Rear Lamp Production Line Improvement Using Time Study

In order to survive in a competitive market environment, companies need to select and applyproper methods to minimize costs and optimize their productivity. Work-study is a widely recognizedproductivity improvement method in manual intensive industries. The establishment of work standard timesis one of the critical phases in a production improvement scheme. It will provide some important inputs forany possible improvement activities. In this work, a company that produces replacement parts forautomotive has been chosen as the subject of production improvement study. As a response to the incomingdemands, the company needs to establish a standard time in one of its manual production lines to show itscustomers about the company's readiness to increase its production rate. The standard time will be used tocalculate the production line’s current output. A time study is performed in one of its human-intensive usagelines. A proper study procedure based on a systematic work measurement technique has been performed inorder to obtain the most accurate and realistic result. The important factors such as time allowances andperformance ratings were properly integrated into the study. Through the analysis, the workflow in theworkstations was affected by the inspection and checking activity which unintentionally increase the workelement-time. As a result, it increases the time taken to complete a certain task which also increased thestandard time. The standard output is calculated, once the total standard time is obtained. Based on thecurrent situation, the standard output for the rear lamp production line is 50 units in 8 working hours. Aftercareful observation in the workstations, certain work activities were considered redundancy andunnecessary. Once the work activities are removed from the workflow, the production rate is increased by6%. The new production standard output is 53 units in 8 working hours. Based on this study, the companywill be able to plan for future output and necessary improvement activities.