4. DISCUSSIONS
As noticed in Table 3 groups 13 and 12 represent bottlenecks, thus the mix logic chart was
used. As in Figure 3, the software identified two bottleneck workstations, C.N.C., Lineal
Shaper and the Glue Room. Accordingly these workstations in a normal shift will fail to meet
production targets. To further ensure that these workstations are the actual bottlenecks more
customer orders for different time periods were studied and the heavily loaded machines and
workstations were closely observed in discussions with machine shop operators and
production supervisors. It was noted that the C.N.C. workstation generally tended to slow
production more than any other workstation. Either the Lineal shaper or the Glue Room
comes next depending on customer orders. Accordingly it was agreed to start the OEE at the
C.N.C. area first and to cover the shortage in capacity for the other two workstations through
over time and shift overlap for the time being.
Analysis of the data led to the fact that 85% of the groups could be machined within 7
working days now, which could be further dropped through the implementation of lean
techniques, Table 3 shows the comparison between existing way of product production and
new suggested way of production after implementing the new methodology to reduce waste.