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Productivity improvement using industrial engineering tools

Article  in  IOP Conference Series Materials Science and Engineering · September 2012

DOI: 10.1088/1757-899X/36/1/012006

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1st International Conference on Mechanical Engineering Research 2011 (ICMER2011) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 36 (2012) 012006 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/36/1/012006

Productivity improvement using industrial engineering tools

H.A. Salaam1, S. B. How, M. F. Faisae

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP),
Pekan, Pahang Darul Makmur, 26600, Malaysia

E-mail: hadisalaam@ump.edu.my

Abstract. Minimizing the number of defects is important to any company since it influence
their outputs and profits. The aim of this paper is to study the implementation of industrial
engineering tools in a manufacturing recycle paper box company. This study starts with
reading the standard operation procedures and analyzing the process flow to get the whole idea
on how to manufacture paper box. At the same time, observations at the production line were
made to identify problem occurs in the production line. By using check sheet, the defect data
from each station were collected and have been analyzed using Pareto Chart. From the chart, it
is found that glue workstation shows the highest number of defects. Based on observation at
the glue workstation, the existing method used to glue the box was inappropriate because the
operator used a lot of glue. Then, by using cause and effect diagram, the root cause of the
problem was identified and solutions to overcome the problem were proposed. There are three
suggestions proposed to overcome this problem. Cost reduction for each solution was
calculated and the best solution is using three hair drier to dry the sticky glue which produce
only 6.4 defects in an hour with cost of RM 0.0224.

Keywords: Industrial engineering tools, Check sheet, Pareto chart and Cause and effect
diagram.

1. Introduction
Survival of any industry in today’s environment especially manufacturing industry not only depends
on response time but also quality of the product produced. In this respect, seven quality control tools
can be utilized as a method or process to reduce the manufacturing costs, production time and
increasing the production line productivity.
Productivity can be defined as a ratio between output and input. Productivity improvement is a
critical success factor and the foundation of profitability [1]. Productivity measurement is a long-term
measurement. Any changes in dynamic potential show a growth or reduction of figures over a long
period [2]. Industrial Engineering in the other hand concerned with the design, improvement, and
installation of the integrated system of men, materials, and equipment. It draws upon specialized
knowledge and skills in the mathematical, physical, and social sciences, together with the principles
and methods of engineering analysis and design, to specify, predict and evaluate the result to be
obtained from such a system [3].
Today, quality plays an important role as it leads to increasing number of product sold and also
increment of company profit. Productivity, quality, and cost of operation relatively depended to each
other. By improving the productivity, the quality also must be improved and hence lower the reject
rates or defects [4].

___________________________
1
Corresponding author: H. A Salaam
Email address: hadisalaam@ump.edu.my

Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 1

1st International Conference on Mechanical Engineering Research 2011 (ICMER2011) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 36 (2012) 012006 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/36/1/012006

Engineer needs to know what the main problem is, the causes of the problem before they proposed
any solutions. However, logical and systematic method should be applied to make the job easier by
locating and eliminating the root cause of the problem. There are many techniques [5] available in
problem solving, ranging from simple and easy to use methods to relatively complicate and advance
statistical tools [6]. The Seven QC Tools are easier to apply and understand and yet proven scientific
management tools. It can be used in all process phases, starting from the beginning of a product
development up to management of a process, on day to day basis and in systematic manner [7]. They
form the fundamental foundation for all problem solving and quality control activities.
Generally, the Seven QC tools are check sheet, Pareto chart, flowchart, cause and effect diagram,
histogram, scatter diagram and control chart [8] and [9]. These tools are also known as Total Quality
Management (TQM) tools [10].
Many researches have been done using seven quality control tools. Pierchala and Jyoti Surti [11]
and Winco [6] used Statistical Process Control to solve problems their case study. Jafri and Chan [4]
presents a case study in plastic injection molding company deployed check sheets, pareto chart, cause
and effect diagram and control chart to improve the monthly defect quality from 13.49% to 7.4%.
Naser [12] used histogram, scatter plot and pie chart to investigate their case study.

2. Methodology
This study starts with identifying suitable company to do this project. The main criteria used to select a
company are small medium enterprise (SME). This is because SME companies did not have enough
capital to hire expertise to help them to improve their production line productivity, quality of the
product produced and at the same time reduce the number of defect products. The company that has
been chooses is a paper box producer company located in Kuantan, Pahang.
Next, a few visits were organized to the company to study their production line layout, product
process flows and the number of defects produced in each production line. Based on observation and
discussions with the company representative, the selected line is the one which produce 1040 mm box.
This is because it has the highest demand from customer, daily produced and at the same time it
produces many defects. During the visits, observations at the production line were done to see how the
operators perform their job at the production line.
Besides that, interview with operators were organized to get the feedback and also defect product
data were collected and analyzed using Pareto Chart. Next, cause and effect diagram were used to
identify the root cause of the defect problems and proposed four solutions to overcome the problem.
Manufacturing cost calculation analysis was done before select the best solution to be implemented at
the company.

3. Results and discussions

Based on the observation in the production line, interview with operators and supervisor and also data
collection results, it was found that the production line produce 1040 mm paper box record the highest
number of defects at glue workstation. It recorded 23 defects follows by slitter and partition
workstations with 7 and 6 defects respectively as shown in Table 1. When Pareto Chart was plotted in
Figure 1, it shows that the glue workstation has the highest frequency of defect with 23 defects or 46%
of the defects that occurs on the whole process. Results from both Table 1 and Figure 1 shows that
there is a problem occurs at the glue workstation.

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1st International Conference on Mechanical Engineering Research 2011 (ICMER2011) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 36 (2012) 012006 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/36/1/012006

Table 1. Number of defect occurs at each Workstation.

Pallet
Defect Frequency
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Glue //// /// //// //// //// / 23
Partition // / / // 6
Stitching // / 3
Slitter // / //// 7
Print / / 2
Slotter // 2
Die Cut / / // 4
Tie / / / 3

Figure 1. Pareto chart for defect occurs at each workstation.

From the Figure 1; we can see that glue workstation has the highest number of defects which can
cause the company unable to meet the customer demand. At the same time, company daily output drop
due to the error occurs in glue workstation. Hence improvement should be done at glue workstation to
minimize the error. Next, root cause analysis is done by using cause and effect analysis (fish bone)
diagram. It is divided into 4 main categories; Man, Machine, Method and Material. Since the
workstation is manually operated, there is no analysis for machine. Feedback from operator during the
interview shows that the box paper usually sticks one to another due to stacking the box paper
immediately before the glue dried. Besides that, lack of rolling and pouring glue skills on the board is
one of the root causes of this problem. Another problem is that, some of the operators were tired due
to long working hour since they need to do overtime to fulfill the customer demand.
When looking at the method used in this workstation, the current stacking method that they used is
not sufficient enough. After finish rolling the glue at the paper board, they stack it immediately before
it dried. Besides that, the way they used to roll the roller in the glue tray is not sufficient because the
operator arm wrist can injured easily caused by wrong position of body posture and at the same time
doing repetitive work again and again. Some of the operator did not roll the roller first in the tray to
minimize the glue quantity that will be rolled at the paper box. This leads to using an excessive of glue
and it will take a longer time to dry.
When looking at the material side, the design of the box paper and material used to make the box
can be improved to minimize the assembly time and manufacturing costs. Besides that, the type of

3
1st International Conference on Mechanical Engineering Research 2011 (ICMER2011) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 36 (2012) 012006 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/36/1/012006

glue used can be change to more environmental friendly and odourless glue which do not harm the
operator. The summary of the root cause problem for glue workstation are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Summary of root cause analysis of glue workstation.

To solve this problem, there are three solutions have been proposed in this project. They are
divided into three solutions. The first solution is divided the paper box into three groups before
stacking up, followed by the usage of electric fan or airy place for glue workstation, and the third
solution is to use table lamp or hair dryer to dried out the glue. The existing method shows that the
defects occurs on glue workstation is due to the glue not dry in time and at the same time the operator
straight away stacked the paper box on top of it and it caused the new paper box to stick together.
Hence the alternative way to solve this problem is to propose not to stack the glued paper box together
but divide it into three groups such in Figure 3. For an example, when the paper box is glued, the 1st
paper box is place at the slot A while the 2nd paper box is place at slot B and the 3rd paper box placed
at the C slot. Hence, the paper box got more time to expose to the air and the possibility to dry is much
higher than just place the paper box at a place in a time.

Figure 3. Grouping paper box into three groups.

Standing fan can be used by placing it in front of the paper box after it is glued. By switching on
the fan, the wind that blows to the paper box can let the glue dry. Besides using the fan to dry out the

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1st International Conference on Mechanical Engineering Research 2011 (ICMER2011) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 36 (2012) 012006 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/36/1/012006

glue at the paper box, the glue workstation can be relocate to an open area which has a good air
circulation to make sure the paper box is dry. However, there is a concern where the wind that blows
might be too strong and blow away the entire paper box. Hence, a weight need to place on top of the
paper box to make sure it will not fly away.
Besides that, a small table lamp or hair dryer can be use to dry the glue. The heat transfer concept
is applied where the heat of the lamp or hair dryer will dried out the paper box. Paper box can be place
under the lamp or hair dryer and the air is blowing for a few seconds before stacked the paper box at
semi-finish place. However, the table lamp that can be used is limited to the table lamp with long bulb.
This is because the round bulb can only heat a small portion of the paper box while long bulb can heat
longer portion of the paper box and reduce the production time.
A few trials were conducted to see the performance of the proposed solutions. After perform a trial
for a few days, number of defect products was collected and the defect cost was calculated. The
summary of the results are shown in Table 2. Here, we can see that the current glue workstation
produce average of 123 defects, followed by table fan 100 defects and standing fan 91.2 defects, 3
table lamps 86 defects and lastly, by using three hair dryer 6.4 defects. By looking at the results, it
shows a tremendous decreasing which is good for the company. This is due to the new arrangement of
standard operation procedures to reduce the amount of glue used and give extra time to let the glue dry
before stacking it.
Next, when we looked at the cost of defect per hour, the highest defects cost is the existing glue
workstation which record RM 0.403932. Table fan is in the second place with RM 0.33283 and
Standing fan in the third place with RM 0.3045533. Fourth place is 3 Table lamps with RM 0.2833786
and the last place which records the lowest defect costs is 3 hair dryers with RM 0.0224365. Based on
the results, it is shown that by using 3 hair dryers, the number of defects can be reduce dramatically
due to the usage of hair dryer to dry the glue. Besides that, the arrangement of the ready paper box
with glue give an interval time to allow the glue to dry.

Table 2. Summary of experiment results between the existing workstation and proposed
solutions.
Trial Total Defect Costs
Method Average
1 2 3 4 5 (RM) / hour
Existing Glue
120 145 140 100 110 123 0.403932
Workstation
3 Table Lamp 99 90 85 80 76 86 0.2833786

Table Fan 120 101 105 94 80 100 0.33283

Standing Fan 105 99 93 87 72 91.2 0.3045533

3 Hair Dryer 10 8 4 5 5 6.4 0.0224365

4. Conclusions
This paper describes about the using of industrial engineering tools to reduce number of defects and at
the same time increase production line productivity. Form the experiment that have been done, the
main objective to reduce number of defects product has been achieved. From all four options that have
been proposed, it is found that the best solution is using three hair dryer which record 6.4 defects in
one hour or total defects costs of RM 0.0224.

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 1st International Conference on Mechanical Engineering Research 2011 (ICMER2011) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 36 (2012) 012006 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/36/1/012006

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