Improving productivity 192% by combining flow- and resource efficiency

Paper in proceeding, 2016

Radical productivity improvements on shop-floor level are not hard to achieve if the right production engineering tools are used to see them. In this article is work analysed using motion and time studies with video. A new design is proposed by using MTM-SAM (Methods Time Measurement -Sequential Activity and Methods analysis) combined with simple methods for layout planning, to achieve simultaneous flow- and resource efficiency. The case company is an electronics manufacturer and a productivity increase of 192% is achieved in one of its departments for manual assembly and testing. The solution is partly tested by letting the operators test the new work methods. The scientific contribution of this article is the verification of the theory in the Lean production literature about flow- and resource efficiency. The practical contribution is obviously the radical improvement result that is generalizable to other industries since generic production engineering methods are used.