Repair Line Control

You have just been promoted from another department to become a supervisor of a repair line which has 6 employees. The purpose of the repair line is to visually inspect the entire unit, both exterior and interior doors, and make necessary repairs to any defect found. The unit is in the station for 120 seconds and the next unit comes into the station.

There are 4 employees, who have responsibility over a section of the unit, front driver side, front passenger side, rear driver side, and rear passenger side. A repair consists of sanding the spot with an air tool, polishing the spot with a different air tool, and using a wool pad air tool to remove the haze from the polish tool (the 3 step process). Any unit that cannot be repaired must go to major repair, which is a separate conveyor and takes approximately 30 minutes to repair, by a different team. After the repairs are made, the unit passes to a quality inspection station to be re-inspected by members of the quality department. A 5th team member repairs any defects found by quality.

The 6th employee is a team leader whose main responsibility is to ensure the line functions and achieves the quality and production targets on line. Any time a team member can’t finish the repairs in 120 seconds, the team leader finishes the unit and allows the team member to go to the next so they can begin the next sequence in time. The T/L also has other responsibilities such as setting up the line, giving extra breaks when necessary, reporting production quality and volume numbers each hour, responding to quality concerns from the quality station, and solving line issues.

The measureables on the line include:

23 out of 28 must pass to quality as “good” units.

No more than 4 minutes of downtime per hour is allowed to make production

CPU (concerns per unit) must be less than 2 per unit as inspected by quality.

5 units per hour must come out of major repair to make the 28 units required for production.

No defects are allowed on the final unit after quality inspection. 8 built units per day are audited for any defects on the entire unit.

Your boss is generally upset with the condition of the line. The repair line has to work overtime every day to keep up with the other departments. The cost to keep 6 repair line people and 4 major repair people for 30 extra minutes a day is getting out of control to budget. Additionally, the CPU is at 2.5, not making target, major repair is not delivering 5 units per hour, causing gaps to the quality station and losing production, there are too many defects found in the quality audit. Downtime is over 8 minutes per hour causing gaps to the quality station and losing production. Only 20 – 22 units per hour have appropriate quality to go to the quality station. In summary, none of the measureables for the line are being met.

As you watch the line you notice several things. There is a large variation in quality coming from the previous process. Some units have 2 defects, while others have 30 defects. The team has figured out that this fluctuation causes much of the downtime of the line because a few bad units per hour can’t be done in 120 seconds. To fix this, each team member will break from their individual routine and assist the other team member. The teamwork allows members with few defects to reallocate their low work levels and support the team member with the high work level and greatly reduce the downtime. Unfortunately this practice causes the helper to lose track of their process and miss parts of their inspection, which ends up in the quality audit occasionally. The manager has recognized that the defects can become greater than the line can handle, so a 7th or extra person has been assigned to the line, who acts as a rover and helps out wherever there appears to be a need. Even with the additional help, the line has the same results. The team leader and the supervisor are tied to the line and aside from posting the hourly measureables, they merely repair defects.

There are other factors which add to the chaos. Quality inspectors rotate weekly. Any time Edith is inspecting, the CPU goes from 2 to about 4, causing the overall average to be 2.5. Engineering is heavily involved with the area trying to come up with solutions. They have proposed a different set of materials and tools for the 3 step process. The new process is slightly faster, but leaves more haze, which is very noticeable on dark colored units. Half the team likes the new process, the other half like the old process. Currently, the line is set up to do either to give the team member the flexibility to use the process that works best for the individual.

An additional problem is the team members have recognized that if they do only the first 2 steps and skip the third step on either process, most of the time the repair passes quality, because it’s not noticeable on light colors. The team members will switch to the 2 step process in times where they are way behind in production, or there are a lot of incoming defects.

Management is also causing problems. The boss demands high quality and reprimands any employee who lets defects out of the station. During times when production is way behind, management will allow marginal units identified for major repair and reroute to quality inspection as a good unit. Most times the unit will go through quality and not be a concern, but there has been occasion where the unit was detected in the audit as bad and that same manager will reprimand an employee for letting the defect out of the line.

please give me the flowing:

Purpose (4 or 5 sentences)

Facts (list all the facts)

Analysis

Recommendation ( for all the problems)