Time study and validation of productivity gains from transforming the assembly system of airline inflight service carts
Synopsis
Aviation companies in Asia Pacific are experiencing increased demand for their products due to growth in the air travel industry. The existing systems in these companies are less flexible to produce more product customisations and reliant on expensive skilled labour. An aviation manufacturing company in Singapore addressed this challenge by transforming its existing assembly system of inflight service carts into a flexible and lean system. The door assembly, side panel assembly, base assembly and final assembly are the four areas in the assembly system that were redesigned and implemented the changes. A combination of the lean manufacturing methods and mass customization methods were applied to bring higher value addition and flexibility in the assembly system. The target of this transformation is to improve the productivity and produce higher volume and variety.
A study was conducted in the company to investigate the improvements achieved b due to the transformation in the assembly operations. Time studies were conducted and recorded the process time samples in the four areas of the assembly operations before and after the transformation. 2-sample t-tests were conducted on the sample data and performed test of significance of the improvement. The results show significant productivity gains up to 27% in the four areas of assembly operations. The transformed assembly system was run for 3 years and the sustainability of productivity gains were tracked in this period. Annually, recorded the data of average time taken for the assembly operations of each inflight service cart in the four areas. Compared the annual data of assembly process times with that of the time study sample data on productivity gains. Based this comparison, the sustainability of the productivity gain 25% to 27% is confirmed.
Biographies
Banno Rao's bio
Time study and validation of productivity gains from transforming the assembly system of airline inflight service carts
Aviation companies in Asia Pacific are experiencing increased demand for their products due to growth in the air travel industry. The existing systems in these companies are less flexible to produce more product customisations and reliant on expensive skilled labour. An aviation manufacturing company in Singapore addressed this challenge by transforming its existing assembly system of inflight service carts into a flexible and lean system. The door assembly, side panel assembly, base assembly and final assembly are the four areas in the assembly system that were redesigned and implemented the changes. A combination of the lean manufacturing methods and mass customization methods were applied to bring higher value addition and flexibility in the assembly system. The target of this transformation is to improve the productivity and produce higher volume and variety.
A study was conducted in the company to investigate the improvements achieved b due to the transformation in the assembly operations. Time studies were conducted and recorded the process time samples in the four areas of the assembly operations before and after the transformation. 2-sample t-tests were conducted on the sample data and performed test of significance of the improvement. The results show significant productivity gains up to 27% in the four areas of assembly operations. The transformed assembly system was run for 3 years and the sustainability of productivity gains were tracked in this period. Annually, recorded the data of average time taken for the assembly operations of each inflight service cart in the four areas. Compared the annual data of assembly process times with that of the time study sample data on productivity gains. Based this comparison, the sustainability of the productivity gain 25% to 27% is confirmed.
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