The Newly Leaked Secret to Reserach Essay Samples Uncovered

The Newly Leaked Secret to Reserach Essay Samples Uncovered Nanomanufacturing doesn't always have the capability to access the caliber of their merchandise within the shortest time possible. The data demonstrates that the overall public in Hong Kong doesn't have an extremely substantial comprehension of the piracy actions in the Indian ocean. To be sure the efficiency of a business, it's required to conduct your own research. For instance, a business should devise a business plan so they may be in a position to foresee their company objectives, and the methods which need to be completed in accomplishing each of their smart objectives. What Is So Fascinating About Reserach Essay Samples? The essay will test the student wisdom and ability in answering the questions and analyzing the matter. An academic essay always must be relevant. Your academic essay should evoke an emotion that is needed to spark different ideas, opinions and other types of responses. Always keep in mind that it should be playful it must not bore your audience. If you would like to make an academic essay that's both outstanding and relevant, always place the items that we've discussed above in mind. Fortunately, there are now lots of resources available that make resume writing much simpler. There's quite a few essays completed by them. The very first step you will want to assume is that your topic will probably be too broad, in other words, it will require that you deal with an excessive amount of information for a single essay. If you get a crystal clear essay, readers will understand easily what you wish to tell. The readers wish to read an essay that's totally free from any mistakes so it will be simple to comprehend. The topic is quite intriguing. Research Paper isn't a task for a single day. With research plans, researchers will be in a position to foresee the things that may fail and plan for the crucial actions in managing such things. The researchers will likewise be able to craft a timeline for the length of their research and allocate their time properly. When doing a research, most researchers plan for the entire path of their research as a way to prevent circumstances that might negatively impact their research. Ensure you use a mix of literature instead of only internet sources. Even if you're a specialist in a particular field, don't be afraid to use and cite external sources. It is imperative to conduct an exhaustive research to make sure the offers are genuine and not merely flowery words to pull customers. Keep in mind that if you analyze your paper, your principal task is to make certain your audience understands the important points without a lot of difficulty. As a result, though selecting the right methodology that works for your assignment is vital. So basically, if you would like your investigating to go smoothly without sacrificing much time and resources, you have to have a research program. The secret to successful research is to realize the underlying methodologies, to pick the ideal tool for an undertaking. Reserach Essay Samples: No Longer a Mystery It's not quite as easy as writing an essay about your summer vacation, your loved ones, or the previous party you've been to, as you don't need to do research to figure out about your personal experience. Within the body, you should have three to four ideas. If you've done something special to acquire your information, you definitely have to mention it. It's recommended that you just pick the topic that you're able to de al with, for instance, if you're not t sketching the personality characteristics then you ought to better not elect for it.

Research Paper Topics Directly Related to Special Education Legislation

Research Paper Topics Directly Related to Special Education LegislationWhen preparing a research paper, one of the best ways to research the topic is to conduct research on specific legislation which pertains to a specific topic. This can be through searching the legislative website, the official websites for the Congressional committees responsible for researching legislation and programs and research funding, as well as looking in school libraries.In the early days of research, the focus was more on reviewing and obtaining information about the latest updates in legislation and new legislation. Now, it is more about researching legislation related to special education law. One reason is because legislation changes frequently, and those who seek reform on a specific topic will also update legislation periodically.The job of researchers now is to identify the specific legislation relevant to a specific topic. Some researchers may conduct a search on their own, but in most cases they should contact their elected representatives. This can involve contacting members of Congress or staff members for their staffs and ask them if they know of any new legislation relevant to the study area.There are many governmental agencies which have research grants specifically aimed at assisting students in getting research paper topics directly related to special education legislation. It is important to remember that although the government may be funded to help pay for research, there are still some laws which do not apply directly to children with disabilities.Researchers should understand this, as the basic purpose of research paper topics which pertain to special education legislation is to help students, parents and educators to develop new ideas that will make children succeed. Once they have an idea in mind, they should go about research paper preparation to identify the proper keywords to use.Researching through keyword research and how to find legislation is still the best approach to take in the early stages of creating research papers. Nowadays, even state offices may be able to provide their constituents with information pertaining to new legislation that has been introduced in the previous year.The more focused a research paper topics is, the better the results will be when it is time to submit the research paper to a college or university. Research paper topics which do not focus too much on the legislation itself, but rather on the end result, such as achievement in special education programs, will produce less-than-desirable results.The keywords chosen to be used for research paper topics which pertain to special education legislation should relate to the subject matter of the paper and should give a concrete picture of the effects the legislation is having on the subject. And finally, research paper topics which pertain to legislation which applies directly to the subject of the research paper is probably best.

The Hidden Facts on Free College Essay Title

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How to Make the Most of Your Argument Essay Sample

How to Make the Most of Your Argument Essay SampleA Gmat argument essay sample is an example of what can be expected to be used in the course when you study this type of course at university. This is what students are taught when they enroll in this course to try and find out what they can do for themselves, but the challenge is that they are rarely given a taste of how effective an argument will be.Students will be able to prepare a response to the examples given in the lesson they learn from. They will get to see how effective this type of writing is and what methods of presentation and reasoning they can use in their own writing work. There is usually a short time period during which they will be allowed to rewrite and proofread the article after they have gotten their assignment done.The first thing students will need to do is to purchase a good quality argument essay sample. It can be found in many places online, or they may have it delivered to them as part of the class materia l they are given in order to help them get ready for the actual writing they will be doing. However, before this is done, the student should make sure that they know how to best present the piece.This is often the area where students fall short and just get confused about the subject matter. They may find that they just put their ideas down without ever making an argument. The author of the article should have a way of making an argument out of their writing and it is important that the students learn how to do this in order to make the pieces they create better.All they need to do is look for ways to make the argument stand out. They may use visualization techniques that make the words flow together, or they may choose to talk about how their position is true, or they may choose to talk about their strengths, or how it is a weakness for their opponent to argue against it.These are all very effective ways of using visualization techniques in order to get people to think about an arg ument they did not necessarily intend to use, but they have used it in order to draw their attention to such examples. It is a way of making the piece more interesting and engaging. The more people pay attention to an argument that you are talking about, the better the piece will end up being.The author of the article may have prepared a section on each of the arguments in the article and then found a common thread through all of them. It is a way of getting attention to a key point within the essay, and they will find that when they learn to draw attention to their points, they are more likely to find their points to be very persuasive.There are many uses for a Gmat argument essay sample, and it is important that the student who gets it is able to use it well in order to make the piece more powerful. This will require some practice and patience on the part of the student, but the writing work will also be made much easier because of the ability to point out some key points when the time comes. Once the student has learned how to make an argument, they will be much better equipped to figure out how to make it successful when it comes time to write the final article and finally submit it for evaluation.

Project Failure Deepwater Horizon and the Bp Oil Spill Essay Example

Project Failure: Deepwater Horizon and the Bp Oil Spill Essay Introduction The Deepwater Horizon rig sank on April 22, 2010, two days after the Macondo well blowout and explosion that killed 11 workers. The Deepwater Horizon accident, also known as the BP Oil Spill, was a project failure of immense proportions. It went from an oil exploration â€Å"project† to a massive program with portfolios of projects related to dealing with the families of those killed on the oil rig, stopping the oil leak, capturing the oil (from the well and from the ocean), cleaning the environment (seashores, wetlands, Gulf of Mexico), saving and cleaning wildlife (underwater and on shores), responding to human needs (fishermen, economically impacted families), dealing with the public (PR campaigns), dealing with shareholders and employees, and dealing with governments(state and federal). The mission and scope changed and grew significantly over night. It changed from a $500 million oil prospect development project to over a $100 billion program with global reach and hundreds of projects. In addition, the inability of BP to stop the flow in a timely manner, communication problems by BP management, and long lasting negative media coverage of the slow reaction to the spill have resulted in serious negative consequences for BP, subcontractors on the project and the oil exploration industry as a whole. Additionally, the US federal government responded to the accident with poor organization and leadership. We will write a custom essay sample on Project Failure: Deepwater Horizon and the Bp Oil Spill specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Project Failure: Deepwater Horizon and the Bp Oil Spill specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Project Failure: Deepwater Horizon and the Bp Oil Spill specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Analyzing the chain of events, some of the lessons from the failure become very apparent including the facts that BP and Transocean risk management plans were inadequate, BP was not prepared for the accident (or any accident for the most part), project management mistakes were made during drilling of the well, communication blunders were made by BP executives following the accident, the impact on the environment and stakeholders were underestimated, and the future of a company can be at risk from a critical failure of this magnitude. The DeepWater incident was largely a result of poor initial project planning, inadequate project risk management, poor project management execution including decision making and communication, and unprepared crisis management on the part of BP and the US government in the event of project failure. This paper will analyze the series of events leading up to the April 20, 2011, disaster, the decisions and lack of actions which compounded the possibility and severity of project failure and the mishandling of the crisis that ensued after the failure of the well. Background On March 19, 2008, BP acquired the federal lease for Mississippi Canyon Block 252, located in 4,992 feet of water 50 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana for just over $34 Million from the Minerals Management Service (MMS). BP was highly confident in the seismic data and the presence of oil that the company proceeded to implement the project of drilling a $100 Million well named, Macondo. BP hired Transocean to supply the crew and the oil drilling rig to drill the well. On October 7, 2009, drilling began on the Macondo well using Transocean’s Marianas semisubmersible oil rig. The Marianas operated to a depth of 4,023 feet below the mudline, or 9,000 feet below sea level before it was damaged on November 9, 2009, by Hurricane Ida. Work on the Macondo well was suspended until January 31, 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon rig was delivered to the site. The Deepwater Horizon was a 33,000 ton semisubmersible oil rig which was controlled by a satellite guided dynamic positioning system and had a series of thrusters to keep it afloat. The Deepwater rig was extremely technologically advanced and viewed by many in the oil industry as having superior technology that was foolproof to error. On February 8, 2010, the Deepwater crew placed a blowout preventer on the well in 5,067 feet of water and used remotely operated vehicles to guide the preventer to the latching collet on the well head using video feeds. Once the preventer was latched up, the riser was hung in the tensioning system, the other necessary lines were hung, and the drilling commenced on the well. Research now shows that over the ensuing next three months, the Macondo well had multiple incidents of trouble which continued until the disastrous day when the well blew out and went out of control. During the early drilling in shallow depths, the crew experienced multiple well problems, gas kicks, and dangerous lost circulation zones-sometimes all at once. On four occasions prior to the blowout, the crew experienced well-control events. During one of the well-control problems, a drill pipe became stuck and could not move in or out of the hole. A stuck pipe can be very dangerous and is indicative of poor well hole conditions. After fighting the stuck pipe for a week, the crew separated the pipe from the assembly and placed a cement cap plug on it and continued to drill a sidetrack hole at 17,500 feet. As the days wore on, the crew became wary after experiencing multiple kicks, lost circulation, and stuck pipe to the point that Mike Williams testified to the Joint Investigation Committee in July 2010 that the crew had been calling it the â€Å"Well from Hell†. (In Too Deep pg25) After weeks of battling the well, the well reached its total depth of over 18,200 feet and the engineers ran measurements to analyze the subsurface intervals, their content, and their pressures. These measurements were used to make the decision to run pipe to the bottom of the well and to prepare the well for temporary abandonment prior to production. At this point, the engineers may have made a mistake which contributed to the well blow out. BP engineers decided to run one long string of casing from the bottom of the well all the way to the wellhead. This decision resulted in the only protection provided for the flow of oil and gas in to the wellbore was the cement that would be pumped down the casing and capped with a seal assembly at the well head. If the cement failed, the oil and gas could travel up the pipe to the well head and escape uncontrolled. BP chose a cementing design which had one avenue of protection through a single cap as opposed to other designs that had multiple layers cementing and caps which provided additional protection in case of well failure. By choosing this single cap well design, the BP engineers knowingly chose a less safe design and their managers willingly approved the decision. Haliburton was the cementing servicing company hired by BP to cement the well and attach the seal assembly to cap off the well until a new rig was connected to initial actual oil production. Haliburton supplied the cement used in the sealing of the well which is now known to have been of inferior quality. According to the BP team’s plan, if the cementing went smoothly, Haliburton could skip a scheduled cement evaluation. Planning The project plan for the Macondo well should have been one unique to the well itself. The research of the Deepwater incident indicates that the plan for the well was changed on multiple occasions and management seemed to be influencing decisions based on financial and schedule implications rather that the risk implications the decisions might present. Additionally, the lack of a clear project plan resulted in a poor organizational structure and accountability of the multiple subcontractors involved with the project. There were numerous occasions in which the crew of the Deepwater which was comprised of employees from BP, Transocean and Haliburton were unsure of which company was in charge at different points of the project. The lack of planning was even more evident within the issues of the inadequate risk planning and the execution problems that contributed to the failure of the project. As a result of the failure, a disaster comprised of death and monumental environmental damage was poorly addressed in that crisis management planning had not been addressed in the planning for the project as well. The crisis to contain the well itself would have been more readily addressed by BP had the company anticipated a blowout as a possible risk and therefore had a crisis management plan which had been communicated to all of its crew members. Instead the crisis itself is a First, on April 20, the oil and gas industry was unprepared to respond to a deepwater blowout, and the federal government was similarly unprepared to provide meaningful supervision. Second, in a compressed timeframe, BP was able to design, build, and use new containment technologies, while the federal government was able to develop effective oversight capacity. Both industry and government must build on knowledge acquired during the Deepwater Horizon spill to ensure that such a failure of planning does not recur Planning is even more important during a crisis. Such projects can be described as turnaround projects, where every minute is critical. Turnaround projects are often planned for months in advance, scheduled in minutes, with a well defined set of actions which are constantly monitored, and everyone prepared in advance for everything they need to do. BP and its subcontractors did not use their initial planning to develop disaster response or recovery plans. Without this type of planning built into the initial framework, time and lives can be lost when a company is forced to react to a disaster such as the Deepwater. ttp://www. oilspillcommission. gov/sites/default/files/documents/C21462-408_CCR_for_web_0. pdf Execution Failure The lack of a clear, unique plan for the Macondo project exacerbated the likelihood of problems during the execution of the drilling of the well. Additionally, Deepwater rig had several players involved with the project which resulted in a complex interrelationship among several companies all of whom had differ ent roles and conflicting interpretations of their accountability and responsibilities. Transocean was the owner and responsible for running the rig. Haliburton was a servicing subcontractor who was responsible for cementing the well. BP was lease owner and operator of the Macondo well and in that capacity had both the overall responsibility for everything that went on including promoting a culture of safety on the rig. BP’s safety culture failed on the night of April 20, 2010, as reflected in the actions of BP personnel on- and offshore and in the actions of BP’s contractors Research prior to April 20 shows that most crew members felt that safety was not a priority for BP or any of the other contractors on the rig. A survey during the second week of March showed that 46 percent of crew members surveyed felt that crewmembers feared reprisals for reporting unsafe situations and 15 percent felt that there were not always enough people available to carry out work safely. This extensive involvement of these contractors underscored the compelling need for BP to properly communicate a clear decision making process as well as emphasize safety. This poor safety culture was also evident in the meeting the day before the Deepwater accident in which the Transocean managers discussed with their BP counterparts the backlog of rig maintenance. A September 2009 BP safety audit had produced a 30-page list of 390 items requiring 3,545 man-hours of work. The lack of a safety culture may have contributed to the fact that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean did not adequately identify or address risks of an accident—not in the well design, cementing, or temporary abandonment procedures. Their management systems were marked by poor communications among BP, Transocean, and Halliburton employees regarding the risks associated with decisions being made. The decision making process on the rig was excessively compartmentalized, so individuals on the rig frequently made critical decisions without fully appreciating just how essential the decisions were to well safety—singly and in combination. As a result, officials made a series of decisions that saved BP, Halliburton, and Transocean time and money—but without full appreciation of the associated risks. There were several causes for execution failure that were identified after the accident. First, the cement that BP and Halliburton pumped into to the bottom of the well did not seal off hydrocarbons in the well. This was caused by the engineers changing the plans for the cement job during the effort due to drilling complications that were encountered. As a result, the engineers approved a lower volume of cement to be used in the process. This lower amount of cement resulted in the well not being sealed with a proper amount of cement weight. Second, the cement slurry used in the sealing of the well was poorly designed. Halliburton’s own internal tests showed that the cement mixture was unstable but the company still used the mixture on the Deepwater well. Lastly, the temporary abandonment procedures for the well were finalized at the last minute by BP and required the crew to severely underbalance the well before installing any additional barriers to back up the cement job. Risk Management BP failed to analyze the risk possibilities and plan risk mitigation strategies for the Macondo project. This lack of risk planning and mitigation can be attributed to several factors including: a bias in the oil industry itself which dismissed the possibility of a disaster as monumental as the Deepwater Horizon, a BP management culture which stressed cost savings and time savings in decision making, and a lack of a detailed crisis management plan in an industry whose failures can be monumental. Risk Management and the Oil Industry Bias The Deepwater incident has resulted in a dramatic reassessment of the risks associated with offshore drilling. Before April 20, many in the oil industry felt that drilling was safer in deep than in shallow waters. Since deepwater rigs worked farther off the coast, it would take longer for spilt oil to reach shore, giving more time for intervention to protect the coast. Also, the companies working in the deeper waters were typically the â€Å"big guys† of the oil industry who could afford to utilize more advanced technologies than the smaller firms working near the coast. Therefore, many believed that these companies were more adept at handling challenging conditions with the more technologically advanced equipment. Additionally, there had been no major well blowouts in federal offshore waters since 1970, which made the chances of another one seem remote. Another problem for appropriate risk assessment was the failure to adequately consider published data on recurring problems in offshore drilling. This included powerful â€Å"kicks† of unexpected pressures that sometimes led to a loss of well control, failing blowout preventer systems, and the drilling of relief wells. These problems occurred rarely and were of minor consequence relative to the number of wells in the world. However, these issues demonstrated that wells do not perform in a flawless manner and must be assessed for in risk planning. Additionally, working in the deeper depths of the ocean posed a numerous problems after a loss of well control or a blow out due to failure of the blow out preventer. Before the Deepwater accident, little attention was devoted to containment of a blown out well in the deepwater, largely because its occurrence was considered so unlikely. Therefore, many of the same technologies used for the blow out preventers in shallow water drilling were used in deepwater drilling with little innovation. That is despite the fact that containment problems become much more challenging and real-time decisions become more difficult when working in extreme depths of the ocean. Connecting and maintaining blowout preventers thousands of feet beneath the surface can only be performed by remote-operating vehicles. â€Å"A 2007 article in Drilling Contractor described how blowout preventer requirements got tougher as drilling went deeper, because of low temperatures and high pressures at the ocean bottom. The author discussed taking advantage of advances in metallurgy to use higher-strength materials in the blowout preventers’ ram connecting rods or ram-shafts. More generally, he suggested â€Å"some fundamental paradigm shifts† were needed across a broad range of blowout-preventer technologies to deal with deepwater conditions. † Page 51 pres book All things considered, the oil industry itself was overconfident and somewhat negligent in assessing the need for comprehensive and detailed risk management planning that addressed all facets of possibilities of failure within an oil well. Instead, the industry disregarded many of the possibilities as impossibilities despite the contrary research. This widespread view among the oil industry was reflected in the culture of the BP management and may have influenced some of appeasement with the lack of planning on the Macondo project. Risk Management and Decision Making BP had a tarnished reputation for safety. Among other BP accidents, 15 workers died in a 2005 explosion at its Texas City, Texas, refinery. In 2006, there was a major oil spill from a badly corroded BP pipeline in Alaska. As of April 20, BP and the Macondo well were almost six weeks behind schedule and more than $58 million over budget. BP did not adequately identify or address risks created by last-minute changes to well design and procedures. BP changed its plans repeatedly and up to the very last minute, sometimes causing confusion and frustration among BP employees and rig personnel. ? When BP did send instructions and procedures to rig personnel, it often provided inadequate detail and guidance. ? It is common in the offshore oil industry to focus on increasing efficiency to save rig time and associated costs. But management processes must ensure that measures taken to save time and reduce costs do not adversely affect overall risk. BP‘s management processes did not do so. ? Halliburton appears to have done little to supervise the work of its key cementing personnel and does not appear to have meaningfully reviewed data that should have prompted it to redesign the Macondo cement slurry. ? Transocean did not adequately train its employees in emergency procedures and kick detection, and did not inform them of crucial lessons learned from a similar and recent near-miss drilling incident When the BP engineers were faced with making a decision on the well design, they chose a design with one preventative layer. If the engineers would have put more credence into the high risks associated with deep well drilling, they may have picked a design which encompassed risk mitigation of several layers which prepared for failure. Additionally, by not really putting credence into the possibility of a well blowout, the engineers and BP management negated risk planning for the possibility of the environmental amage which could be caused by such a sizeable well having a blowout. In a case of an uncontrolled blowout, large volumes of oil and gas would be uncontrollably spewed into the environment. Transocean, for instance, was a major contractor for the Macondo well and is the world’s largest operator of offshore oil rigs, including the Deepwater Horizon; Transocean personnel made up the largest number of crew members on the rig at the time of the accident, and 9 of the 11 men who died on April 20 worked for the company. number of the mistakes made on the rig can be directly traced to Transocean personnel, including inadequate monitoring of the Macondo well for problems during the temporary abandonment procedures and failure to divert the mud and gas away from the rig during the first few minutes of the blowout. Project Crisis Management The effort and resources needed to contain and control the blowout of the Macondo well were unprecedented. From April 20, 2010, the day the well blew out, until September 19, 2010, when the government finally declared it dead, BP expended enormous resources to develop and deploy new technologies that eventually captured a substantial amount of oil at the wellhead and, after 87 days, stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The government organized a team of scientists and engineers, who took a crash course in petroleum engineering and, over time, were able to provide oversight of BP, in combination with the Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service (MMS). BP had to construct novel devices, and the government had to mobilize personnel on the fly, because neither was ready for a disaster of this nature in such ocean depths. BP initially underestimated the scale of the disaster and overestimated their ability to address it. Therefore, there was little action in the days following the accident that resembled crisis management. Two days after the explosion, BP had mobilized a mere 32 vessels and 4 aircraft. To be in full response capacity, BP needed 205 times the number of vessels and 32 times the number of aircraft initially deployed. It took until nearly Day 80 before BP was a full response capacity. http://strategicppm. wordpress. com/2010/08/03/bps-project-management-of-the-deepwater-disaster/ This understated reaction was driven by the belief that the well was only leaking 5,000 barrels a day. In reality, the well was leaking ten times that amount. At day 31, the government established a public underwater feed and panel of experts to analyze the flow rate. This resulted in all parties becoming fully aware as of the amount of oil leaking from the well and the response effort of BP and the US government continued to increase. BP immediately focused on repairing the failed the blowout preventer for the first ten days after the explosion. BP did not have planned alternatives to address the incident of a blown out well. Therefore, when the blowout preventer could not be repaired, BP had to develop alternate solutions. These solutions were explored sequentially,  rather than in parallel, which caused further delay. The exception to that was the digging of relief wells which take several months to complete. BP did not have any alternate solutions prepared and developed in advance to be deployed immediately during a time of crisis. The facts indicate that BP didn’t understand (or didn’t want to understand) the scale of the project it was involved in. Government Response Failure The failure of the US federal government to react to the Deepwater disaster is comprised of two components- pre-disaster regulatory efforts and post disaster readiness and response preparedness. First, the government organizations which were tasked to regulate the oil industry for safety compliance were not doing their jobs. The Minerals Management Service (MMS) was responsible for approving the disaster plans of the oil companies as well as regulating their actions in the environment with the Environmental Protection Agency. It is now evident that MMS failed miserably in the oversight of the offshore oil industry. The agency’s resources did not keep pace with the oil industry’s expansion into deeper waters and reliance on more demanding technologies. As a result, MMS was not familiar with many of the technologies presented by oil companies and as a result it frequently relented to a lower number of required tests including testing on blow out preventers. Ironically, BP did have an Oil Spill Response Plan for the Gulf of Mexico applicable to the Macondo well in the MMSfiles. The plan identified three different worst-case scenarios that ranged from 28,033 to 250,000 barrels of oil discharge and used identical language to analyze the shoreline impacts under each scenario. Five of the pages were copied from material on NOAA websites and as a result were not specific to the Gulf of Mexico region. As a result, the BP Oil Spill Response Plan described biological resources nonexistent in the Gulf—including sea lions, sea otters, and walruses. Even more troubling, the MMS Gulf of Mexico Regional Office approved the BP plan without additional analysis. There is little evidence that MMS or BP gave any scrutiny to the contents of the Oil Spill Response Plan submitted. However, the MMS Regional Office did adhere to the timeline to review and approve oil-spill response plans within 30 days of their receipt. This lack of emphasis on the content of the response plan surely contributed to the lack of planning on both the part of the government and BP. As a result, when the disaster struck the MMS and the US federal government reacted slowly to the event. For the first couple of weeks the government barely reacted as it thought BP was more prepared and capable to deal with the spill. When it became evident that BP was coming up with solutions on a day to day basis, the government became more involved with the process. MMS was disbanded 19 days into the disaster. The government continued to work with BP and the other parties to find solutions to killing the well as well as manage the economic impact the disaster was having on the Gulf states. All in all it can be assessed that the US federal government was even less prepared than BP itself. Conclusion Based on the mindset and common practices, it was only a matter of time for this kind of accident to occur within the oil industry. An accident, and certainly any disaster, can be considered as a disruptive event. After a disruptive event, anything and everything can change, with serious repercussions. Many disruptive events can be both predicted and planned for. This should be a major element of the risk planning associated with major programs and projects. And disruptive events can have unexpected and significant consequences – in this case, enormous impact on the environment, BP market valuation, BP’s public image and credibility, many other BP projects and people, public perception of both BP and the oil industry itself, and possibly BP survival. The lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon project disaster and the BP Oil Spill will continue to influence the regulation of the oil industry into the future. BP learned that adequate project planning and risk management analysis is essential in the event of a project failure. Additionally, a crisis management plan for an unplanned disaster should always be in place prior to any possibility of occurrence. BP’s $500 million oil prospect development project became a crisis management project which has cost over $100 billion to date. BP will continue to struggle with its public relations image as well as continue to deal with endless lawsuits and environmental and economic claims into the future. BP’s lack of planning, lack of risk management analysis and lack of a crisis management plan in the face of project failure could have resulted in the demise of the company altogether. The Deepwater incident will continue to serve as an example to project managers everywhere that the basic concepts of project management should never be neglected, even when you are one of the largest companies in the world. - Bibliography â€Å"BP’s Project Management of the  Deepwater  Disaster† StrategicPPM. com. 3 August 2010. 28 May 2011 http://strategicppm. wordpress. com/2010/08/03/bps-project-management-of-the-deepwater-disaster/ Cavnar, Bob. Disaster on the Horizon: High Stakes, High Risks, and the Story Behind the Deepwater Well Blowout. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2010. Kuzmeski, Maribeth. â€Å"Pinpointing BP’s Pitfalls: Eight Ways to Reconnect After a Disaster† PM World Today, Vol. XII Issue VII July 2010. 28 May 2011 http://www. pmworldtoday. net/tips/2010/july/Pinpointing-BP-Pitfalls. html Lepsinger, Rick. â€Å"Execution Meltdown: Four Key Failures That Sank BP. † . † PM World Today, Vol. XII Issue VIII August 2010. 28 May 2011 http://www. pmworldtoday. net/tips/2010/aug/Execution-Meltdown. html Maltzman, Rich, et al. â€Å"Green Project Management and the BP Deepwater Horizon Spill. † PM World Today, Vol. XII Issue IX- September 2010. 28 May

Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Tools in Garment Manufacturing Process Focusing Sewing Section of Men’s Shirt Essay Example

Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Tools in Garment Manufacturing Process Focusing Sewing Section of Men’s Shirt Essay Example Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Tools in Garment Manufacturing Process Focusing Sewing Section of Men’s Shirt Essay Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Tools in Garment Manufacturing Process Focusing Sewing Section of Men’s Shirt Essay Naresh Paneru Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Tools in Garment Manufacturing Process Focusing Sewing Section of Men’s Shirt Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Tools in Garment Manufacturing Process Focusing Sewing Section of Men’s Shirt Naresh Paneru Master’s thesis Autumn 2011 Degree Programme in Industrial Management Oulu University of Applied Sciences Author: Title of Thesis: Naresh Paneru Implementation of lean manufacturing tools in garment manufacturing process focusing sewing section of Men’s Shirt Thesis Supervisor: Degree: Graduation Year: Number of Pages: Hannu Paatalo Degree Programme in Industrial Management Autumn, 2011 72 + 8 ABSTRACT Traditionally operated garment industries are facing problems like low productivity, longer production lead time, high rework and rejection, poor line balancing, low flexibility of style changeover etc. These problems were addressed in this study by the implementation of lean tools like cellular manufacturing, single piece flow, work standardization, just in time production etc. After implementation of lean tools, results observed were highly encouraging. Some of the key benefits entail production cycle time decreased by 8%, number of operators required to produce equal amount of garment is decreased by 14%, rework level reduced by 80%, production lead time comes down to one hour from two days, work in progress inventory stays at a maximum of 100 pieces from around 500 to 1500 pieces. Apart from these tangible benefits operator multi-skilling as well as the flexibility of style changeover has been improved. This study is conducted in the stitching section of a shirt manufacturing company. Study includes time studies, the conversion of traditional batch production into single piece flow and long assembly line into small work cells. Key Words: Lean manufacturing, Just In Time, Cellular manufacturing, Time study, Single Piece Flow 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the Oulu University of Applied Science for giving me the opportunity to pursue Master’s Degree in Industrial Management. I would like to thank my supervisor, Hannu Paatalo for his continued support throughout the course of this thesis. Similarly, I would like to express my genuine appreciation for senior lecturer Mr. Tauno Jokinen who guided me throughout this thesis process. I am obliged to all seniors and juniors in the industry, who coordinated and helped me directly or indirectly during the research process. 5 CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION.. 12 1. 1 Background 12 1. Research Problems 13 1. 3 Research Objective 14 1. 4 Research Approach 15 1. 5 Report Construction.. 16 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 7 2. 1 History of Lean 17 2. 2 Definition of Lean . 18 2. 3 Lean Principles 18 2. 4 Toyota Production System 19 2. Kind of Wastes 21 2. 6 Lean Manufacturing Tools and Techniques . 22 2. 6. 1 Cellular Manufacturing .. 22 2. 6. 2 Continuous Improvement.. 24 2. 6. 3 Just in Time .. 5 2. 6. 4 Total Productive Maintenance 28 2. 6. 6 Waste Reduction Techniques .. 31 2. 6. 7 Value Stream mapping 32 2. 7 Method Study .. 33 2. 8 Labor Standards and Work Measurements 33 2. 8. 1 Historical Experience .. 34 2. 8. 2 Time Studies 34 2. 8. 3 Predetermined Time Standards .. 36 2. 8. 4 Work Sampling .. 36 6 2. 9 Layout Design . 8 2. 10 Assembly Line Balancing 39 2. 10. 1 Takt Time 40 2. 10. 2 Cycle Time . 41 2. 11 Summary.. 1 3 GARMENT MANUFACTURIGN PROCESS 43 3. 1 Industry Background 43 3. 2 Garment Manufacturing Process 44 3. 2. 1 Cutting Section 44 3. 2. 2 Preparatory Section .. 44 3. 2. Assembly Section.. 47 3. 2. 4 Finishing Section .. 48 3. 3 Style Communication .. 49 3. 4 Existing Production Layout .. 49 3. 5 WIP Movement System .. 1 4 RESEARCH OF THE EXISTING PRODUCTION . 52 4. 1 Conducting Time Study .. 52 4. 2 Creating Cellular Layout 53 4. 3 Work Balancing between Operators . 54 4. 4 Critical Operation Handling . 56 4. Trial Production on New Layout 58 5 RESULT ANALYSES . 59 5. 1 Throughput Time Comparison 59 5. 2 Comparison of Production Time 60 5. 3 Comparison of Number of Operation .. 61 5. Comparing Number of Operator Required 62 5. 5 Compa rison of Information Flow .. 64 7 5. 6 Comparison of Rework Level . 64 5. 7 Operator Skill Improvement .. .. 65 5. 8 Operator Motivation . 5 6 RESEARCH SUMMARY . 66 6. 1 Conclusion . 66 6. 2 Limitations of the Study . 67 6. 3 Recommendation for Future Research 68 7 LIST OF REFERENCES 0 8 LISTS OF APPENDICES .. 73 8 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Difference between Push and Pull Manufacturing System†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 27 Table 2: Section wise Number of Operation and Number of Operator requirement †¦.. 57 9 LIST OF FIGURES Figure1: Toyota Production System†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦20 Figure 2: Pillars of TPM†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦29 Figure 3: Garment Production Process Flow Chart†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 43 Figure 4: Cutting Section Production Flow Chart†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. †¦ 5 Figure 5: Preparatory Section Production Flow Chart†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 46 Figure 6: Assembly Section Production Flow Chart†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦47 Figure 7: Finishing Section Production Flow Chart†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 48 Figure 8: Existing Production Layout of Stitching Section†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 50 Figure 9: Recommended Stitching Section Layout†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 55 Figure 10: Comparison of Production Time for Different Stitching Sections†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 61 Figure 11: Comparison of Number of Operation in Different Sections†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 62 Figure 12: Comparison of Number of Operator Required in Different Sections†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 63 0 ABBREVIATIONS CAD CAM CI FSVSM ISVSM JIT MTM PDCA PFD PMTS PSVSM SAM SMED TMU TPM TPS VSM WIP Computer Aided Design Computer Aided Manufacturing Continuous Improvement Future State Value Stream Mapping Ideal State Value Stream Mapping Just in Time Methods Time Measurement Plan Do Check Act Personal Fatigue and Delay Predetermined Motion Time Systems Present State Value Stream Mapping Standard Allowed Minutes Single Minute Exchange of Dies Time Measurement Unit Total Productive Maintenance Toyota Production System Value Stream Mapping Work in Progress 11 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Background Due to the increasing labor wage in developed countries, the apparel manufacturing has been migrating from the high wage developed world to low wage developing countries (Bheda, Narag an d Singla, 2003). Even though the labor cost is cheaper than in developed countries; due to the specific market nature of the garment industries for example: the short production life cycle, high volatility, low predictability, high level of impulse purchase, the quick market response; garment industries are facing the greatest challenges these days (Lucy Daly and Towers, 2004). Garment industries in developing countries are more focused on sourcing of raw material and minimizing delivery cost than labor productivity because of the availability of cheap labor. Due to this, labor productivity is lower in developing countries than in the developed ones. For example, labour is very cheap in Bangladesh but the productivity is poor among other developing countries (Shahidul and Syed Shazali, 2011). Similarly, the cost of fabric is a major part of the garment so there seems to be great need for improvement in this sector. Even in developing countries the CAD and CAM system for fabric cutting has been implemented to save fabric. Now the worry is about labor productivity and making production flexible; because the fashion industry is highly volatile and if the orders are not fulfilled on time, the fear for losing business is real. Even today, industries are getting the same or more volumes (orders), but the number of styles they have to handle has increased drastically. Earlier industries were getting bulk order so there is no need to worry; if the production line was set for the first time it would run for a month or at least a week or two. But nowadays due to small order quantities and complex designs, the garment industry has to produce multiple styles 12 even within a day; this needs higher flexibility in volume and style change over (Shahram and Cristian, 2011). In some cases it has been observed that, in developing countries the garment industries are run as family business lacking skilled personnel as well as capital to implement new technologies for improving productivity and flexibility. Because of this, industries have been running in a traditional way for years and are rigid to change. They are happy as long as they are sustaining their business. They don’t have much confidence and will towards innovation over old processes. Now the time has come to struggle with global market demand and niche market in garment industries if they want to run it further (Gao, Norton, Zhang and Kin-man To, 2009). This volatility of styles can be addressed only by flexibility in manufacturing. The best way to cope with all these challenges is the implementation of lean manufacturing. This will serve our purpose of flexibility and save a lot of money by reducing production lead time, reducing the inventory, increasing productivity, training operators for multiple works, and by reducing rework. 1. 2 Research Problems The major problem people faced in garment industry is stitching; most of time failure to meet delivery time is because of stitching. Stitching operations (with respect to cutting and finishing) needs high skill as well as quality work, because of difficulty associated with repairing of products sewed with wrong specifications. Thus we have to give more attention to stitching than to cutting and finishing of garments. Firstly, High WIP in traditional type of batch production is the major problem faced by industries. Due to high WIP the throughput time as well as rework is very high. In some cases, even though the operator has completed the stitching operations the garment cannot be packed because of high WIP. Due to huge WIP, the defective parts are hidden inside the batches and it is very difficult to clear them while completing the final order quantity. This is the reason why garment professionals seem to work like fire fighters; 13 because they are always in a hurry for searching the missing garment pieces all over the shop floor. Secondly, in batch processing flexibility cannot be achieved easily; which is the current demand of garment industry. This is obstructed by the decreasing order size and increasing number of styles. So to meet this requirement production layout should be designed such that it should hold minimum WIP and should be flexible enough to the changing of order. Thirdly, in batch process operators are given specific jobs, so the operator knows one or a few more operations only. Though he (she) may have good skill and can work more efficiently on one (allocated job only) operation; he (she) cannot work immediately on some other operation. This is another need of today’s world, because the fashion is changing frequently and the work force should be capable enough to cope with this change. To achieve this operator should be multi-skilled; which can be served by regular training and converting long assembly lines into small manufacturing cells. Workload fluctuation among operators is another problem in batch processing, because one operator is given one operation at a time. So the operator who is performing easier and low time consuming jobs can pile up a huge amount of WIP whereas in the critical operations (operations which need more time and skill) there is lagging causing unbalanced WIP in-between machines and the work load is not proper among operators. This research tries to address all these problems of garment industry by implementing lean manufacturing in the case company. . 3 Research Objective Lean manufacturing is an operational strategy oriented towards achieving the shortest possible cycle time by eliminating wastes. The term lean manufacturing is coined to represent half the human effort in the company, half the manufacturing space, half the investment in tools and half the engineering hours to develop a new product in half the time. These benefits can be achieved only if the concept is religiously followed i n the 14 organization. In simple terms lean manufacturing is without waste. Thus the objective of this research is to find out how we can use lean manufacturing to achieve the following: To meet customer demand on time by eliminating non value added work from the process To minimize the work in process inventory To create flexibility of style changeover To reduce rework percentage To create a pool of multi-skilled operators who can respond quickly for changing style 1. 4 Research Approach The initial step in this research is to systematically study and define the history of the lean manufacturing concept and its different tools and techniques. It will then examine some most used lean manufacturing tools and techniques. This will be followed by the study of the existing production system of the case company for example the existing production layouts, inventory movement systems, work balancing methods and other different variables which needs to be improved for the betterment of the existing system. To address the current issues of the industry, the researcher tries to find out the standard operation time for each operation by using time study techniques and will try to standardize all the operations. Once the standard operation time is obtained work will be done to find out the best suitable production layout and WIP movement methods, which will help to get flexibility in style changeover, should reduce the production lead time, create operator multi-skilling etc. After doing these entire things as paper work, the researcher will implement the research outcomes in the company and the improvement will be measured against the existing process. Basically, this is quantitative research where the researcher is a part of the organization during the study. 15 1. 5 Report Construction The whole report consists of seven chapters. The first chapter describes the need of the research, research objectives and research approach. Literature review about lean manufacturing, layout designs, time study and assembly line balancing is described in chapter two. Industry background and garment manufacturing processes are described in the third chapter followed by the research methodology, data collection methods etc. in chapter four. The fifth chapter includes the analysis part of the research; in this chapter different parameters are compared between existing production systems and he new recommended system. Chapter six is about the research summary, conclusion of research, its limitations and recommendation for further study, followed by the list of reference in the seventh chapter. 16 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2. 1 History of Lean During II world war, the economic condition of Japan was heavily destroyed. Due to this there was scarcity of fund resulting in limiting access to corp orate finance. In this situation, neither Toyota was able to set up a mass production system like their American counterparts, nor it was possible to layoff the employees to reduce their cost due to legislation. Anyhow Toyota had to devise a new system for reducing costs to sustain in the market. So they decided to produce a small batch of products which would reduce inventories; it means they would need less capital to produce the same product. But this is obstructed by the practical difficulty of changing tools and production lines frequently. To cope with this problem they started making multipurpose tooling systems in their machines and trained their employees in changeover time reduction methods. At the same time, Toyota realized that investing in people is more important than investing in bigger size machinery and continues employee training throughout the organization. This motivates all employees and they are more open to the improvement process and everyone started giving their input to the company. In this way, short production runs started by Toyota became a benefit rather than a burden, as it was able to respond much more rapidly to changes in demand by quickly switching production from one model to another (Drew, Blair and Stefan, 2004, p. -6). Toyota didn’t depend on the economies of scale production like American companies. It rather developed a culture, organization and operating system that relentlessly pursued the elimination of waste, variability and inflexibility. To achieve this, it focused its operating system on responding to demand and nothing else. This in turn means it has to be flexible; when there are changes in demand, the operating system is a stable workforce that is required to be much more skilled and much more flexible than those in most mass production systems. Over time, all these elements were consolidated into a new approach to operations that formed the basis of lean or Toyota Production System. 17 2. 2 Definition of Lean The popular definition of Lean Manufacturing and the Toyota Production System usually consists of the following (Wilson, 2009, p. 29-30). 1. It is a comprehensive set of techniques which when combined allows you to reduce and eliminate the wastes. This will make the company leaner, more flexible and more responsive by reducing waste. 2. Lean is the systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvement by flowing the product or service at the pull of your customer in pursuit of perfection (Nash, Poling and Ward, 2006, p. 17). According to (Drew et al. , 2004, p 25) the lean operating system consists of the following: A lean operating system follows certain principles to deliver value to the customer while minimizing all forms of loss. Each value stream within the operating system must be optimized individually from end to end. Lean tools and techniques are applied selectively to eliminate the three sources of loss: waste, variability and inflexibility. Thus the organization who wants to implement lean should have strong customer focus, should be willing to remove wastes from the processes they operate on daily basis and should have the motivation of growth and survival. 2. 3 Lean Principles The major five principles of Lean are as follows (Burton T. and Boeder, 2003, p. 122): Principle 1: Accurately specify value from customer perspective for both products and services. 18 Principle 2: Identify the value stream for products and services and remove non-valueadding waste along the value stream. Principle 3: Make the product and services flow without interruption across the value stream. Principle 4: Authorize production of products and services based on the pull by the customer. Principle 5: Strive for perfection by constantly removing layers of waste. 2. 4 Toyota Production System It is a manufacturing system developed by Toyota in Japan after World War II, which aims to increase production efficiency by the elimination of waste. The Toyota production system was invented and made to work, by Taiichi Ohno. While analyzing the problems inside the manufacturing environment; Ohno came to conclude that different kinds of wastes (non value added works) are the main cause of inefficiency and low productivity. Ohno identified waste in a number of forms, including overproduction, waiting time, transportation problems, inefficient processing, inventory, and defective products. Figure 1 shows the Toyota Production System in detail. From this figure it can be seen that TPS is not only a set of different tools but it is the philosophy and integration of different tools and systems to achieve a common goal of waste reduction and efficiency improvement. Each element of this house is critical, but more important is the way the elements reinforce each other. Just In Time (JIT) means removing the inventory used to buffer operations against problems that may arise in production. The ideal of one-piece flow is to make one unit at a time at the rate of customer demand or Takt time. Using smaller buffers (removing the â€Å"safety net†) means that problems like quality defects become immediately visible. This reinforces Jidoka, which halts the production process. This means workers must resolve the problems immediately and urgently to resume production. 9 FIGURE 1: Toyota Production System1 Stability is at the foundation of the house. While working with little inventory and stopping production when there is a problem causes instability and a sense of urgency among workers. In mass production, when a machine goes down, there is no sense of urgency because the maintenance department is scheduled to fix it while the inventory keeps the operations running. By contrast, in lean production, when an operator shuts down equipment to fix a problem, other operations will also stop immediately due to no inventory creating a crisis. So there is always a sense of urgency for everyone in production to fix problems together to get the machine in working condition and to run the production as soon as possible. 1 Toyota Way (Liker, 2003, p. 33) 20 If the same problem occurs repeatedly, management will quickly conclude that this is a critical situation and it should be cracked without any delay. People are at the center of the house, because it is only through continuous improvement that the operation can ever attain this needed stability. People must be trained to see waste and solve problems at the root cause by repeatedly asking why the problem really occurs. Problem solving should be on the actual site of the problem where everything is visible and practical also; this technique of problem solving is called Genchi Genbutsu. In general TPS is not a toolkit. It is not just a set of lean tools like just-in-time, cells, 5S (sort, stabilize, shine, standardize, sustain), Kanban, etc. It is a sophisticated system of production in which all parts contribute to a whole. On the whole, its focus is on supporting and encouraging people to continually improve the processes they work on. 2. 5 Kind of Wastes According to David Magee, (Magee, 2007, p. 67) different kinds of wastes in a process can be categorized in following categories. These wastes reduce production efficiency, quality of work as well as increase production lead time. 1. Overproduction – Producing items more than required at given point of time i. e. producing items without actual orders creating the excess of inventories which needs excess staffs, storage area as well as transportation etc. 2. Waiting – Workers waiting for raw material, the machine or information etc. s known as waiting and is the waste of productive time. The waiting can occur in various ways for example; due to unmatched worker/machine performance, machine breakdowns, lack of work knowledge, stock outs etc. 3. Unnecessary Transport – Carrying of work in process (WIP) a long distance, insufficient transport, moving material from one place to another place is known as the unnecessary transport. 4. Over processing – Working on a product more than the actual requirements is termed as over processing. The over processing may be due to improper tools or 21 improper procedures etc. The over processing is the waste of time and machines which does not add any value to the final product. 5. Excess Raw Material This includes excess raw material, WIP, or finished goods causing longer lead times, obsolescence, damaged goods, transportation and storage costs, and delay. Also, the extra inventory hides problems such as production imbalances, late deliveries from suppliers, defects, equipment downtime, and long setup times. 6. Unnecessary Movement – Any wasted motion that the workers have to perform during their work is termed as unnecessary movement. For example movement during searching for tools, shifting WIP etc. 7. Defects – Defects in the processed parts is termed as waste. Repairing defective parts or producing defective parts or replacing the parts due to poor quality etc. is the waste of time and effort. 8. Unused Employee Creativity – Loosing of getting better ideas, improvement, skills and learning opportunities by avoiding the presence of employee is termed as unused employee creativity (Liker, 2003, p. 29). 2. 6 Lean Manufacturing Tools and Techniques There are numbers of lean manufacturing tools which, when used in proper ways will give the best results. Once the source of the waste is identified it is easier to use the suitable lean tool to reduce or eliminate them and try to make waste free systems. Some of these tools are discussed in this chapter. 2. 6. 1 Cellular Manufacturing A cell is a combination of people, equipment and workstations organized in the order of process to flow, to manufacture all or part of a production unit (Wilson, 2009, p. 214215). Following are the characteristics of effective cellular manufacturing practice. . Should have one-piece or very small lot of flow. 22 2. The equipment should be right-sized and very specific for the cell operations. 3. Is usually arranged in a C or U shape so the incoming raw materials and outgoing finished goods are easily monitored. 4. Should have cross-trained people within the cell for flexibility of operation. 5. Generally, the cell is arranged in C or U shape and covers less space than the long assembly lines. There are lots of benefits of cellular manufacturing over long assembly lines. Some of them are as follows (Heizer and Render, 2000, p. 345-346). 1. Reduced work in process inventory because the work cell is set up to provide a balanced flow from machine to machine. 2. Reduced direct labor cost because of improved communication between employees, better material flow, and improved scheduling. 3. High employee participation is achieved due to added responsibility of product quality monitored by themselves rather than separate quality persons. 4. Increased use of equipment and machinery, because of better scheduling and faster material flow. 5. Allows the company higher degrees of flexibility to accommodate changes in customer demand. 6. Promotes continuous improvement as problems are exposed to surface due to low WIP and better communication. 7. Reduces throughput time and increases velocity for customer orders from order receipt through production and shipment. 8. Enhances the employee’s productive capability through multi-skilled multimachine operators. Apart from these tangible benefits, there is the very important advantage of cellular manufacturing over the linear flow model. Due to the closed loop arrangement of machines, the operators inside the cell are familiar with each other’s operations and they understand each other better. This improves the relation between the operators and helps to improve productivity. Whereas in long assembly line one operator knows only two 23 operators (before and after his operation in the line) it seems that operators are working independently in the line. 2. 6. 2 Continuous Improvement According to (Gersten and Riss, 2002, p. 41) Continuous improvement (CI) can be defined as the planned, organized and systematic process of ongoing, incremental and company-wide change of existing practices aimed at improving company performance. Activities and behaviors that facilitate and enable the development of CI include problem-solving, plan-do-check-act (PDCA) and other CI tools, policy deployment, cross-functional teams, a formal CI planning and management group, and formal systems for evaluating CI activities. Successful CI implementation involves not only the training and development of employees in the use of tools and processes, but also the establishment of a learning environment conducive to future continuous learning. The short description of PDCA cycle is given below Plan: Identify an opportunity and plan for change. Do: Implement the change on a small scale. Check: Use data to analyze the results of the change and determine whether it made a difference. Act: If the change was successful, implement it on a wider scale and continuously assess the results. If the change did not work, begin the cycle again. Thus continuous improvement is an ongoing and never ending process; it measures only the achievements gained from the application of one process over the existing. So while selecting the continuous improvement plan one should concentrate on the area which needs more attention and which adds more value to our products. There are seven different kinds of continuous improvement tools (Larson, 2003, p. 46) they can be described as follows. The use of these tools varies from case to case depending on the requirement of the process to be monitored. 24 Pareto Diagram: The Pareto diagram is a graphical overview of the process problems, in ranking order from the most frequent, down to the least frequent, in descending order from left to right. Thus, the Pareto diagram illustrates the frequency of fault types. Using a Pareto, one can decide which fault is the most serious or most frequent offender. Fishbone Diagram: A framework used to identify potential root causes leading to poor quality. Check Sheet: A check sheet is a structured, prepared form for collecting and analyzing data. This is a generic tool that can be adapted for a wide variety of purposes. Histogram: A graph of variable data providing a pictorial view of the distribution of data around a desired target value. Stratification: A method of sorting data to identify whether defects are the result of a special cause, such as an individual employee or specific machine. Scatter Diagram: A graph used to display the effect of changes in one input variable on the output of an operation. Charting: A graph that tracks the performance of an operation over time, usually used to monitor the effectiveness of improvement programs. 2. 6. 3 Just in Time Just in time is an integrated set of activities designed to achieve high volume production using the minimal inventories of raw materials, work in process and finished goods. Just in time is also based on the logic that nothing will be produced until it is needed (Shivanand, 2006, p. 45). Just-in-time manufacturing is a Japanese management philosophy applied in manufacturing. It involves having the right items with the right quality and quantity in the right place at the right time. The ability to manage inventory (which often accounts 25 for as much as 80 percent of product cost) to coincide with market demand or changing product specifications can substantially boost profits and improve a manufacturer’s competitive position by reducing inventories and waste. In general, Just in Time (JIT) helps to optimize company resources like capital, equipment, and labor. The goal of JIT is the total elimination of waste in the manufacturing process. Although JIT system is applied mostly to manufacturing environment, the concepts are not limited to this area of business only. The philosophy of JIT is a continuous improvement that puts emphasis on prevention rather than correction, and demands a companywide focus on quality. The requirement of JIT is that equipment, resources and labor are made available only in the amount required and at the time required to do the work. It is based on producing only the necessary units in the necessary quantities at the necessary time by bringing production rates exactly in line with market demand. In short, JIT means making what the market wants, when it wants, by using a minimum of facilities, equipment, materials, and human resources (Roy, 2005, p. 170). JIT principles are based on the following (Shivanand, 2006, p. 4): It is commonly used to describe the stockless production manufacturing approach, where only the right parts are completed at the right time. It is not a destination but a journey. Reducing inventory, improving quality and controlling cost. A â€Å"Pull System† where the parts are produced only when they are required. Pull and Push System In push system, when work is finished at a workstation, the output is pushed to the next station; or, in the case of the final operation, it is pushed on to the final inventory. In this system, work is pushed on as it is completed, with no regard for whether the next station is ready for the work or not. In this way, the WIP is unbalanced in all operations throughout the shop floor (Roy, 2005, p. 174). 26 TABLE 1: Difference between push and pull manufacturing system Description Signal to produce more Timing of signal Planning horizon Leveling of demand Push System Schedule or plan Advance of the need Fairly long No Too much inventory, no Pull System Customer signal At the time of the need Very short Generally yes Does not planned ahead, missed customer demand at the beginning of product life cycle, too much inventory at the last Repetitive, high volume manufacturing and stable demand Visible Much Negatives about the system visual control, long and planned lead times, requires more information Non repetitive, batch, short Best for product lifecycle, long lead time purchasing Problem visibility Stress to improve Not visible Little The push system is also known as the Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) system. This system is based on the planning department setting up a long-term production schedule, which is then dissected to give a detailed schedule for making or buying parts. This detailed schedule then pushes the production people to make a part and push it forward to the next station. The major weakness of this system is that it relies on guessing the future customer demand to develop the schedule that production is based on and guessing the time it takes to produce each part. Overestimation and underestimation may lead to excess inventory or part shortages, respectively (Shivanand, 2006, p. 50). Whereas in pull system; each work station pulls the output from the preceding station as it is needed. Output from the final operation is pulled by customer demand or the master 27 schedule. Thus in pull system work is moved in response to demand from the next stage in the process. The Kanban system is used to monitor the effective pull process. Table 1 helps to differentiate Pull and Push system. 2. 6. 4 Total Productive Maintenance Machine breakdown is one of the major headaches for people related to production. The reliability of the equipment on the shop floor is very important because if any one of the machines is down the entire shop floor productivity may be nil. The tool that takes care of these sudden breakdowns and awakes maintenance as well as production workers to minimize these unplanned breakdowns is called total productive maintenance. Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a maintenance program, which involves a newly defined concept for maintaining plants and equipment. The goal of the TPM program is to increase production, increase employee morale and job satisfaction. (Bisen and Srivastava, 2009, p. 175) TPM is set of tools, which when implemented in an organization as a whole gives the best utilization of machines with least disruption of production. The set of tools are called pillars of TPM and they are shortly described here and illustrated in a TPM diagram (Figure 2). 5S The first pillar of TPM is called 5S, which organize and cleans work place; this helps to make problems visible and attracts the attentions of everyone. Brief description of 5S elements are as follows: Sort: The first step in making things cleaned up and organized. Set In Order: Organize, identify and arrange everything in a work area. Shine: Regular cleaning and maintenance. Standardize: Make it easy to maintain, simplify and standardize. Sustain: Maintain what has been achieved. 28 FIGURE 2: TPM diagram Pillars of TPM (Kumar, 2008, p. 217) Autonomous maintenance This is about the involvement of production workers in the day to day general maintenance of machines like cleaning, lubricating etc. hich saves the time of skilled maintenance person at the same time the production workers are made more responsible to their machines. Kaizen Kaizen is for small improvements, but carried out on a continual basis and involve all people in the organization. Kaizen requires no or little investment. The principle behind is that â€Å"a very large number of small improvements are more effective in an organizational environment than a few improv ements of large value. † This pillar is aimed at reducing losses in the workplace that affect our efficiencies (Kumar, 2008, p. 220). Planned maintenance It addresses the proactive approach of maintenance activities. This involves four types of maintenance namely preventive maintenance, breakdown maintenance, corrective maintenance, and maintenance prevention. 29 Quality Maintenance It is aimed towards customer delight through the highest quality and defect free manufacturing. In this system, one has to take care of parts which affect product quality and try to eliminate or modify them to give customer superior quality. Training Employees should be trained such that they can analyze the root cause of the problem. General know how of the problem is not sufficient rather they should be able to know why the problem is occurring and how to eliminate it. For this employee need continuous training, ultimately; the entire employee should be multi-skilled and should solve the problem in their area by themselves. Office TPM This tool is about increasing the efficiencies in office (administrative) activities. This tool works the problems like communication issues, data retrieval processes, management information systems, office equipment losses, up to date information about inventories etc. Safety Health and Environment In this area, the focus is to create a safe workplace and a surrounding area that would not be damaged by our process or procedures. This pillar will play an active role in each of the other pillars on a regular basis. Safe work environment means accident free, fire less and it should not damage the health of workers. 2. 6. 5 Work Standardization A very important principle of waste reduction is the standardization of work. Standardized work basically ensures that each job is organized and carried out in the same manner; irrespective of the people working on it. In this way if the work is standardized the same quality output will be received even if the worker is changed in process. At Toyota, every worker follows the same processing steps all the time. This 30 includes the time needed to finish a job, the order of steps to follow for each job, and the parts on hand. By doing this one ensures that line balancing is achieved, unwanted work in process inventory is minimized and non value added activities are reduced. A tool that is used to standardize work is called takt time. 2. 6. 6 Waste Reduction Techniques Some of the waste reduction tools include zero defects, setup time reduction, and line balancing. The goal of zero defects is to ensure that products are fault free all the way, through continuous improvement of the manufacturing process (Karlsson and Ahlstrom 1996). Human beings almost invariably will make errors. When errors are made and are not caught then defective parts will appear at the end of the process. However, if the errors can be prevented before they happen then defective parts can be avoided. One of the tools that the zero defect principle uses is Poka Yoke. Poka-Yoke, which was developed by Shingo, is an autonomous defect control system that is put on a machine that inspects all parts to make sure that there are zero defects. The goal of Poka-Yoke is to observe the defective parts at the source, detect the cause of the defect, and to avoid moving the defective part to the next workstation (Feld, 2000). Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) is another technique of waste reduction. During 1950’s Ohno devised this system; and was able to reduce the die changing time from 1 day to three minutes (Womack, Jones and Ross, 1990). The basic idea of SMED is to reduce the setup time on a machine. There are two types of setups: internal and external. Internal setup activities are those that can be carried out only when the machine is stopped while external setup activities are those that can be done during machining. The idea is to move as many activities as possible from internal to external (Feld, 2000). Once all activities are identified than the next step is to try to simplify these activities (e. g. standardize setup, use fewer bolts). By reducing the setup time many benefits can be realized. First, die-changing specialists are not needed. Second, inventory can be reduced by producing small batches and more variety of product mix can be run. 31 Line balancing is considered a great weapon against waste, especially the wasted time of workers. The idea is to make every workstation produce the right volume of work that is sent to upstream workstations without any stoppage (Mid-America Manufacturing Technology Center Press Release, 2000). This will guarantee that each workstation is working in a synchronized manner, neither faster nor slower than other workstations. 2. 6. 7 Value Stream mapping Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a technique that was originally developed by Toyota and then popularized by the book, Learning to See (The Lean Enterprise Institute, 1998), by Rother and Shook. VSM is used to find waste in the value stream of a product. Once waste is identified, then it is easier to make plan to eliminate it. The purpose of VSM is process improvement at the system level. Value stream maps show the process in a normal flow format. However, in addition to the information normally found on a process flow diagram, value stream maps show the information flow necessary to plan and meet the customer’s normal demands. Other process information includes cycle times, inventories, changeover times, staffing and modes of transportation etc. VSMs can be made for the entire business process or part of it depending upon necessity. The key benefit to value stream mapping is that it focuses on the entire value stream to find system wastes and try to eliminate the pitfall (Wilson, 2009, p. 147-153). Generally, the value stream maps are of three types. Present State Value Stream Map (PSVSM) tells about the current situation, Future State Value Stream Map (FSVSM) can be obtained by removing wastes (which can be eliminated in the short time like three to six months) from PSVSM and Ideal State Value Stream Mapping (ISVSM) is obtained by removing all the wastes from the stream. The VSM is designed to be a tool for highlighting activities. In lean terminology they are called kaizen activities, for waste reduction. Once the wastes are highlighted, the purpose of a VSM is to communicate the opportunities so they may be prioritized and acted upon. Hence, the prioritization and action must follow the VSM, otherwise it is just a waste like other wastes. 32 2. 7 Method Study Method study focuses on how a task can (should) be accomplished. Whether controlling a machine or making or assembling components, how a task is done makes a difference in performance, safety, and quality. Using knowledge from ergonomics and methods analysis, methods engineers are charged with ensuring quality and quantity standards are achieved efficiently and safely. Methods analysis and related techniques are useful in office environments as well as in the factory. Methods techniques are used to analyze the following (Heizer et al. , 2000, p. 394-396): 1. Movement of individuals or material. Analysis for this is performed using flow diagrams and process charts with varying amounts of detail. 2. Activity of human and machine and crew activity. Analysis for this is performed using activity charts (also known as man-machine charts and crew charts). 3. Body movement (primarily arms and hands). Analysis for this is performed using micro-motion charts. 2. 8 Labor Standards and Work Measurements Effective operations management requires meaningful standards that can help a irm to determine the following (Heizer et al. , 2000, p. 408-420) 1. Amount of labor contribution for any product (the labor cost). 2. Staffing needs (how many people it will take to meet required production). 3. Cost and time estimates prior to production (to assist in a variety of decisions, from cost estimates to make or buy decisions). 4. Crew size and work balance (who does what in a group activity or on an assembly line). 5. Expected production (so that both manager and worker know what constitutes a fair day’s work). 6. Basis of wage-incentive plan (what provides a reasonable incentive). 3 7. Efficiency of employees and supervision (a standard is necessary against which to determine efficiency). Properly set labor standards represent the amount of time that it should take an average employee to perform specific job activities under normal working conditions. The labor standards are set in by historical experience, time studies, predetermined time standards and work sampling. 2. 8. 1 Historical Experience Labor standards can be estimated based on historical experience i. e. how many labor hours were used to do a similar task when it was done last time. Based upon this experience the new time will be fixed for any new operation or works. Historical standards have the advantage of being relatively easy and inexpensive to obtain. They are usually available from employee time cards or production records. However, they are not objective, and we do not know their accuracy, whether they represent a reasonable or poor work pace, and whether unusual occurrences are included. Because their variables are unknown, their use is not recommended. Instead, time studies, predetermined time standards and work sampling are preferred (Heizer et al. , 2000, p. 09). 2. 8. 2 Time Studies The classical stopwatch study, or time study, originally proposed by Federic W. Taylor in 1881, is still the most widely used time study method. The time study procedure involves the timing of a sample of worker’s performance and using it to set a standard. A trained and experienced person can establish a standard by following these eight steps (Heizer et al. , 20 00, p. 409-412). 1. Define the task to be studied (after methods analysis has been conducted). 34 2. Divide the task into precise elements (parts of a task that often takes no more than a few seconds). 3. Decide how many times to measure the task (the number of cycles of samples needed). 4. Record elemental times and rating of performance. 5. Compute the average observed cycle time. The average observed cycle time is the arithmetic mean of the times for each element measured, adjusted for unusual influence for each element: Average observed cycle time = 6. Determine performance rating and then compute the normal time for each element. Normal Time = (average observed cycle time) x (performance rating factor). 7. Add the normal times for each element to develop a total normal time for each task. . Compute the standard time. This adjustment to the total normal time provides allowances such as personal needs, unavoidable work delays and worker fatigue. Standard Time = Personal time allowances are often established in the range of 4% to 7% of total time, depending upon nearness to rest rooms, water fountains, and other facilities. Delay allowances are often set as a result of the actual st udies of the delay that occurs. Fatigue allowances are based on our growing knowledge of human energy expenditure under various physical and environmental conditions. The major two disadvantages of this method are; first they require a trained staff of analysts and secondly the labor standards cannot be set before tasks are actually performed. 35 2. 8. 3 Predetermined Time Standards Predetermined time standards divide manual work into small basic elements that already have established times (based on very large samples of workers). To estimate the time for a particular task, the time factors for each basic element of that task are added together. Developing a comprehensive system of predetermined time standards would be prohibitively expensive for any given firm. Consequently, a number of systems are commercially available. The most common predetermined time standard is methods time measurement (MTM), which is the product of the MTM association (Heizer et al. , 2000 p. 415-416). Predetermined time standards are an outgrowth of basic motions called therblings. The term therblig was coined by Frank Gilbreth. Therbligs include such activities as select, grasp, position, assemble, reach, hold, rest and inspect. These activities are stated in terms of time measurement units (TMUs), which are each equal to only 0. 00001 hour or 0. 0006 minutes. MTM values for various therbligs are specified with the help of detailed tables. Predetermined time standards have several advantages over direct time studies. First, they may be established in laboratory environment, where the procedure will not upset actual production activities. Second, because the standard can be set before a task is actually performed, it can be used for planning. Third, no performance ratings are necessary. Fourth, unions tend to accept this method as fair means of setting standards. Finally, predetermined time standards are particularly effective in firms that do substantial numbers of studies of similar tasks. . 8. 4 Work Sampling It is an estimate of the percentage of time that a worker spends on particular work by using random sampling of various workers. This can be conducted by the following procedures (Heizer et al. , 2000, p. 416-418). 36 1. Take a preliminary sample to obtain an estimate of the parameter value (such as percent of time worker is busy). 2. Compute the sample size required. 3. Prepare a schedule for observing the worker at appropriate times. The concept of random numbers is used to provide for random observation. For example, let’s say we draw the following 5 random numbers from a table: 07, 12, 22, 25, and 49. These can then be used to create and observation schedules of 9:07 AM, 9:12, 9:22, 9:25, and 9:49 AM. 4. Observe and record worker activities. 5. Determine how workers spend their time (usually as percentage). To determine the number of observation required, management must decide upon the desired confidence level and accuracy. First, however, the analyst must select a preliminary value for the parameter under study. The choice is usually based on small sample of perhaps 50 observations. The following formula then gives the sample size for a desired confidence and accuracy. = Z2 ? p 1 ? p /h2 Where, n = required sample size z = standard normal deviate for the desired confidence level (z = 1 for 68% confidence, z = 2 for 95. 45% confidence, and z = 3 for 99. 73% confidence level) p = estimated value of sample proportion (of time worker is observed busy or idle) h = acceptable error level, in percent Work sampling offers several advantages over time study methods. First, because a sing le observer can observe several workers simultaneously, it is less expensive. Second, observers usually do not require much training and no timing devices are needed. Third, the study can be temporarily delayed at any time with little impact on the results. Fourth, because work sampling uses instantaneous observations over a long period, the worker has little chance of affecting the study outcome. Fifth, the procedure 37 is less intrusive and therefore less likely to generate objections. The disadvantages of work sampling are: 1. It does not divide work elements as completely as time studies. 2. It can yield biased or incorrect results if the observer does not follow random routes of travel and observation. 3. Being less intrusive, it tends to be less accurate; this is particularly true when cycle times are short. 2. 9 Layout Design Layout is one of the key decisions that determine the long-run efficiency of operations. Layout has numerous strategic implications because it establishes an organization’s competitive priorities in regard to the capacity, processes, flexibility and cost as well as quality of work life, customer contact and image. An effective layout can help an organization to achieve a strategy that supports differentiation, low cost, or response (Heizer et al. , 2000, p. 336). The layout must consider how to achieve the following: 1. Higher utilization of space, equipment, and people. 2. Improved flow of information, material or people. 3. Improved employee morale and safer working conditions. 4. Improved customer/client interaction. 5. Flexibility (whatever the layout is now, it will need to change). Types of Layout Layout decision includes the best placement of machines (in production settings), offices and desks (in office settings) or service center (in setting such as hospitals or department stores). An effective layout facilitates the flow of materials, people, and information within and between areas. There are various kinds of layouts. Some of them are as follows (Heizer et al. , 2000, p. 336-337). 38 1. Fixed Position layout – addresses the layout requirements of large, bulky projects such as ships and buildings (concerns the movement of material to the limited storage areas around the site). 2. Process Oriented Layout – deals with low volume, high variety production (also called ‘job shop’, or intermittent production). It can manage varied material flow for each product. 3. Office Layout – fixes workers positions, their equipment, and spaces (offices) to provide for movement of information (locate workers equiring frequent contact close to one another). 4. Retail Layout – allocates shelf space and responds to customer behavior (expose customer to high margin items). 5. Warehouse Layout – it addresses tradeoffs between space and material handlings (balance low cost storage with low cost material handling). 6. Product oriented layou ts – seeks the best personnel and machine utilization in repetitive or continuous production (equalize the task time at each workstation). 2. 10 Assembly Line Balancing Line balancing is usually undertaken to minimize imbalance between machines or personnel while meeting a required output from the line. The production rate is indicated as cycle time to produce one unit of the product, the optimum utilization of work force depends on the basis of output norms. The actual output of the individual may be different from the output norms. The time to operate the system, hence, keeps varying. It is, therefore, necessary to group certain activities to workstations to the tune of maximum of cycle time at each work station. The assembly line needs to balance so that there is minimum waiting of the line due to different operation time at each workstation. The sequencing is therefore, not only the allocation of men and machines to operating activities, but also the optimal utilization of facilities by the proper balancing of the assembly line (Sharma, 2009, p. 179). 39 The process of assembly line balancing involves three steps (Heizer et al. , 2000, p. 356358): 1. Take the units required (demand or production rate) per day and divide it into the productive time available per day (in minutes or seconds). This operation gives us what is called the cycle time. Namely, the maximum time that the product is available at each workstation if the production rate is to be achieved. Cycle time = production time available per day / units required per day 2. Calculate the theoretical minimum number of workstations. This is the total task duration time (the time it takes to make the product) divided by the cycle time. Fractions are rounded to the next higher whole number. MinimumNumberofWorkstations = ? Where n is the number of assembly tasks. 3. Balance the line by assigning specific assembly tasks to each workstation. An efficient balance is one that will complete the required assembly, follow the specified sequence, and keep the idle time at each work stations to a minimum. TimeforTaski / Cycle Time 2. 10. Takt Time Takt is German word for a pace or beat, often linked to conductor’s baton. Takt time is a reference number that is used to help match the rate of production in a pacemaker process to the rate of sales. This can be formulated as below (Rother and Harris, 2008, p. 13). Takt Time = Takt time can be defined as the rate at which customers need prod ucts i. e. the products should be produced at least equal to takt time to meet the customer demand. Takt time works better when customer demand is steady and clearly known; but if the customer demand varies on the daily basis then it is difficult to calculate the takt time as well as 40 alance the production facility according to varying takt time. So if the orders are varying every day the information of actual shipments (not orders) should be gathered for last few months or years and takt time for the particular product should be calculated. In this way, the production can be balanced to meet changing customer demand. 2. 10. 2 Cycle Time Cycle time is defined as how frequently a finished product comes out of our production facility (Rother et al. , 2008, p. 15). Cycle time includes all types of delays occurred while completing a job. So cycle time can be calculated by the following formula. Total Cycle Time = processing time + set up time + waiting time + moving time + inspection time + rework time + other delays to complete the job To meet customer demand or monitor productivity the cycle time and takt time should be balanced in parallel. The higher cycle time than takt time may result the late delivery and customer dissatisfaction whereas shorter cycle time than takt time may cause the excess inventory or excess use of resource. 2. 11 Summary This chapter briefly describes lean manufacturing tools and techniques for waste reduction and efficiency enhancement. Literature defines lean manufacturing, describes some lean tools (most relevant to this research), work standardization and assembly line balancing tools. The lean tools selected consist of cellular manufacturing, single piece flow, just in time (pull production), work standardization methods, continuous improvement process, and some other waste reduction tools. The chapter ends with the work standardization process by time studies, layout design and assembly line balancing methods. 1 Lean is a powerful tool, when adopted it can create superior financial and operational results. But in many cases, the confusion about how to start lean, from where to begin is also a problem for new practitioners. In some cases, the company tries to implement lean but it does not give effective results and stops in-between. All these are due to lack of clarity before implementing lean and lack of top management commitment. So to avoid the chances of failure one has to prepare in advance for the outcomes of the lean and should involve all employees on improvement programs. Lean is not just about the implementation of tools but also the development of its employees to adopt these tools. So, regular training and upgrading of employee skill is the most important factor for the success of lean. 42 3 GARMENT MANUFACTURIGN PROCESS 3. 1 Industry Background The research is conducted in garment industry whose major products are Men’s formal shirt in various order size. The factory consists of central cutting d