Production Management

PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT

HOMEWORK LAY-OUT DESIGN.

1. Study the two possible lay-outs for the process of producing helicopters and comment the advantages and disadvantages of each one.

Explain their characteristics in terms of:

Resources – employees, paper, paper clips, storage, drawing and cutting utensils (pencil, pen, scissors, etc.).

Option 1 uses four times more resources than option 2, therefore it could be considered costlier as option 1 produces more and are using up more resources. This means that they would have to be replaced more frequently whereas option 2 produces only one product in the same time therefore it is using less resources.

Quality of final product – In option 2, the workers are able to specialize in each step therefore the quality of the end product would be better as each worker has been able to focus on assembly specific parts, this also means that they would have more of a uniform appearance whereas in option 1, each worker might have their own special way of doing things.

Bottlenecks – the second step of cutting in the option 2 chain is the bottleneck as it takes 40 seconds in both options which is high compared to every other step, there is a gap between the first operation and the second one of 12.8 therefore the first option is better as it has no bottle neck.

Repetition of activities – in option 1, each person has 6 different tasks to repeat whereas in option 2 each person repeats one task continuously. Option 2 seems to be less appealing for the workers as they have no task variety which could cause a fall in employee morale. Whereas option 1 has more variation and is less likely to cause demotivation.

Productivity –         Option 1: 140 seconds = 3600/140 = 25.7 * 4 = 102.8 units/hour

Option 2: 3600/35 = 102.8/h, 3600/40 = 90/h, 3600/30 = 120/h, 3600/35 = 102.8/h = “The weakest production station is the productivity” = 90/h