Application of assembly line balancing in manufacturing industry : A case study on assembly line productivity

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to explore how productivity can be improved in an assembly line in manufacturing industry. In order to fulfill the purpose, following three research questions have been formulated: 1. How can an assembly line be designed? 2. Which potential improvement areas can be found in an assembly line? 3. How can assembly line balancing be used to improve productivity? Method – A case study was performed in order to answer the research questions. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data have been collected. To build an understanding of existing theories and research within the study area, a literature study was conducted which formed a theoretical framework. Parallel to the literature study, empirical data was collected through a case study. Data collection methods included observations, document studies, time measurements and focus group meetings. The reviewed theories and the collected data were later analyzed and a result was generated. Findings – In order to improve productivity, Theory of Constraints enabled the identification of potential improvement areas. To address the improvement areas, Assembly Line Balancing was found an appropriate method. Through the case study it was found that through Assembly Line Balancing, a reduction of takt time can be achieved which opens up the possibility to increase the production volume. Also, when re-allocating operators between work tasks, a reduction in numbers of operators is possible which results in lower costs. By lowering costs and increasing production volume, improved productivity is achieved. Implications – This study presents an application of the two improvement methods Theory of Constraints and Assembly Line Balancing in a manufacturing industry. Therefore, the thesis can be used as a basis when performing improvement work related to reduction of takt time in other manufacturing industries, to gain a better understanding for the implementation of the studied methods. Limitations – One limitation of the study was the pandemic Covid-19, which enforced restrictions on the case company. This disturbed the conduction of the case study since less focus group meetings were conducted, and suggested improvements could not be tested. Another limitation was the limited study time frame. Consequently, the collected time measurements were relatively few and the study scope was delimited to only packaging activities. To increase reliability, a more extensive time frame is necessary. The analysis has been adopted to the situation at the case company. The conclusions may hence be biased, which could restrict to what extent the study can be generalized