ENGINEERING JOURNAL CHIANG MAI UNIVERSITY

Volume 27, No. 01, Month APRIL, Year 2020, Pages 42 - 56

Increasing efficiency of medical device production under reduced space

Atitaya Marasri and Jeerapat Ngaoprasertwong

Abstract Download PDF

This research aims to increase the efficiency of medical device production under the condition that the production area is reduced, the production capacity must not be reduced from the current and can still meet the needs of customers. Currently, AAA products is a part of product use for donate platelets which use area for production total 219 square meters, 15 work stations, and 30 persons. The cycle time is 652 seconds / piece or 5.52 pieces / person/ hour. Production by Push system as Batch production of 11 sub assembly processes, then stored as a work in process before sending to the main assembly process to assembly all the sub units together and send to the next process. The research methodology starts from studying the current situation of production process about using areas, time and working methods then analyze the non-value work and improve the production process with the ECRS (Eliminate Combine Rearrange Simplify) technique. After that, time study and then set new standard time of each process and using precedence diagram to design a new production process to cell production by applying line balancing technique with combine and rearrange working process of some Sub assembly and Main assembly by using 3 persons/cell to produce AAA complete unit and set new standard time for cell assembly. Which these production process will be work as Pull system and we design to approach One-piece flow production. The result of the research showed Production area decreased from 219 square meters to 111 square meters or decreased 49 percent. Work stations decreased from 15 stations to 10 stations. Workers were reduced from 30 to 27 person and the Cycle time decreased from 652 seconds/ unit to 574 seconds / unit or production efficiency increase from 5.52 units / person / hour to 6.27 units/ person / hour or 12 percent increasing. For areas that can reduce 108 square meters will use to support the production line of new products.

Keywords

Cellular production, Line balancing, ECRS Technique, Pull Production and One-piece flow

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