Cellular Layout Planning and Implementation Case Study: Sub-assembly area renewal at Dimplex Thermal Solutions

Date of Award

12-2022

Degree Name

Master of Science in Engineering

Department

Industrial and Entrepreneurial Engineering and Engineering Management

First Advisor

Azim Houshyar, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Bruna Mota, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Sime Curkovic, Ph.D.

Keywords

DMADV, lean, material flow, push-pull

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Abstract Only

Restricted to Campus until

12-1-2032

Abstract

While recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, industries fight to achieve historical growth rates. One of the main obstacles in the manufacturing industry has been the high workforce rotation, commonly called “The Great Reshuffle” (Ferguson, 2022).

Dimplex Thermal Solutions manufactures precision cooling equipment and is suffering from the mentioned problems, highlighting the limitations of its old production processes. The company is incapable of complying with the required delivery times, affecting customer satisfaction. This dissertation focuses on the renewal of a production area and on the implementation of a push- pull strategy by manufacturing to stock sub-assemblies for the most popular model, the 5-ton M series. To implement this, standardized and mistake-proven processes are created. Another prerequisite is that the new area must have capacity to accommodate the production of sub-assemblies for other lines. The DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify) methodology is applied. After defining the project scope in detail, collecting and analyzing all necessary data, and listing the requirements, an iterative approach is used to design the new layout and processes. To finish the implementation results are presented, alongside the verification plan to measure the improvement.

By the end of this project, the work center was ready to start producing according to the new processes, although they were not adopted because of several workforce limitations. However, the estimated improvements include a 15% reduction in the building time and a 73% reduction in material handling necessities for all the sub-assemblies per chiller, allowing to increase the output with the same workforce.

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