Article: Process audit in a beverage industry - line efficiency and downtime analysis, a case study Journal: International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management (IJPQM) 2021 Vol.34 No.1 pp.1 - 19 Abstract: Continuous improvement is the sustaining force for a company to ever stand in the market in every perspective. Particularly in the production process, a steady, quick and flexible flow has to be maintained. Although, the case industry has a vast market in Fiji to cater for the beverage need that indicates the product design is doing well, the process flow finding it challenging to cope up with meeting the demand continuously. Therefore, a process audit was conducted, and the data has been observed to carry out line efficiency and downtime analysis. The former analysis is carried out using upper bound approach; thereby possible optimised buffer stocks have been found out. Whereas the latter analysis is performed using some quality control tools at the bottleneck station, which helped to identify a significant few rather than many trivial issues that disrupt the process flow. Finally, the solutions are devised using brainstorming exercise. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: Process audit in a beverage industry - line efficiency and downtime analysis, a case study

Authors: John Macarthur; Sumesh Narayan; Rajeshkannan Ananthanarayanan; Devi Rengamani Seenivasagam; Kamendra Narayan Swami

Addresses: Land Transport Authority, Lot 1 Daniva Road, Valelevu, Nasinu, Fiji ' Mechanical Engineering Division, Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment, The University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus, PMB, Suva, Fiji ' Mechanical Engineering Division, Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment, The University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus, PMB, Suva, Fiji ' Carpenters Fiji Ltd, MHSF, Tamavua, Suva, Fiji ' Energy Fiji Ltd, 2 Marlow Street, Suva, Fiji

Abstract: Continuous improvement is the sustaining force for a company to ever stand in the market in every perspective. Particularly in the production process, a steady, quick and flexible flow has to be maintained. Although, the case industry has a vast market in Fiji to cater for the beverage need that indicates the product design is doing well, the process flow finding it challenging to cope up with meeting the demand continuously. Therefore, a process audit was conducted, and the data has been observed to carry out line efficiency and downtime analysis. The former analysis is carried out using upper bound approach; thereby possible optimised buffer stocks have been found out. Whereas the latter analysis is performed using some quality control tools at the bottleneck station, which helped to identify a significant few rather than many trivial issues that disrupt the process flow. Finally, the solutions are devised using brainstorming exercise.

Keywords: process improvement; line efficiency; downtime; bottleneck; QC tools.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2021.118112

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2021 Vol.34 No.1, pp.1 - 19

Received: 25 Nov 2019
Accepted: 01 Feb 2020
Published online: 12 Oct 2021 *

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Title: Process audit in a beverage industry - line efficiency and downtime analysis, a case study

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