Department of Industrial Engineering

HAL Inc. Case Study Production Science

Professor Shashi Shathaye

Chinmay Raval
Estevao Pinheiro
Nikunj Jadawla

MN-GY 7893: Production Science Fall 2014

December 14, 2014

1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to thank Prof. Robert Albano for his guidance and unconditional
support throughout the course.

Thank you.
Chinmay Raval
M.S. Industrial Engineering
cbr303@nyu.edu

Estevao Pinheiro
M.S. Industrial Engineering
esp320@nyu.edu

Nikunj Jadawala
M.S. Industrial Engineering
nvj208@nyu.edu

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ...................................................................................................................................2
ABSTRACT .........................................................................................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION (CURRENT SCENARIO)..................................................................................................5
PROBLEMS FACED...........................................................................................................................................6
DATA....................................................................................................................................................................7
PROCESS FLOW DIAGRAM ...........................................................................................................................8
CALCULATIONS ................................................................................................................................................9
VUT CHART (CURRENT SCENARIO) ....................................................................................................... 10
VALUE STREAM MAPPING ......................................................................................................................... 11
VUT CHART (RECOMMENDED)................................................................................................................ 12
LAYOUT OF PROCESS CENTERS (CURRENT SCENARIO) ................................................................. 13
LAYOUT OF PROCESS CENTERS (RECOMMENDED) .......................................................................... 14
IMPROVEMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................................................... 15
SUGGESTIONS ................................................................................................................................................ 16

ABSTRACT
HAL, Inc. is a major manufacturer of computers and computer components producing Printed
Circuit Boards (PCB's, also referred to as "Panels"). The plant was built in 1982 and has
approximately 450,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing space which represents an $80 million investment.
The company makes two families of products:
Small Panels: These are 10" x 15" panels, the overall demand for which is gradually
declining. There are roughly 40,000 different types of these panels, most of which are
made for replacement parts in older computers.
Large Panels: These are 19.5" x 24" panels, currently having 150 different types of large
panels but the number for which is steadily increasing. They are primarily used for
personal computer cards.

INTRODUCTION (CURRENT SCENARIO)

The plant runs a 3 shift/day schedule but works for only 19.5hrs/day when breaks, lunches and
shift changes are considered. For both the product families, the company follows a basic sequence
of manufacturing operations:
1. Treater Process
2. Lamination-Core
3. Machining
4. Internal Circuitize
5. Optical Test and Repair - Internal
6. Lamination - Composites
7. External Circuitize
8. Optical Test and Repair - External
9. Drilling
10. Copper Plate
11. Pro-coat
12. Sizing
13. End-of-line Test

Some of the above stated process (specially Treater, Lamination, Copper Plate) are shared
between the two product families. But before 1990, Large Panel line had a very low volume and a
small range of part numbers. During that time order acceptance and scheduling were handled by
the Production Control Department. The Manufacturing Department ran the line as the number of
products was small, became accustomed to a de-facto rule of running only 1 part number per day
on a process. Managing the line was easy as very few changeovers were required and the operators
could develop a rhythm.
By 1990, the number of large panels had increased to about 150 and the de-facto rule was no
longer viable. Capacity estimated by the manufacturing department was to be more than 2000
panels/day, but the daily output was around 1400panels/day. The actual amount of processing
time required to make the PCB was less than 2 days and the manufacturing cycle times had grown
to 34days. The number of PCB's (WIP) in the line had averaged about 47,600 in the recent months.
While, the objective was estimated to be 3000panels/day.

PROBLEMS FACED
Following problems were faced by the company, which were discussed during the 4:00 meeting
of all the first line managers:
Manufacturing department kept on changing the MRP schedule as per their needs of
meeting the high priority customer orders. Due to this, the Production Control
Department had to always change the MRP schedule as and when the manufacturing
department prioritized the work. This made queues to build up and longer delays.
The production control department contended that the 34 days cycle time actually had a
20 days frozen period. Because of this, the manufacturing dept. made releases
depending on forecast which were often poor or wrong resulting in wrong products
being released. This in turn built up extra WIP in the system because of work waiting in
the queue.
The bottleneck machine moved from one machine to another because of variable
breakdown amongst the various machines. This made it very difficult to manage the line
since the WIP required to meet the schedule was not available due to machines breaking
down.
Understaffing was another reason for a machine becoming a bottleneck and hence the
Large Panel Line seemed to be running below the expected capacity.
Manufacturing said that the numbers generated for capacity by the manufacturing
engineering team were unrealistic, even though the manufacturing personnel didn't have
convincing reasons. Also, the workers were not motivated enough, which led to
underproduction.
Continuous evolution of products made it difficult to standardize the processes being
used by the company.
Errors were detected in a very later stage rather than detecting them in an earlier stage
which led to loss of inventory, which in turn resulted in yield loss and/or rework and
thereby resulting in loss of high capital.
Managing the line was difficult as there was an uneven demand placed on the Large
Panel Line. This was so because there was under production in some months while there
was over production in the other leading to building up high WIP.

DATA
A team of engineers from Manufacturing, Manufacturing Engineering and Production Control
discussed about the capacity of Large Panel Line and compiled a set of capacity numbers
representing the basic flow through the Large Panel Line. The data for the current production line is
as follows:

PROCESS FLOW DIAGRAM

Treator Tower

Lamination Presses

Internal
Test & Repair

Lamination Machining

Circuitise
Internal

External

External
Test & Repair

Drills

Copper Plate

Pro-coat

EOL Sizing

EOL Test

CALCULATIONS

VUT CHART (CURRENT SCENARIO)

10

VALUE STREAM MAPPING

11

VUT CHART (RECOMMENDED)

12

LAYOUT OF PROCESS CENTERS (CURRENT SCENARIO)

Drills

Copper Plate

EOL
Sizing

EOL
Test

Internal
Test & Repair

Procoat

Circuitize

External Test
& Repair

Lamina
tion
Machin
ing

Lamina
tion
Presses

Treater
Tower

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LAYOUT OF PROCESS CENTERS (RECOMMENDED)

Drills

Copper Plate

EOL
Sizing

EOL
Test

Procoat

Internal Test &

Repair

Circuitize

External Test
& Repair

Lamina
tion
Machin
ing

Lamina
tion
Presses

Treater
Tower

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IMPROVEMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A new plant layout was designed which was streamlined and was favorable for the easy
flow of products as it minimized the distances between workstations. Thus, reducing the
non-bottleneck time.
Increase the capacity of critical stations: Increasing capacity is enough to reach the
production of 3000 panels/day, but value of WIP increases. This can be overcome by
reducing the variation.
Workers should be cross-trained to perform tasks on various stations to reduce or minimize
understaffing problems.
To reduce the machine breakdowns which cause bottlenecks, schedule preventive
maintenance.
Maintenance reports must be checked and discussed in the daily meetings.
Introduce Push/ Pull boundary in the production flow process to maintain standardization
of parts and reduce variability in products.
Implement quality control checks at major stations to detect the problems in early stages of
the production process.

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SUGGESTIONS

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