Title: Productivity improvement by line balancing and process modification keeping quality intact

Authors: K. Janardhan Reddy; G. Mahendra Reddy; Nadimpalli Raghukiran

Addresses: School of Mechanical and Building Sciences, VIT University, Chennai 600-127, Tamilnadu, India ' School of Mechanical and Building Sciences, VIT University, Chennai 600-127, Tamilnadu, India ' School of Mechanical and Building Sciences, VIT University, Chennai 600-127, Tamilnadu, India

Abstract: Productivity improvement has long been approached by greatly diversified techniques. More often than not, these approaches were confined to a specific theme such as statistical and process-centric optimisations, production-centric (layout, line balancing, etc.) optimisations, machine-centric optimisations or product design-centric optimisations. Each of those areas was proved to be capable of improving the productivity of the systems to some extent. However, significant productivity improvement of any system is only possible by the collective application of all the aforementioned approaches to mitigate the inefficacy of any system. In the present study, an attempt was made to improve the productivity of a production line by the collective application various productivity improvement techniques such as process-improvement, line balancing, statistical tools and machine centre modification. The quality parameters of the product were constantly monitored and weighed against every effort of productivity improvement.

Keywords: productivity improvement; line balancing; optimisation; design of experiments; quality management; process modification.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2018.093450

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2018 Vol.24 No.4, pp.507 - 519

Received: 06 Dec 2016
Accepted: 27 Mar 2017
Published online: 26 Jul 2018 *

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