Analysis and comparison of working methods during assembly : Does a standardized approach produce shorter cycle times?

The report is based on and deals with mapping and comparisons of working methods between three different production flows. At ASSA ABLOY's request, the product being compared will be kept secret and will be referred to in the report as Cylinder Lock Product X. The times presented are multiplied by a factor X at the client's request. The work is part of the final course for the university engineering program in mechanical engineering at the Faculty of Health, Science and Technology at Karlstad University. The purpose of the work has been to investigate three production flows and their different working methods to mount Cylinder Lock Product X. Then to compare the different steps and working methods in order to present an advantageous working method and workstations in a future merger of the three flows. By comparing the different flows with the time study method and grading them according to the difficulty and learning curve via a Pugh and criterion weight matrix, an opportunity was created to create a proposal for a future flow with the different workstations. The new flow presented was somewhat slower than one of the earlier flows, but was preferred as this was considered more flexible and user-friendly. Among the improvement proposals presented in addition to the recommended new flow, there were, among other things, material handling, measurement of uptime on machines and a new measurement of quality exchange during operations. When introducing and merging the three production flows into the new flow, there is a solid foundation to build on for the future and a stable foundation for continued future improvement work