Abstract

The market’s demand to purchase more cost effective products is continuously increasing. The producers are forced to become more efficient and flexible with resources to produce high quality products at a low cost in order to maintain or increase market shares. With this in mind Isaberg Rapid AB is requesting a project to increase efficiency in the assembly cell of hammertackers. The company has found in Kaizen-events that there is a potential of efficiency improvements in the assembly group that has not been achieved.

The objective with this paper is to identify the major factors that influence the efficiency in the assembly cell for hammertackers. At the same time the project is to generate data on new operation times, calculate the number of operators required in the cell and to implement standardized work instructions.

The facts and data have been collected by discussions with operators, time studies and by filming the operation. A one week Kaizen-event with the operators was made, where the selected changes were implemented. The result of the changes in terms of efficiency and output were registered.

The following basic questions are answered in the report.

• What changes are required to increase efficiency?
• What are the non-conformity reasons that prevent the group from reaching the production targets?
• Is there a need for a different set up in the cell?

In the Kaizen-event, a number of observations were made in the hammertacker group and the major wastes were identified. The largest wastes were identified to be that materials for packing were too far from the assembly cell, setting times for tool changes were long and that the operators’ workload was not in balance.

 A new layout was made to reduce the distance to packing materials. The height and setting of moulds were changed to get faster mould exchange. Operations were  introduced to the cell to get a better balance of the workload between operators.

The observed interruptions have mainly been due to lack of different raw materials.

There was no reason to modify the way work was carried out in the cell; never the less, some minor adjustments were made. The change with the biggest impact was to remind the operators of the factors that affect the productivity most.

The number of produced products has increased by 21 %, which also gives the corresponding efficiency increase.

The conclusion of this paper is that increased productivity is obtained by identifying and eliminating waste, increasing the participation of the operators and creating a standardized way of working.