JSA Report V2-1

PREFACE

Master of Business Administration is a course, which combines both theory and its applications as its contents of study in the field of management. As part and parcel of this course, every aspirant has to undergo practical exposure in an organization. The purpose of this exposure is to expose the student of management sciences to real life situations existing in the organization and to provide an insight into the various functions, who can visualize things, what they have been taught in classrooms.

It is in practical training that the effectiveness of management itself is realized. This report is a continuation of that tradition. It is an attempt to present an account of practical knowledge and observations gathered during the analysis. This report includes the information about JS Auto and its related issues – productivity issues, relocation issues. The plant is not well designed and there is no proper streamlining of the parts supply to the three wheeler assembly area. We try to analyse the issues of JS Auto and figured out into a satisfactory package.

JS Auto Pvt. Ltd. Kanpur

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The successful accomplishment of this project and the contentment it accounts for would be

incomplete without the mention of people whose ceaseless cooperation made it possible,

whose constant guidance and encouragement crowned all efforts with success.

We are grateful to Dr. Deepu Philip, Assistant professor of IIT kanpur for the guidance,

inspiration and constructive suggestions which helped us to sort out all the problems in

concept clarifications.

We would also like to thank the JSA staff and management for all the cooperation without

whose support, the project would not have reached its present state.

Finally, we also take this opportunity to appreciate the institute, IITK, for providing this

learning opportunity and also assisting in infrastructure and administrative work. We are

grateful to all the professors of IME Department for their guidance and support at each step.

Their insights and teachings have played a critical role in developing this report.


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ABSTRACT

This report throws light on the production process, relocation of layout and inventory of raw

materials in the manufacturing process of JS Auto, Panki industrial area, Kanpur.

JS Auto is a leading 3 wheeler automotive industry in Kanpur, India. We focused our study

on diesel section of 3 wheeler auto. The plant was visited several times to get familiar with

the working of company, the production plan was understood. The plant design is not

efficient and there is no efficient and effective streamlining of the parts supply to the three

wheeler assembly area.

From the study and observations we got the hint of some of the flaws in the system which

resulted in the reduced output:

• Inefficient layout

• No stable process plan

• Lack of commitment to improve the plant capacity

• Raw material purchase issues / Lack of availability of the raw materials

• Most of the processes being manual

• Poor quality check of incoming raw material

After analysing the various flaws and the cost factor used in improving them, the most

economical way of improving productivity is:

• To change the layout plan

• Overall process productivity improvement

• Manage the in-house and out outside raw material availability

With cost constraint keep in mind different proposed new layout plan has been suggested

which requires minimum shuffling of the shop floor and reduces the transportation time of

semi-finished goods from one shop to other.

The purpose of this study is to present the major aspects of plant redesign and overall

productivity improvement. Although one person cannot be an expert in all the phases

involved in plant redesign, it is necessary to be acquainted with the general problems and

approach in each of the phases. It may not be connected directly with the final detailed design


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of the equipment, and the designer of the equipment may have little influence on a decision

by management as to whether or not a given return on an investment is adequate to justify

construction of a complete plant. Nevertheless, if the overall redesign study is to be

successful, close teamwork is necessary among the various groups of engineers and others

working on the different phases of the study. The most effective teamwork and coordination

of efforts are required when each of the engineers and others in the specialized groups is

aware of the many functions in the overall redesign study.


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INTRODUCTION

The auto industry is growing strong recently owing to a sudden surge in demand. The small

commercial vehicle (SCV) segment, which is growing at a rate of 18% annually on the back

of strong demand from hinterland and boom in construction, retail and production sectors,

has caught the fancy of commercial vehicle makers1. This has attracted many big players like

TATA into this segment. With the entry of TATA ACE in the goods carrier segment and

TATA MAGIC in the passenger carrier segment, JSA is expected to face a tough competition

in future. Hence it is very necessary to re-engineer itself so that it can sustain the competition.

JS Auto is a 3 wheeler and 5 wheeler producer in Kanpur, India established in 1986. They are

the Exporter and Manufacturer of auto to domestic market as well as countries like

Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. They have their potential market in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan,

Bihar, Madhya Pradesh. The company is ISO 9001:2008 certified by UKAS (The United

Kingdom Accreditation Service). Their emphasis is to provide Best quality products at great

prices and on-time product delivery

The company has two product lines passenger carrier and goods carrier which include:

• Passenger Carrier with Hard Top (Diesel Variant)

• Load Carrier with Hard Top (Diesel Variant)

• Load Carrier with Hard Top (Diesel Variant)

• Passenger Carrier and Chassis ( Diesel Variant)

• Load Carrier Pick Up Van

• Load Carrier (Petrol / CNG Variant)

• Tipper (Diesel Variant)

• Passenger Carrier (Petrol / CNG Variant)

• Pick Up Van (Petrol / CNG Variant)

• Passenger Carrier with Soft Top (Diesel Variant).

The monthly production of automobiles is around 700 to 750. With the increasing demand in

3 wheelers sector, the demand of their product is continuously increasing. The company

1 http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_small-‐commercial-‐vehicles-‐fly-‐as-‐rural-‐demand-‐strengthens_1468750


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being one out of few of its kind (producing 3 wheeler passenger autos) has a great share in

the market. Its competitor in central India for 3 wheeler passenger carrier is Scooter India

situated in Lucknow.

Currently the company is facing the problem of availability and quality of raw material and

lesser productivity as compared to the demand in market. It needs to re-engineer its

processes, layouts and scheduling to make the maximum out of the installed capacity.


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METHODS APPLIED

Plant redesign includes all engineering and managerial aspects involved in the development

of either a new, modified, or expanded industrial plant. In this development, we made

economic evaluations of developing a plant layout for coordination of the overall operations.

Before any detailed work is done on the redesign, the technical and economic factors of the

proposed process should be examined. The various reactions and physical processes involved

must be considered. A preliminary survey of this type gave us an indication of the probable

success of the project and also showed what additional information is necessary to make a

complete evaluation.

To find the flaws in the working of system, various aspects of the production process were

observed. Data was collected from the plant and discussion with the employees, supervisors

and managers. And then analysis on the data was carried out. On the basis of the data

analysis, marketing research for consumer feedback and first hand observations, suggestions

are being made through this report. These are intended to ensure better utilisation of the

installed capacity.


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OBSERVATIONS

The following are the problems we found that was restricting the plant to meet its production

target:

Not so well planned layout: The current layout plan of the plant is not properly planned and

random as per the olden days. It has not modified to fit to the modern production plan. Due to

this the in-house transport of semi finished goods take little bit greater time and thus results in

reduced efficiency. Also as these parts are being moved from one part of plant to the other,

the wear and tear of the material during the transportation occur which results in depreciation

in the quality factor. The semi finished auto without body is sent to other plant situated in

Dada Nagar area which is around 20 km away from the present plant. Some of the inhouse

components are made in Panki plant and some in Dada Nagar plant. The current layout plan

of the plant is shown in the appendix.

As can be seen from the layout assembly of the semi-finished goods is at a corner of plant

this causes a lot of movement from each corner of the plant to assembly and thus a lot of time

is consumed. Also the assembled vehicle is moved to the Dada Nagar factory for bodily

fitting and painting. There is no outlet door from the assembly and the assembled vehicles

cross the whole plant to move out through gate 4 to Dada Nagar factory. This whole

movement is also time and labour consuming.

Most of the processes being manual: In the plant most of the work used to be done

manually consuming lots of labor efforts and time consumption which results in cost

incurred, prone to get defects not only during transportation from one place to another like

chance of axle plates fell down, but also with in processes like manual paintings of chassis

which can result in unequal paint covering, leave unpainted portion leads more prone to rust

and thus reduction in quality. Few more examples like these are: Gear box assembly with

differentials is being carried out manually with productivity of 1 gear box/hour which has a

tendency of loosen nuts, un joint parts. Thus lots of rework again cause delay in further

assemblies, labor hours and effort consumption which are not getting payable by either

vendor or consumer.

Another example is including cutting of metal rods. Due to unequal size of metal rods pieces,

difficulty comes under lathes operations to correct them (Cut the length) or at welding station

(to join them to increase length), which can results in imbalance of loose joints due to


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mismatch dimensions in final assembly. During welding also, errors are prone to occur due

to rough handling of welding angle tips, shaking hands of workers which are considered as

human errors and results in improper and rough welding joints. These are only few examples,

but there are lot of other jobs which are handled manually and results in either rework or

catch defects in later stage.

Poor quality check of incoming raw material: The raw material from the supplier and the

semi finished goods imported are not properly checked. The sampling plan of the company is

as attached in the appendix.

The sampling plan is less frequently followed and also the sampling is not simple random.

Parts such as gear box and engine are meant to have 100% sampling but some pieces are

missed sometimes. This results in faulty parts being assembled and later during PDI or by

customer complaint they come into picture.

No stable process plan: The process plan for the manufacturing of the automotive vehicle is

defined but there is no stability in following the same. Due to JSA being a small player in the

market the supplier do not pay much attention to their demands. Thus many a times the

available inventory parts are reengineered to fit to other kind of model. Due to this extra

labour and cost is incurred and also time is wasted. Demand being high the employees have

no other option but to reengineer the available parts. Also the data management is not proper.

the record of the various processes and products is kept manually. We can still see those

entries in the register even in this technological era computers and modern information

system.


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FLOW ANALYSIS

We uses flow diagrams to show the sequence of equipment and unit operations in the overall

process, to simplify visualization of the manufacturing procedures, and to indicate the

quantities of materials and energy transfer.


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We have included the time taken for each equipment in a particular section. We have also tried to incorporate time taken to travel between different sections based on the distance and the feedbacks we received from the workers.


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LAYOUT ANALYSIS

Fig1. Current Layout of JSA manufacturing plant


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PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

Suggestion 1: Proximity of Machine Shop and the Welding Department

In Table 2, we can observe that the flow count between press shop and shearing section is 21,

between welding shop and phosphating units 18 and that of phosphating unit and painting

section is 27. But these departments are located adjacent to each other. Hence they are

already optimised with respect to their locations.

Table1. Distance (in feet) between the respective departments

Table2. Number of flows between the respective departments

Shifting the press shop near front show department will certainly minimise the overall flow,

and hence the time requirement. But considering the huge cost that will be incurred in

moving the heavy machinery, we have decided not to tinker with their positions in the current

phase of improvement.

So we move on to the next major concern, where we see that there is heavy flow between

machine shop and welding shop. Also these departments have large distance between them,

of the magnitude of around 100 feet.


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Fig2. Flow diagram of rear wheel tube

In the figure 1, above we can see for rear wheel tube that additional 8 minutes are required

for transportation of the material to and fro the machine shop and the welding shop.

In order to achieve the target value of producing 700 tempos in one month, the plant is

required to produce one tempo every 15 minutes. Hence this distance adds a considerable

strain on the production. We verified this with the manager of the machine shop department

and he confirmed that the distance limits their capacity to produce considerably. Hence it

becomes the bottleneck for the plant.

The proposed remedial measure is that the welding shop must be as close to machine shop as

possible. Following are the constraints we encountered while moving either of these shops

1. Space constraints near welding and machine shops.

2. Welding has to be closer to the phosphating section, as well.

3. Machine shop is loaded with heavy machines which are not easy to be moved.

Fig3. Machine Shop


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Weighing the different available options, we arrive at a conclusion:

1. The size of machine shop may be increased by extending it up to the heater section.

2. A welding machine may be placed in the machine shop itself so that the time due to

movement can be saved.

3. Arc welding is used for welding the components like rear wheel tube manufactured in

machine shop. Hence shifting of welding machine to machine shop is economical and

hassle free.

Fig4. Proposed layout for Suggestion 1

According to the data we collected, this will help in increasing the production capacity by

25% (8 minutes/ 23 minutes) and reduce the cycle time to the desired value of around 15

minutes. This will ensure that the production target of 700 is met without any overtime.

Note: This is one of the solutions to ensure that the target is met. There are other factors like

material procurement that may be limiting the production.


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Suggestion 2: Moving the Accessories department to increase the production capacity

Fig5. Proposed Layout for suggestion 2

In the proposed layout, the accessories section will be moved to other plant and press shop

will be relocated to this place. The area previously under Press shop will be used for the

expansion of Assembly Shop. The current layout of Assembly Shop permits assembling of 29

tempos at a time. With this suggested relocation the capacity of the Assembly shop will be

increased to assembling of 50 tempos at a time. With this relocation, assembling of tempos

can be worked in an efficient manner. Apart from this a part of the original Press Shop will

be used for creating a storehouse for stocking various in house as well as outhouse

components as well as raw material like metal sheets, rods, engines, CNG cylinders, gear

boxes and other finished components. Locating this store house at this location will give an

easy access to Cutting Shop, Shearing Shop and Assembly Shop. The location of storehouse

near the exit /entry (Gate) area of the manufacturing plant will eased the transaction of these

outhouse components. Currently the raw material and the finished components are stored in

various locations in the plant. The metal sheets, engines, cylinders are stored in space outside

the Press Shop. While the in house finished components are stored inside the Press Shop. By

creating one location for storing all the raw materials and finished components, the


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employees of JSA will be in better position to keep track of the inventory. Shifting the

accessories section outside this plant will not only create enough space for the expansion of

Assembly shop but it will also save the extra time and labour which get consumed in

transporting the semi-finished tempos to other plant location, of the same company, for

painting and body fitting and then bringing the tempo back to this plant for fitting the

accessories in the tempo’s. Another advantage of this relocation is that it will reduce the

distance between Press Shop and Front Show Department from 200” to 100” (as can be seen

from the table 3 and table 4) and the number of transactions taking between these sections is

5, hence it will result in efficient working as workers will have to cover less distance now.

Also after relocation, the distance between machine shop and assembly shop will be reduced;

this would reduce the time to carry the machine shop’s products to Shop floor. There are

some issues related to inefficient supply of raw material to Shop floor from Machine shop.

Because of this inefficient supply, the shop floor chassis assembly takes more time than

normal time, which is biggest bottleneck for the final product assembly. It directly affects

activities of other sections and stopped different activities – the production of chassis,

welding of equipment; front show and rear show building and other small activities.

Cutting Shop

Shearing

Press Shop

Front Show Department

Machine Shop

Welding Shop

Phosphating

Painting

Cutting Shop x x x x 130 x x x

Shearing x x 10 190 50 x x x Press Shop x x x 100 60 90 x x Front Show Department x x x x 240 340 320

Machine Shop x x x x x 100 200 180

Welding Shop x x x x x x 60 40

Phosphating x x x x x x x 20 Painting x x x x x x x x Table 3. Distance (in feet) between the respective departments


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Cutting Shop

Shearing

Press Shop

Front Show Department

Machine Shop

Welding Shop

Phosphating

Painting

Cutting Shop x x x x 1 x x x

Shearing x x 21 4 x x x x Press Shop x x x 5 1 13 3 x Front Show Department x x x x 1 5 3 x

Machine Shop x x x x x 6 3 x

Welding Shop x x x x x x 18 x

Phosphating x x x x x x x 27 Painting x x x x x x x x Table 4. Number of flows between the respective departments


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Suggestion 3: Devising a Weekly Production Schedule

Figure6. Run chart of autos produced in February

Currently, the components procured from outside are creating the inventory problem. The

data and schedule is being maintained at monthly basis. There are high fluctuations as a result

of it. The components required in emergency, are often being neglected somehow or the

other.

So a weekly schedule may be helpful in such a situation.

Figure7. Run chart of autos produced in March

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27

No. of autos produced daily (February)

No. of autos

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

No. of autos produced daily (March)

No. of autos


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Suggestion 4: Marketing Research Findings

Figure8.: depicting the frame width of the front support which is proposed to be reduced

Marketing research was carried and sample consisted of the local tempo drivers. The result

about the tempo quality and life cycle was appreciable. Drivers found the vehicle reliable and

usually problem free. However following problems were discovered:

1. The width of the side-support of the front (refer to figure) obstructs the view of the

driver, to see passengers waiting on road-sides.

2. The brake pin needs frequent replacement.

It was also discovered that the brake pin adjoining the brake shoes, required frequent

replacement. Especially, due to the fact that the brakes are used quite religiously, on the local

roads. Hence the design for the brake pin arrangement may be reconsidered.


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Suggestion 5: Ergonomic Considerations

Ergonomic considerations are meant to provide the workers a holistic and safe work environment. This increases their motivation to work and hence ultimately reflects through increase in efficiency of the individuals. The major ergonomic considerations are:

1. Biomechanics

2. Workplace illumination

3. Physical space arrangement

4. Manual material handling

5. Visual display terminals

6. Temperature and proper ventilations

Figure6. workspace congestion at Machine Shop

The already proposed expansion of machine shop provides us an opportunity to better utilise the space capacity and improve upon the existing layout. In order to make the place safer, and aligned for faster production and material movement.


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APPENDIX

In-house Components List

1. Chassis

2. Front show

3. Clutch paddle

4. Accelerator paddle

5. Brake paddle

6. Back gear lever (bracket)

7. Furse (plane furse)

8. Bottom tray

9. Gear stand

10. Diesel tank

11. Diesel tank patti (small)

12. Diesel tank patti (big)

13. Dhanush (gear mounting bracket)

14. Kamani jhula (sucle)

15. Buffer plate

16. U-clamp

17. Rear wheel tube

18. C-clamp

19. Cleaner flunge

20. Engine mount bracket

21. Surg pank

22. Handle bare

23. Rim

24. DOM (inner mudguard)

25. Mudguard

26. Heat sealed

27. Coolant box

28. Cover bottom


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References:

• A guide to ergonomics assessed on 15 april, 2012

(http://www.nclabor.com/osha/etta/indguide/ig9.pdf)

• JS Auto Website

(http://www.jsauto.co.in/)

• Operations Management For Competitive Advantage,” Tenth Edition” by Chase –

Jacobs – Aquilano, Tata McGrow- Hill Edition

• http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_small-‐commercial-‐vehicles-‐fly-‐as-‐rural-‐demand-‐

strengthens_1468750

Documents

JSA Report V2-1