Table of Contents
Executive Summary 2
1 Mission Statement: 2
2 Client Background: 2
3 Problem Statement: 2
4 Goals: 2
5 Objectives: 2
6 Constraints: 3
6.1 Internal Constraints: 3
6.1.1 Location: 3
6.1.2 Time: 3
6.2 External Constraints: 3
6.2.1 Ease of use: 3
6.2.2 Limited Space Available: 3
6.2.3 Cost: 3
6.2.3.1 Door Work Center Savings: 3
6.2.3.2 Productivity Savings: 3
6.2.3.3 Implementation Cost: 3
7 Project Organization: 4
7.1 Team Management: 4
7.2 Team Rules: 4
7.3 Ethics and Professionalism: 4
8 Design Concepts: 4
9 Design Evaluation: 4
10 Conclusion: 5
11 Acknowledgements: 6
12 Appendix: 6
Executive Summary
Andersen Corporation contacted Streamline Engineering to provide recommendations for improvement in the Screw Pack Center in the door plant.
1 Mission Statement:
Streamline Engineering will work with Andersen Corporation to provide recommendations for improvement in Andersen’s door Screw Pack Center. The improvements will be focused on optimizing productivity, material flow, efficiency, personnel utilization, and equipment utilization, while reducing waste.
2 Client Background:
The privately owned business was founded in 1903 by Danish immigrant Hans Andersen and his family in Hudson, Wisconsin, where logs arrived via the St. Croix River. Today, Andersen Corporation is an international enterprise employing over 9,000 people atmore than20locations with headquarters in Bayport, Minnesota, a 2.8 million-square-foot facility that covers 65 acres. Andersen annually manufactures more than six million wood windows and doors, with sales worldwide. (www.andersenwindows.com)
3 Problem Statement:
Analyze the current Screw Pack Center and recommend improvements resulting in optimized productivity, material flow, efficiency, personnel utilization, and equipment utilization, while reducing waste. Present the recommendations to the Andersen management and engineering teams and provide feedback for future activities.
4 Goals:
Provide Andersen Corporation with a design layout of the Screw Pack Center that will increase material flow, productivity, and efficiency.
5 Objectives:
Develop and implement an improved material flow system that minimizes material handling and reduces setup time. Create a plan to improve the ease of use for current workers and future temporary workers.
6 Constraints:
This project deals with several constraints, both internal and external constraints need to be addressed.
6.1 Internal Constraints:
6.1.1 Location:
The location of Streamline Engineering has limited the number of visits to the Andersen Corporation in Bayport, MN substantially.
6.1.2 Time:
Due to demanding school and work schedules the amount of time available to work on the project is very limited.
6.2 External Constraints:
6.2.1 Ease of use:
Andersen uses this work center as a work hardening location for displaced workers. This center plays in important role in re-acclimating workers to the eight hour workday. It is extremely important that the Screw Pack Center is setup that minimal training is needed to make temporary workers effective.
6.2.2 Limited Space Available:
The current Screw Pack Center footprint is constrained to the current area. Without completely relocating the Screw Pack Center these dimensions are limited by surrounding equipment, walls, and walkways.
6.2.3 Cost:
6.2.3.1 Door Work Center Savings:
Currently there is an average of 750 minutes of downtime in each cost center due to waiting for screw packs. This is a substantial cost that could be minimized with a better setup in the Screw Pack Center.
6.2.3.2 Productivity Savings:
Developing a system that minimizes material handling, setup, and order filling time would improve productivity and reduce cost.
6.2.3.3 Implementation Cost:
The implementation cost needs to be justified against Door Work Center Savings and the Productivity Savings.
6.2.4 Ease of Implementation:
The Screw Pack Center is the heart of the door plant. Seven cost centers receive screw packs, so any downtime in this center would be very costly. The implementation of the setup should be short to minimize this downtime.
6.2.5 Adaptability:
The setup must be able to adapt to changing workloads based on seasonal demands.
8 Project Organization:
8.1 Team Management:
At the beginning a project timeline with goals, objectives, and milestones was created. This created an excellent outline to keep the flow of the project. This has been tracked through a Gantt chart throughout the project. Every two weeks, goals are set for the following two weeks. This gives our project constant short term and long term goals.
8.2 Team Rules:
All team members need to contribute, show up to scheduled appointments, and treat this project as the first project as an engineer. Streamline Engineering as a team has followed the National Society of Professional Engineers’ Code of Ethics throughout the entire course of the project.
9 Design Concepts:
The design concepts for the handling of materials have been developed with engineering fundamentals and research from the Principles of Material Handling Handbook1:
1. Arrange an operational sequence for the package handlers to follow for time and effort savings.
2. Provide detailed CAD drawings of the Screw Pack Center layout to optimize the flow of the screw packs from bulk screw boxes to finished packs ready for the assembly line.
3. Simplify handling by reducing unnecessary movement of bulk screw containers and door attachment accessories.
4. Move finished screw packs in a smooth and direct path to their final storage containers.
Streamline Engineering is focusing on these base points when developing the Screw Pack Center layout. In conjunction with the aforementioned design concepts, Streamline Engineering is providing CAD layouts of the new work area alternatives. The improved Screw Pack Center will allow a new worker to come in at any time for work hardening and be able to operate efficiently and timely in supplying the gliding door and swinging door assembly lines with the proper hardware to prevent the current line shut down issues. Our vision is to help make small changes to improve the ergonomics and flow of material. In addition, we are researching the possibility of implementing a kanban system in the Screw Pack Center to aid in the stocking of screw packs to prevent further line stoppages as well.
9 Design Evaluation:
There have been four alternatives engineered from the design concepts. The criteria with which they have been evaluated are from both the internal and external constraints listed above. The following four figures display the proposed layouts of the Screw Pack Center. Figure 1 on the top of the next page is the current layout of the entire Screw Pack Center with which we are focusing our attention to.
Figure 1: Current Screw Pack Center Layout
The current setup has two of the workstations on the gliding door side build to stock, while the third work station fills orders and builds additional needed screw packs. The benefits of keeping the system this way are a zero implementation cost and a minimum amount of inventory on hand. The inventory is a minimum because the workers are trying to build packs to order, rather than to stock or a kanban system. The consequences of this system are high costs due to line shortages and increased material handling, lack of adaptability, and failure to effectively implement temporary or new workers.
The second through the forth alternatives utilize the kanban system and are shown in Figures 2-4 on the next page. The differences between the three alternatives are their respective layouts and material flows. The kanban system is one where workers are allowed to control the inventory levels. Kanbans, in our case, would be tubs of screw packs in a racking system. Each tub would hold 24 screw packs because this is the maximum number of doors the line runs at one time. Each hour, inventory is pulled for the production line out of the kanban tubs. If any of the tubs are emptied, those tubs move to the Screw Pack Area to get refilled and stocked back into the racking system. Initial kanban quantities can be calculated based on the average daily production plus a safety stock. The kanban numbers are then adjusted by the workers to keep a minimum of inventory at all times. As seen in Figure 2 through Figure 4, the distance the material has to move is kept to a minimum. A two class inventory system will also be used. This was developed because 13 of the 70 screw packs make up over 77% of the total screw packs made for 2006. The two desks located adjacent to each other will be setup to handle this amount. The desk furthest away from the kanban racking will make the majority of the other screw packs. This segregation will eliminate a lot of walking that occurred in Figure 1. The kanban racks are shown as
for the hinged door screw packs and for the sliding
door screw packs in the figures below.
Figure 2: Redesign Layout #1
Figure 3: Redesign Layout #2
Figure 4: Redesign Layout #3
Scale 1-1020% / 20% / 15% / 15% / 30% / Final Valuation
Ease of Use / Door Line Savings / Productivity Savings / Implementation Cost / Adaptability
Do Nothing / 2 / 0 / 0 / 10 / 5 / 34.00%
Redesign 1 / 8 / 8 / 8 / 9 / 8 / 81.50%
Redesign 2 / 7 / 8 / 6 / 9 / 7 / 73.50%
Redesign 3 / 7 / 8 / 5 / 9 / 6 / 69.00%
Table 1: Evaluation of Alternatives
As noted in Table 1, we ranked each of our redesign ideas according to how we feel they will impact the given criteria. Both redesign 1 and 2 seem to be our best options at this time but all will receive further investigation and research as to what will truly be the best plan for assembling a better all around Screw Pack Center.
10 Conclusion:
Once a design has been implemented for a period of time to which everyone is comfortable and operating at their normal speeds, we will be able to measure improvement by the reduced downtime on the assembly lines and determine the effectiveness of our updated design of the Screw Pack Center.
11 Acknowledgements:
Streamline Engineering would like to thank Scott Bowe and Jill Hesselroth for the opportunity to further our engineering education with a practical application. Operational feedback was very helpful and was provided by Rick, Andre, and Cindy. The team would also like to thank Professor Keranen, Professor Voss, and Dr. Lindeke for their help and support in this project.
12 Appendix: