#Industry News
Shorten takt time by 2 seconds! Selection of linear conveyors that defy conventional wisdom for lines.
We interviewed the customers who had in fact installed YAMAHA robots. You can find tips that may provide solutions to your problem.
Issues
Keys to the issue
Shorten the takt time by 2 seconds.
Design a line of high productivity within a limited space.
"Cut two more seconds" seemed nowhere to go ... Voice of "give up" from the workshop floor.
Shortening the takt time was the biggest issue in Firm A that assembled the electronics parts and devices for smart phones and tablet terminals. Where number of products put on markets was somehow reducing, every single manufacturer tried to be the first to market their products for the next season. Naturally, such fierce competition affected the device manufacturer of Firm A.
"To fulfill the delivery demanded by the customer manufacturer, we had to shorten the takt time by two seconds or more. The voice from the shop floor said ‘What should we do more? Have we not come to the limit?’", recalled Mr. M, who was in charge of this task. The firm had had not only reviewed the production processes but also added lines to be compatible with production of large variety. Thus, having responded to a demand after a demand, there was a kind of ‘give up’ feeling in the firm.
"Cut two more seconds" seemed nowhere to go ... Voice of "give up" from the workshop floor.
The transport process was the target. Though verifying to increase the tray feed speed, it turned out to create more loss ...
But giving it up was not an option. The project team newly formed with Mr. M as the leader started verification, closing in on reduction of the transport process.
The project team first took a look at the tray feed speed of the conveyor. Being unable to adjust the speed, the impact of hitting the stopper was excessive, causing losses such as a workpiece to get displaced and a pallet to get damaged. To rectify such problems, however, we fell into a vicious cycle in which we had to stop the line, which further degraded the production efficiency.
The production system was not without an issue, either. Repeated layout changes and addition of lines left no more space for an additional line. Setup changes took too many man-hours to fit a small lot production.
"Shortening takt time was far more difficult than I had expected." (Mr. M)
The project members in fact got nowhere without a solution.
https://global.yamaha-motor.com/business/robot/casestudies/case05/img/index/img01.jpg
