Design and implementation of cellular manufacturing system to improve the effectiveness of heat pump shop

Abstract

Thermax is one of the leading engineering industry with three core mission areas. Those are energy conservation, environment protection and engineering exports. The company has grown multifold since its inception in the year 1967. Over the past so many years, the company has been improving on the fronts of product and service quality, delivery and cost in its endeavour to achieve the customer delight through systems such as TQM, QFD,ISO etc. Further to those improvements, the company has realised that in today's globally competitive era, it is manufacturing excellence which has to play the most dominant role in the business. And as a part of our manufacturing strategy, the company has decided to go cellular in all its manufacturing areas. The main objective of this project is to implement cellular manufacturing in all the areas of Heat Pump shop and interface the cells to people, engineering, logistics, performance measurements, accounting and the incentive schemes. The process of change had started last year during the implementation of the pilot cell in the All assembly area. Now the whole shop-floor layout has been modified, work-places are redesigned and the cells are established across the entire Heat Pump shop. Also, now the cell ownership concept has been introduced wherein identified people will work in the cells. The support service people have been identified to supplement team dynamics of cells. The logistics have been linked to the cells and it has been designed keeping in view the targeted throughput time(TPT). The kanban system has been introduced wherein the cell people will directly communicate with the supplier. Within the span of five weeks, it was possible to reorganise the shop-floor and to establish the cells throughout the Heat Pump shop. Special pallets for keeping the material have been fabricated. The cell boundaries are defined and painted. The exact location of the unit itself has been decided and marked. Now the unit and the every resource has its defined space in the system. Logistics was put in place from Thermax's week no 42 (i.e. from Jan 3 onwards). Kanban system have started rolling with the initial discussion with supplier done. The items that can be JIT-kit launched have been identified and the new system of performance measurement has been designed. This project will help the company to reap the benefits of the implementation of Cellular Manufacturing. The throughput time is expected to crash from 45 days to 24 days. This will have profound impact on the overall business scenario.