Effective use of Group Technology Based Coding and Classification System to a Case Company, Basic Metal Industry
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Date
2009-08
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
As the data collected shows, the major problems of the Metal Products Development
Center are delay in delivery date, high product price, and low product quality (i.e.,
variation from the specification). To address these problems the researcher uses an
approach of identifying the root causes of these problems and then finding out acceptable
solutions and propose it in a form that can earn for the case company. To make this
analysis the researcher collected all the relevant data from marketing, designing, and
production departments. Then, the root causes are identified with the help of cause and
effect method and looked for GT based solution to address these problems.
The result of the cause problems identification shows, the major causes are: unnecessary
material handling because of the existing machines arrangements, the existed traditional
design data storage method that does not let for design retrieval, treating each part
separately rather than in family form, cost estimation that is doing based on unreliable
data, and the absence and difficulty of production scheduling.
Thus, to be competent through solving the existed problems, the company needs to adopt
and implement the modern manufacturing philosophy; and thus, the researcher proposed
group technology as a solution. It includes the development of CCS that could encompass
both rotational and non-rotational parts and formation of machine cells. It mainly aimed
for the possibility of design retrieval and for further analysis of parts in order to use the
similarity advantages among parts both in design and manufacturing attributes. And
formation of machine cells in the production area, so that it can address in the reduction
of non value added operations available in the company. It reduces material handling,
setup time, and ease scheduling job.
The result of the proposed solutions shows a positive and considerable impact to the
productivity of the company. It saves the cost of production by 19.1 percent with
providing modern manufacturing methods in the designing and production area.
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Keywords
Group Technology, Coding and Classification, Part family, Machine cell, Clustering, Retrieval system, Data management system, cellular manufacturing