against your group number, identify order qualifiers, order winners
(along with assumptions, justifications and remarks) and list them in the table below:
Group 1: Glucose Biscuits, Bread, Pizza Restaurants
Group 2: Hatch Back Cars, 100cc Bikes, Cold Beverages
Group 3: Laptops, Push Button Mobile Phones, External HDDs
Group 4: LED TVs, Refrigerator, Pen Drives
Group 5: Wrist Watch, Wall Clock, Smart Phones
Group 6: Washing Machine, Microwave, Soaps, Detergents

Product Order Qualifiers Order Winners Assumptions/

Justification /Remarks
100 cc Bike Price, Warranty, milage Safety, After Sales
and Service
Hatch Back Cars
Cold Beverages

1.3 Case Study: Manufacturing at Ashita Diesel Works

Introduction: Ashita Diesel Motor manufactures a range of diesel engines for use in marine applications,
manufacturing plants and agricultural applications. The company has always tried to be progressive in terms of
product design and in fact pioneered the development of a particular type of internal combustion engine. Originally,
they only manufactured large marine diesel engines but have now diversified into small stationary type engines.

Design: Many of the engines designed were one-off products and made specifically to order. Although this type of
work still represents 60 per cent of those manufactured. There has been a move towards standardizing many of the
component parts to reduce the variety of parts. This allows a degree of interchangeability, especially for small
components such as mechanical fasteners. There also has been reduction in the variety of engine sizes available with
the introduction of a standard range of three engine sizes: 20, 40 and 60 HP.

Production planning: In terms of production planning and control, there is no formal system in place. In fact, there is
resistance from the Production Manager to implementing any such formal system. The lack of any such formal
system has resulted in high WIP and failure to meet delivery times due to lack of WIP monitoring and information
on manufacturing lead times. Production planning has also failed to take advantage of the economies of scale
afforded by the use of standard parts. They issue orders for small lots of the same part up to eight times in a month.
There is also lack of a formal approach to lot sizing and how the lots are processed through the shop floor. This has
led to lots being lost and the order being reissued only for the lot to turn up.

Manufacturing: In keeping with the approach to production planning and control, there is no formal recording of any
manufacturing data. This has resulted in there being no operations lists for any parts as it is left to the discretion of
the individual involved. The task of routing parts through departments and sequencing the operations is left to the
manufacturing department foreman. The manner which he carries this out has resulted in high set-up costs and thus.
High manufacturing costs in general. Despite all of the above, the manufacturing methods employed are sound and
reliable and appropriate for the type manufacturing system being employed. Most of the equipment is general
purpose in nature, although pieces of equipment are close to obsolescence. It is intended that this will be replaced
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with dedicated, single purpose production equipment. Although there is a facility for the design and manufacture
special tooling, there is very little use made of this. Finally, there is poor utilization of the production equipment
available and this often leads bottlenecks occurring, despite the fact that there is sufficient capacity on the shopfloor.

Summary
The senior management recognizes that in order to survive, there is an urgent need for change. However, they are
having difficulty in convincing the work-force of this and implementing any change. in the main, the management.
sees the problem as the resistance of the workforce to change their working practices. However, the workforce see
the main problem as being the fact that the senior management are essentially sales minded and don’t understand the
problems of production planning and manufacturing.

Answer the following questions in crisp

1. What kind of manufacturing environment have Ashita Diesel Works traditionally employed? Comment on
the type of workforce and equipment.
Answer:
2. How is the manufacturing environment changing based on the increased use of standard parts?
3. Comment on the state of the design manufacture interface.

1.4 Case Study: Robots take over some of the repetitive work at Ecco Shoes and at Scania Trucks

Ecco, a Danish shoe company, produces over seven million shoes each year and has invested in extensive robot
facilities in the manufacturing operation, primarily to improve its quality consistency. Initial manufacturing stages
are still processed by hand. The soft leather upper is cut and sewn together in the Indian and Indonesian factories
before being shipped to the more automated plants for completion. A robot is used to cut a 5 mm track around the
leather upper which is then transferred by a second robot to the sole-forming machine where the leather upper is
molded onto a flexible sole. A third robot is employed to cut away any excess material from the sole, without
damaging the upper. Each robot is programmed to operate according to the recognized size and model of the shoe
being processed. Ecco operations managers believe that the working environment is much improved by using robots
for the more physically demanding or boring tasks, as well as giving increased productivity and enhancing quality.

Robots used in small parts assembly

The Swedish truck group Scania decided to build a new painting facility for its axle factory at Falun. The decision to
use robotics in the paint shop was based on their ability to meet precise customer requirements for paint type, colour
and specification. The robots are easily and quickly changed over and adaptable to new products. Two operators can
run the whole system from a control room, where computer screens depict the movements and settings for each of
the robots. The robot first prepares and cleans the parts, then dries off the moisture by blowing compressed air into
the cavities and remaining holes; the parts are then primed and finally painted, again all by robots. The axle parts on
Scania trucks are shaped differently, which means that the spray guns on the painting system need to be adjusted
continually during the process. There is an integrated computer control system which co-ordinates all of these
adjustments, controlling the amount of paint being sprayed and thus reducing spillage (both an environmental and
cost benefit). Essentially, the main feature of the robots is their flexibility. Scania is confident that it can adapt the
systems as necessary to suit its precise needs in the future. The use of robots has also improved the working
conditions of the employees and has assisted in reducing waste and solvent emissions.
Questions
 In Ecco’s shoe factories, why are some manufacturing stages performed by hand and some by robots?
 What are the advantages of using robot technology to paint axles at the Scania plant?

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1.5 Case: Meindorf GmbH

Meindorf GmbH is a part of large German cable company that manufactures compounds (the material used to cover
the copper or aluminum conduit) to meet inter-group and external demand. It has four process units that heat and
mix the various fillers and oils that make up a range of standard product specifications. Order sizes from customers
range from 1 to 40 tonnes. To meet a customer order typically require several mixings.

 Process Unit 1 produces natural and coloured elastomers

 Process Unit 2 manufactures the whole range of thermoplastics
 Process Unit 3 makes black elastomers
 Process Unit 4 produces small order quantities of thermoplastics and experimental compounds for the
research and development department. The unit is not fully utilized.

On leaving these process units, the compounds move onto the next stage that involves shaping, cutting and
packaging.

The mixing stage lasts between 8 and 14 minutes and the number of mixes required to meet a customer order are
completed one after the other. At the end of a run the process units are changed to make the next product. The length
of colour and compound changeovers take between 40 minutes and 2 hours. The most difficult colour changes
involve moving from dark to a lighter colour. In order to minimize changeovers, similar colours and similar
compounds are run together wherever possible and in line with customer schedules. Typically, changeovers for
Process Unit 2 account for 20 percent of available time while changeovers for Process Units 1 and 3 account for up
to 10 percent of available time.

Delivery reliability is an order-losing sensitive qualifier for most customers and trends towards smaller customer
orders is giving concern to operations in terms of meeting schedules.

Questions
1. Which process type (project, job order, batch, line or continuous processing) is used to heat and mix
compounds in this plant?
2. Draw a flow chart of the production process.
3. Give reasons for the different changeover levels (10, 20 and 10 percent respectively of available time) for
Process Units 1,2 and 3.