WGU JGT Task #1
To be successful in an expanding world market, Shuzworld must be innovative in addressing challenges using sound management principles and decision analysis to determine the best options for operations.
Asian Workflow
Workflow improvement in the Chinese factories has been identified as an area of opportunity for Shuzworld in Shanghai. After meeting with Alistair Wu, Production Manager—who is responsible for all three Shuzworld facilities in China, the assembly line process was reviewed for efficiency of the production of the Rugged Work Wear® boot product. Since these boots are steel-tipped, production is more complex and take longer to produce than other standard Shuzworld products.
Catherine Pang, Line Manager, provided an existing Rugged Work Wear® boot assembly schedule (precedence diagram) denoting times at each station and a layout of the production line. Justification
Line balancing is the methodology of equalizing the amount of work at each workstation. The principles of line balancing are needed to improve the efficiency of the production of the boots at each station. Jobs are broken down into the smallest work elements so that they can be performed by more than one worker at a single workstation. Since there is an order in which the boot construction is performed, there are precedence requirements that place restrictions on the sequence of production. (http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects)
Task Performance (minutes) Precedence Requirement
A 10 --
B 6 A
C 3 A
D 8 B,C
E 3 D
F 4 D
G 3 E,F
H 9 G
TOTAL 46 minutes
Catherine Pang provided the assembly schedule which denotes cycle time which is the maximum amount of time the boot is allowed to spend at each workstation. Upon initial inspection of the workflow, it is noted that a “bottleneck” is noted due to a variance between stations B and C (with a three minute difference) and stations E and F (with one minute difference). Both variances in sequential steps cause
Asian Workflow
Workflow improvement in the Chinese factories has been identified as an area of opportunity for Shuzworld in Shanghai. After meeting with Alistair Wu, Production Manager—who is responsible for all three Shuzworld facilities in China, the assembly line process was reviewed for efficiency of the production of the Rugged Work Wear® boot product. Since these boots are steel-tipped, production is more complex and take longer to produce than other standard Shuzworld products.
Catherine Pang, Line Manager, provided an existing Rugged Work Wear® boot assembly schedule (precedence diagram) denoting times at each station and a layout of the production line. Justification
Line balancing is the methodology of equalizing the amount of work at each workstation. The principles of line balancing are needed to improve the efficiency of the production of the boots at each station. Jobs are broken down into the smallest work elements so that they can be performed by more than one worker at a single workstation. Since there is an order in which the boot construction is performed, there are precedence requirements that place restrictions on the sequence of production. (http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects)
Task Performance (minutes) Precedence Requirement
A 10 --
B 6 A
C 3 A
D 8 B,C
E 3 D
F 4 D
G 3 E,F
H 9 G
TOTAL 46 minutes
Catherine Pang provided the assembly schedule which denotes cycle time which is the maximum amount of time the boot is allowed to spend at each workstation. Upon initial inspection of the workflow, it is noted that a “bottleneck” is noted due to a variance between stations B and C (with a three minute difference) and stations E and F (with one minute difference). Both variances in sequential steps cause