AAMM End term Assignment

Using CPM to determine critical operation and suggesting methods to

improve SAM and productivity

Dhruv Sahney (BFT/17/55)

Nishant Raman (BFT/17/1380)
Introduction
The time study of a Red Chief Quilted jacket with operational breakdown was used to
calculate the critical path for the production.
Problems Observed
The problem that the industry faced was more than the expected time was spent in the
production line though the balancing was done as per the SAM value of each operations and
workers efficiency.
Methodology

 After analysing the OB, the first was to determine the dependent and independent
operations and determining immediate predecessors.
 Once these points were confirmed then preparing a CPM flow chart depicting
relations between different processes was created.
 Then the ES, EF, LS, LF was calculated.
 Based on the results critical path for the operations was determined.

The following is the image depicting critical path of the operations with black borders:
Conclusion:

 The calculated critical path is A-C-D-E-G-H-I-J-L-M-O-P-Q

 Operation D,E, and Q have big sam values
 The Slack time or floats are available in good amount in certain operations such as K

Suggestions

 The industry to most importantly consider that any of the operation involved in
critical path should not be delayed as it will delay the complete production.
 The operations with large SAM value that lie under critical path such as D, E and Q
should be accompanied with a helper or an attachment so the SAM is reduced or
the number of operators doing that job should be increased.
 The total float time that is available with the operation K can be immensely utilised
for doing other operations and still the work won’t get delayed.

Implementation of Tool
In order to balance a production line in sewing floor a line was chosen and necessary data
was accumulated from the line.
Two important attributes have been considered, one is possible standard method for each
process and another is considerable time in between the input has been fed to the time
study took to record the actual individual capacity of each worker. We have recorded the
time to make each process for each and every worker to find out the number of operator
and helper, type of machines and individual capacity. To find out the(standard minute value
) S.M.V , process wise capacity has been calculated, in addition to that we have calculated
the target, benchmark capacity, actual capacity line graph, labour productivity and line
efficiency. After taking necessary data from the line we proposed a suitable line balancing
technique for the line. At first we highlighted the bottleneck processes which were our
prime concern and then seek solution to minimize the problem. In this project we proposed
a method to balance the line by sharing workload among equally adept workers who has
experience in both the bottleneck process and balancing process.
This is how we will get a balanced outcome for the line:
1. Before balancing line
2. Bottle neck processes
3. Balancing Processes

The excel file for the reference: AAMM- Dhruv Nishant CPM,Timsestudy,Line Balance.xlsx
The following image shows flowchart of line balancing.

Equations used:

Standard (average cycle time * allowance) in minute

Minute
Value
(SMV)
Takt Time total SMV/ no. Of operations
Target ((total manpower per line*total working minutes per
day)/smv)*100%
Theoretical Benchmark target per hour/process capacity per hour
Manpower
Labour Total number of output per day per line/no. Of workers
productivity worked
Line ((Total output per day per line*SMV)/(Total Manpower per
Efficiency line*total working minutes per day))*100%
 Before Balancing:

Total Manpower = 16
Working Time = 480
SMV = 4.4169
Takt time (min) = 0.276
efficiency
Target/Hour = 120 100%
efficiency
Target/Hour = 87 80%
efficiency
Target/Hour = 56 60%
Labour Productivity 37
Line Efficiency 41.9

Balancing Processes to equalize the bottle process:

SL
N Bottleneck process Balancing process
O.
Bal
Proc
Bala cap anc
ess capa Nu
nced Process acit ed
Process Name Nu city/ mb REMARKS
capa Name y/H cap
mbe Hour er
city our acit
r
y
FRONT Process A can work for 40 min.
BOTTOM SHOULDER and share work with process E
1 RUNSTITCH E 24 40 JOIN A 81 40 for last 20 min.
Process J can work for 30 min.
LAPEL ZIPPER BOTTOM and share work with process F for
2 FINISH F 27 40 PRESSING J 84 40 last 30 min
LAPEL ZIPPER Process G can work for 50 min.
MARKING+ STICKER and share work with process D
3 ATTACH D 28 40 REMOVE G 53 40 for last 10 min
40 37 Process K can work for 40 min.
VOID(COLLAR+ VOID(PRESS and share work with process L for
4 LAPEL T/S) L 36 40 SHOULDER) K 71 40 last 20 min.

The excel file for the reference: AAMM- Dhruv Nishant CPM,Timsestudy,Line Balance.xlsx

Results and findings

Changing from traditional layout to balanced layout model, there are considerable
improvements have moved toward us. Among the four operators who were replaced to
another line, have been used in the snls and press machines and the total worker of 20(but
actually using 16 only) instead of 16, labour productivity has been increased from 37 to 46In
a day we have boost up the production and with manpower of 16, line efficiency has been
improved from 41% to 53% which is shown in Table

Total Manpower = 16
Working Time = 480
SMV = 4.4169
Takt time (min) = 0.276
efficiency
Target/Hour = 120 100%
efficiency
Target/Hour = 87 80%
efficiency
Target/Hour = 56 60%
Labour Productivity 37 46
Line Efficiency 41.9 52.9

Variation in process capacity

140

120

100

80 Before balancing
Bechmark target
60
After Balacning
40

20

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Conclusion
Result would have been more effective if we would have taken some large quantity order
and balancing the process is highly related to the type of machines as machine utilized in
bottleneck and balancing process should be similar. Most of the operations were located in
Critical Path which were then Balanced.
Further improvements in the productivity can be achieved by considering large amount of
order minimum. On this occasion, skilled workers are eligible for the production processes
and proper training and supervision is essential to achieve the optimum improvements on
productivity and efficiency.