Analytic exercise: Designing a Manufacturing Process Toshiba´s Notebook Computer Assembly Line

Rough approximation of the machine service rate μ based on the statistics from first 5 days:

2. At a steady state we'd be able to produce 6 (process capacity) x 4 (hours) = 24 dozen per night. At a starting state, assuming that 1st dozen takes 26 minutes, and we move into a steady state of production, we

2. It can be determined that it will take approximately 20,126 hours at a cost of $20,121.71, with the given labor rate of $1.08 per hour, for the 4 month production run, with the breakdown of each month as below:

One of the biggest needs for improvement was the assembly process. Although several changes were made throughout the years, quality and efficiency still fell below expectations. Hinrichs implemented the newly developed assembly which consists of two separate work stations that allowed operators in the adjacent stations to share the expensive balancer machine. These assembly cells were much more efficient as workers were no longer forced to wait for another person or machine in the process. Each cell was built like the other with quick turn set-up which created flexibility in the process while also reducing tooling inventory by almost a half. Now cells

with no work stoppage · · Increase capacity by 44,800 wafers Have control of wafer manufactured

The current workflow needs to address how to best organize the assembly line so that it is most efficient,

The pieces to work stations or to operator in the production line or line segment is 2000 to 15 or 400 to 3 based on 15 direct labor employees. (See question 2)

In order to meet customer demands for higher product quality, to comply with federally-mandated environmental regulations, and to reduce production costs, HCC must spend $2,000,000 within the next three years to upgrade equipment. The upgrade is expected to result in production efficiencies that will lower material and labor costs by reducing defective products, process waste, in-process inventory, and production man-hours through simplified work processes. It has been over a decade since significant modifications were made to the production facilities. Those changes were mostly technical in nature and did not substantially alter work processes or reduce overall employment. The average productivity gain in the industry for the past five years has been 3% per year. Financing for the loan to purchase the equipment

(If the company produce the BB first, the company will buy 4000 labor hours, and it will use 2500 for BB and the remaining hours to produce WRM = 1500.

As a global leader in the PC market, Lenovo’s success rests on its ability to deliver consumer centric innovations in products that deliver a blend of mobility, performance and price. Design is an infrastructural element that helps define every aspect of a company, including Web site, stores, customer support, packaging, and messaging as well as its products. Lenovo has a well-earned industry reputation for delivering superior quality products. Quality is a fundamental component and commitment to customer satisfaction by delivering products that are of superior quality to comparable offerings from their competitors is the key to Lenovo’s success. In recent years, Lenovo relies heavily on local manufacturing strategies to shorten

Jonah tells them that they have hidden capacity because some of their thinking is incorrect. Some ways to increase capacity at the bottlenecks are not to have any down time within the bottlenecks, make sure they are only working on quality products so not to waste time, and relieve the workload by farming some work out to vendors. Jonah wants to know how much it cost when the bottlenecks (X and heat treat) machines are down. Lou says $32 per hour for the X machine and $21 per hour for heat treat. How much when the whole

Toshihiro Nakamura, manufacturing engineering section head, examined the prototype assembly process heet for the newest subnotebook computer model. When every new model was designed, considerable attention was directed toward;

First, we need to calculate employee’s working time per year, employees work for 42-2=40 hours per 5-day week. 40 hours times 52 weeks plus 8 hours for an additional day equals to 2088 hours, minus 14 days off work, the total work time is 1976 hours or 118,560 minutes. This number can be used to calculate the cost per minute of all types of staff except

Setup for the machine is done for one batch of items. If we look at the the batch size of valves, it will be 375 units(=7500 units/ 20 production runs)

Boeing made use of lean techniques in their production system and increased its production by 50% and also reduced its floor space by 40%. Assembling a Boeing 737 is a typical job. Workers should take 367,000 parts, an same number of bolts, rivets, other equipment and 36 miles (58 kilometres) of electrical wire and then keep them all combined to make an airplane [2]. Engineers to machinists were involved in lean (reducing waste) in the factory. By creating an assembly line, aircraft will pass through the workers were they going to concentrate on assembling. Allocating all employees in the factory building and organising special teams helped a lot to solve the errors in the assembly line [2]. In the assembly line, there are eight beacon lights which reflect the production status. If everything is good it shows green colour. If an error occurs, the worker will press a button and the green light will changes to yellow and the panel board will shows the category of the problem(which category it is related to). The worker will pass on to a computer and writes about the problem in a brief manner and the problem should be assigned to special team to solve it within 30 minutes if not, the light turns to purple and the assembly line will shuts down. This moving assembly is the icon of factory’s lean strategies.