Question 1
The ‘TellyTv’ manufacturing company want to enter the flatscreen TV market and one of the first products they will manufacture is a general purpose 1080 Full HDTV. After ‘reverse engineering’ a sample of TVs from competitors, the planning department arrived at a set of timings and sequence for the assembly process. This is shown in Table Q1(a).
It is envisaged that the plant will work a 1 x 8 hour shift 5 days a week over 48 weeks per year. Furthermore, the marketing department at ‘TellyTv’ have produced a sales forecast for the new TV’s which is given in Table Q1(b).
a) Assuming a Product layout (Long thin) arrangement, determine the following information for the 1st quarter of production:
i) The required cycle time and the theoretical minimum number of people required to assemble the products
(5 Marks)
ii) The ‘line design’.
(5 Marks)
iii) The actual number of people required to manufacture/assemble the product based on your design and what would be the balance loss and estimated output for this arrangement?
(6 Marks)
b) If a ‘short fat’ layout is used in the 1st quarter, how many people would be required to assemble the products? What is the balance loss and potential output for this arrangement?
(6 Marks)
c) Considering the two layouts ‘short fat’ or ‘long thin’, which layout is best suited to meet the demand in 4th quarter and why?
(12 Marks)
d) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both ‘long thin’ and ‘short fat’ layouts? (16 Marks)
Table Q1a Descriptions and timing of stages for assembly process
2
Table Q1(b) Sales forecast Year 1
Question 2
a) Define JIT and Lean Manufacturing and contrast the similarities and differences between the two. Discuss why the ‘Traditional approach’ is more intuitive and what approaches are needed to move toward a JIT scenario?
(15 marks)
b) Critically appraise five of the nine Just in Time (JIT) techniques e.g. reduction of set up time (SMED), TPM etc. highlighting what they are and how they would be implemented
(15 marks)
c) Describe a tool or technique which can be used to analyse and improve the performance of manufacturing systems e.g. Rank-order clustering, Ishikawa diagrams, Value Stream Mapping Root cause analysis, Pareto Analysis etc. Explain the basic principle behind the technique, how it would be applied and any potential benefits/inhibitors to implementation.
(20 marks)
Marking Scheme for Question 2
Where appropriate students should reference the source of the material using Harvard referencing. Suggested minimum word count for the whole of Question 2 : 1500 words