Increased Productivity from layout planning

Detab Ecomat Automation AB is a company that manufactures feeder machines for production. The purpose of this report is to develop a new layout in production so that the company can achieve its goal of producing more machines per year. The questions posed were about the current state of production, the requirements for the new layout from the company, and finally, the legal requirements that must be followed. The limitations of this report were that the company would not change its location or increase its staff, so the investigation focused on restructuring the current floor space.The methods used to gather information were frequency study, spaghetti diagrams, identification of legal requirements, and interviews with staff. These methods were used to identify non-value-adding moments, unnecessary walking distances, and requirements for the new proposed solution. A flowchart was made over the company to get an overview of how the organization operates. Currently, a lot of time is wasted searching for materials and there are no routines when shipment of materials arrives, which creates disorder in the inventory balance. Due to disorder in inventory balance, procurement of new material becomes complicatedmaking planning for future production more difficult. The production area affected by the layout is limited, which means that the company needs a flow concept where machines and materials can be moved around. There is currently no system that sayswhere materials should be located to enable as efficient work as possible.The legal requirements relevant to the development of a new layout are noise levels, lighting conditions, air conditions, personal protective equipment, and facility design. The basic requirement that the company made was that production should become moreefficient. From this, the requirements emerged that it should be easy to find materials, there should be space for driving trucks and pallet handlers. Walking distances to retrieve materials should be minimized.In the analysis, it was noted that 47% of the activities are non-value-adding. Assemblers often walked between the workshop and production. This distance is the longest possible. The assemblers also walked longer than necessary to retrieve materials. To develop proposed solutions, the distances were analyzed to shorten them. To structure the inventory, the materials of the different machines were separated and placed closer to the assembly. Four layout proposals were developed and compared before a final proposal was chosen.The chosen proposal meets the requirements, which means that the company will be able to streamline its production. If the company moves forward with the proposal, it will entail costs and planning to redesign the layou