Waste Reduction in Packing Process of Coloured Pencils

Abstract

This research aims to reduce waste produced during the packing process of coloured pencils. Cause and effect diagram was applied as the tool to find the causes of the waste in the a packing process.  There were three main causes of waste: delay, motion and defect. Delay and motion, method and workspace were analyzed. It was found that the arrangement of the crates was not proper and the positioning of the crate and boxes was unclear. These led to employees intervened because of using their eyesight to find coloured pencils in boxes. Defect, positioning equipment was investigated. It was found that the equipment was inefficient. These 3 issues were solved by adjusting the layout of the packing process with the application of FSN analysis of warehouse management and improving the positioning equipment by applying engineering design theory. The results showed that the waste of the delay of 12 coloured pencils was reduced from 0.93 second per box to 0.54 second per box, representing 41.94 percent of decrement, or reduced from 579 seconds per cycle to 338 seconds per cycle, representing 41.62 percent decrease. For 24 coloured pencils, the waste of the delay was reduced from 3.42 seconds per box to 1.87 seconds per box, representing 45.03 percent of decrement, or reduced from 1148 seconds per cycle to 629 seconds per cycle, representing 45.21 percent of decrement. Futhermore the waste of the motion of 12 coloured pencils was reduced from 254.33 meters to 109.61 meters, representing 56.90 percent of decrement. For, 24 coloured pencils, the waste of the motion was reduced from 359.41 meters to 218.33 meters, representing 39.25 percent of decrement. Finally, the waste of the defect of 12 coloured pencils was reduced from 0.24 percent to 0.12 percent, representing 50.00 percent of decrement. For, 24 coloured pencils, the waste of the defect was reduced from 0.39 percent to 0.13 percent, representing 66.67 percent of decrement.