Abstract:
This research aims to increase production efficiencyand to decrease the cost of the raw cover production. The industrial engineering techniques and the ECRS concept for process improvement were applied to reduce several types of waste occurring in the assembly line. The raw cover wasbuilt from three stages of production which used 3 operators with the takt time at 115 seconds. Based on data from workloadanalysis, only one operator was required for the second and third stages of production since the percentages of idle time and working losses of corresponding operators were more than 50%. The man-machine chart was developed to rearrange task elements and work sequences of second and third stages for single operator. The chart showed that the cycle time was slower than the takt time. Consequently, a kick off equipment was designed and used for unloading the raw cover to conveyor which can eliminate the taskfrom the operator. Length extension of conveyor at the former side wall insertion step can simplify the operator task as the walking distance was reduced, dramatically. Then rearranging some work sequences can reduced the idle time of the operator. After improvement the cycle time became faster than the takt time as explored by the man-machine chart. The results of this research revealed that the production efficiency was increased since the total idle time of all operators was reduced where production rate was able to achieve the customer demand. The cost of production was decreased since the labor cost was reduced 223,200 baths per year, approximately.