An Improvement of Hard Disk Drive Assembly Line Using Computer Simulation

Abstract

The purpose of this research article is to improve the assembly line of electronic components by using production line balancing techniques, job improvement techniques, and computer simulation. According to the study and analysis of factory data that is a case study, there was a problem of idle time among employees during the process in some workstations due to an imbalance of the production line. Therefore, in this research, four improvement plan were simulated and two of them were proposed. The first approach was the improvement of man and machine operations by rearrange their work order. As a result of this approach, production lead time can be reduced 16.68%, labor productivity can be increased 19.97%, machine utilization can be increased 20.00%, production line efficiency can be increased 13.16%, and also increase production capacity 20% compared with the process before improvement.  The second approach was the combination of workstations which contributed to the reduction of 7 out of 24 employees. So, the labor productivity can be increased 43.22%, the average utilization of the machine can be increased 36.56%, and the efficiency of the production line can be increased 44.29% with the same production rate. Using various techniques as mentioned above results in the rising of production line balancing and also lead to the enhancement of labor productivity, utilization and efficiency of production line.