ABSTRACT

The dozer current production system at Macmoter is divided into 5 operational lines that are
welding; paint shop, pre-assembly, assembly and finish. The existing plant follows the point
assembly which is limited to serial approach with maximum production. The main objective of
this thesis is to improve productivity and efficiency in the main assembly line. With this
structure, the point-assembly line acts as a factory within a factory, bringing out its own
problems of high noise, it is not possible to utilize the area efficiently, material handling system
is not properly arranged and it has poor housekeeping. In order to eliminate the problem, the
industry management aims to construct a fish bone assembly line by merging the pre-assembly
and main assembly lines at the same building, which requires the current point-assembly system
to be switched to a fish bone assembly line for more productivity.
This project discusses the current point-assembly line, and intends to create a framework for the
restructuring process that will improve productivity and efficiency in the assembly line. To
conduct this study, the point-assembly line is observed and described in order to evaluate the
existing assembly line layout, identifying the bottle necks, and determine new assembly line
layout for the existing machines to improve production. Eliminating the most evident wastes and
building up a simplified fish bone assembly line layout. In point assembly, the number of dozers
assembled per day was 2.
The simplified fish bone assembly line layout provides an improvement of dozer assembly in
number 5 per day. The achieved results suggest that, takt time 261min., Balance Efficiency,
is 90.625%, percentage improvement of production compere to existing layout 250%.
Keywords: Assembly, Lean production, line of balance, Assembly layout, fish bone layout.

Titel Assembly line layout and process optimization at

construction machinery industry, METEC

Internal examiners 1-Eskinder Girma
2-Desse Keflegn

Eb

3-Shiferaw Sorsa