Question

1. Propose and justify a workstation redesign to minimize the exposure you’ve selected. Provide pictures or sketching to assist your example.

Answer 1

Here we are dicuss the redesign of a manufacturing unit which is specially used for the production of jigs and fixture manaufacturing products. in this workstation consists of 11 machines which consists of 4 lathe, 1 cnc ,2 milling machine, 2 drilling machine, 1  grinding machine, 1 boring machine.

In actual layout , the products flows from milling machine to lathe, from lathe to drilling then cnc after that  surface grinding.

figure 1. actual layout

Problem of actual layout

• the distance between the machines is far as the product flows which makes more time .
• the area of the floor station is about 260 square meter
• the material flow of the workstation is depicted in the figure. assembely is mainly based on kanban principle

Reasons for new layout

• now the workstation is plainning to elaborate to add more machines and layout is to be chaged. the company is ready to manufacture another products like some precision elements such as key, robotic parts, mandrel and so on.
• it requires more machines and floor area about 60  sqaure meter
• arrival of new customers and manufaturing strategy
• introduction of new machines for new products
• free space should be formed on the existing shop floor.

Alternative solution

there are so many methods which are included in the redesign of machine and facility layout

there are certain principles of redesign of  layout which includes

• principles of minimum movement
• principle of safety
• principle of minimum integration and investment.
• principle of flexibility.

In the figure machine 1 ,2 ,3,and 4 remains unchanged. the layout of other machines five to 11 have changed. it is layed in to U shape which is more flexible than initail layout.

figure 2 .new layout

In this design the amount of material flow and operations are same , but it reduces the floor area for occupying machines and distance travelled by materials.in this figure , after the layout of machines ,about 30 percentage more free space is arranged. which is about 78 square meter.

evaluation of results

• more space for new machines and business
• the distance between machines is reduced, as a result, material flow between machines is also reduced.
• amount of material workflow remains same.   

conclusions

It can be concluded that the redesign of workstation is achieved. about 78 m2 of free floor space can be provided for the new business and machines, at the same time  ,due to the optimal arrangement of workstations ( machines ) the movement of raw materials and components was reduced . The Kanban principle is applied , which can reduce the lead time of this activity.Hence with the principle of minimum investment and minimum integration , the redesign of jigs and fixture manufacturing company is redesigned