The Effectiveness of Line Balancing on Production Flow Efficiency: An Experimental Study

Abstract

Line balancing problems are well-known applications of industrial engineering in Academic Universities. Effective Line Balancing forms the core of every successful organization as strive to increase productivity without incurring unnecessary costs. Factors contributing to high costs such as excessive overtime and work force, high level of inventory and idle time are all parts of the results of poor line balancing. Iraqi industries suffer from a strong shock due to high competitive products in the market associated with less cost than can be offered. To survive these industries from collapse and bankruptcy, they need to utilize their sources effectively and efficiently to improve the productivity and reduce loses. One way to achieve that is to adopt the scientific approaches. The research has been applied in one of the important industries based on Baghdad i.e. light Industrial Company assembling Gas Cooker. The assembly line left unbalanced any methodology for balancing the assembly line was not implemented on the assembly line of the company. to implement a scientific methodology production of 20 units/day was employed. When the efficiency of the assembly line analysis found low as 50% from the available efficiency and combined with low productivity. The suggested methodology shows that the production rate can been doubled with same capabilities of resources available and efficiency increased to 92%. Moreover, about 50% reduction in idle time and well-organized of the assembly line by creating 9 workstations . This effect is in addition to increasing productivity , the human factor will be affected positively by raising motivate the morale from one side and distribute the load evenly among them from the other side .