Generating Efficient Production Plans for Heater Manufacturing Industry

Abstract

Nowadays, manufacturers in Malaysia as well as global have been facing challenges in order to overcome the uncertainty of demand fluctuations, supplier capability and achieved customer expectations and satisfaction. To increase competitiveness in global market, manufacturers from various aspects keep one's eyes open on lean implementation and factory automation. This journal aims to develop an efficient production plans for heater manufacturing industry in order to achieve higher productivity and reduce wastes. With the traditional production line which had been implemented for years, several difficulties have been faced by company. For instance, abundance numbers of worker in production line which is not fully utilize and product quality is highly depends on skilled operators due to manual process. Smoothness index is used to determine the improvement of proposed production plan. Although minimization of smoothness index is essential in solving line balancing problem, this research has highlighted that researcher or company shall not rely on smoothness index alone while other aspect such as acceptable productivity and minimization of human resource should be considered.