Manufacturing System Design
TOC Computer Game
Submitted to:
Submitted by:
Group 2, Assignment 1
Date: 18th November, 2010
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Three Products A, D and F are to be manufactured using 5 different Machines namely Blue, Green, Cyan,
Magenta and Brown. The demand of A, D and F for this week is 40,50 and 40 respectively. Any demand
not met is considered lost. There are two machines each of Green, Cyan and Magenta type and one of
Blue and Brown. The setup and processing times are mentioned in the screenshot of the plant below.
OBSERVATIONS
1) A resource utilization analysis was obtained from the software itself. It calculated the
percentage of time a machine would be loaded during the process. The results are as following:
Machine Type Units Percentage of Time Loaded
Blue 1 94%
Green 2 34%
Cyan 2 56%
Magenta 2 48 %
Brown 1 40%
The Blue Machine is the constraint in the system.
2) In the above table, the percentage of time just takes into account only the processing times not
the setup times .By including setup times , it was revealed that the production of all three in the
required quantities is impossible if not for the available work in process from the previous
week.
3) The Profit Margins on A, D and F are $105, $145 and $105 respectively.
4) The Green and Cyan machine have high setup times of 120 and 60 minutes respectively while
Blue and the Brown have low setup times of 15 and 0 respectively.
5) From the first trial ,it was observed that since the Cyan Machine is needed at the final step of
production of all three products, it can potentially become a constraint later if the system is not
balanced properly
STRATEGY
1) The Blue Machine needs to be loaded always. This requires presence of a buffer in front of the
Machine. No quantitative analysis was done to ascertain the optimal size of the buffer.
2) The work in process inventory of 25 at B3 was used for the product D rather than A, keeping in mind
the Blue machine constraint and Observation two above.
3) The production at the Green Machine was done in one go keeping in mind the high setup time of
120 minutes. The Cyan machine was also used similarly.
4) The Brown and the Blue machine were used dynamically since they involved low setup times.
5) Since there is no inventory carrying cost, the raw materials were bought in one go.
IMPLEMENTATION
1) The Requirements of raw materials A, C, E and F was calculated as 65, 65, 35 and 30. They were
all bought in one go. In practice this shouldn’t be done considering the time value of money and
the emphasis on keeping a low working capital. Here it was done primarily to nullify the chance
that a requirement at the raw materials end is overlooked later by the player.
2) The green machines at A1 and F1 were activated. F1 was chosen ahead of C1 so that the cyan
and magenta machine could be used at F2 and F3 thereby moving up in the value addition chain
of product F. This was a result of a prior trial run where activating C1 lead to the cyan machine
being overburdened later.
3) The Blue machine at C6 was activated to instantly work upon the inventory available at B3.
4) Later a cyan machine was moved to D9. The Blue machine at E5, brown one at D7 and cyan one
at D9 worked in tandem to produce product D. Since E5 took 28 minutes to process while D7
took 9, the brown machine was also used at B3 during the 18 minutes in between. This was only
possible due to the zero setup time of brown machine and a processing time of 8 minutes at B3.
5) The magenta and cyan worked everywhere in tandem being used in one go to avoid the setup
time of these machines.
RESULTS
1) The demand of products A and D was met entirely. Production of F fell short by four. There was
work in process of one each at F3, F5, F7 and F9 as shown in the screenshot below.
2) The profit was $4990 with sales of $[Link] other relevant measure are there in the
screenshot below.
3) The Resource Utilization Needed was tracked at the end of every day except Day2 and the
production plan suitably altered. The below table shows the percentages :
Machine/Day Start End of Day 1 End of Day3 End of Day4
Blue 94% 92% 93% 96%
Green 34% 26% 0% 0%
Cyan 56% 53% 58% 59%
Magenta 48% 39% 14% 24%
Brown 40% 45% 12% 0%
In the end the Blue machine turned out to be the constraint along with negative variations in its
processing times leading to non-fulfillment of the total demand.
ISSUES DURING IMPLEMENTATION
1) Variations in processing times lead to deviations from the planned outcome. For example, at the
start of Day 5(or end of Day4), the resource utilization needed for F5 was 96% with no further
setups required. Due to variations in the processing times , it led to the demand being not met
( resource utilization>100%). A screenshot of the situation as it existed on start of Day 5 is
provided below.
2) High Setup times at the Raw Material Stage meant the processing had to be done at one go
which led to little flexibility when it came to revision in production plans.
3) With work going on at multiple machines, it was difficult to follow each and every machine
closely thus leading to errors like late activation of machines etc.
AUTOACTIVATION
BENEFITS
1) Reduction in manual control of the system thereby reducing the labor costs of the plant
2) Auto balancing of production. If a machine has multiple operations at hand, it will start the one
with the biggest pile, thus balancing the production.
ISSUES
1) In the case of common parts, a totally automated plant may lead to an excess production of a
only a single product. For example: In the present case , if the auto function is used, all parts
from B3 go to A5 , thus leading to excessive production of Product A and zero production of
Product D.
Possible Solution:
A) Allow manual decision making at the common part point. In the software , it is implemented
through the Restricted option
B) Placing a limit on the number of a parts being processed at an operation step.
2) If some machine breaks down, the machines before that machine would not sense the problem
and would continue to produce leading to a pile at the breakdown point.
Possible Solution:
A) A feedback system, where if the work in process at a certain point in the line goes above a
certain limit, it leads to production being halted at machines before that point in the line.
PRODUCT MIX
1) The constraint here is the Blue Machine. Let us compute the profit per hour of the blue machine
used.
For Product D, Ratio = 145/34 = 4.26
For Product F, Ratio = 105/14 = 7.5
This implies the proportion of D in the mix should be reduced provided we can sell more of the
other two.