Effective Time Studies used to reduce costs
The company in this case specialises in the assembly of energy storage systems, in particular the energy storage system XY, at its facilities in Austria. Recently, assembly times have increased, which has had a negative effect on the manufacturing costs of the product and in turn reduced the profit margin of the product to zero.
Manufacturer of energy storage systems
Project Period: Feb 2022 – Mar 2022
Number of consultants involved: 1
Background:
The company in this case specialises in the assembly of energy storage systems, in particular the energy storage system XY, at its facilities in Austria. Recently, assembly times have increased, which has had a negative effect on the manufacturing costs of the product and in turn reduced the profit margin of the product to zero.
Objective:
The main objective of this project was to record basic and waste times, and develop proposals for reducing assembly times and sustainably lower manufacturing costs.
Approach according to REFA methodology
The work order time consists of setup and execution times, as well as times per unit. Time studies were used to record basic times, while all unplanned times (functional allowance time) were recorded to identify anomalies and find approaches for improvement in the process organisation.
Approach to this specific project:
Comprehensive time studies were carried out for the manufacturing of the product at the plant in Austria, capturing all work content. This included the assembly of mechanical and electric/electronic parts, as well as prefabrication and shipping preparation.
During the time recordings, not only scheduled and unscheduled times were recorded, but also non-value-adding activities such as travelling times, material provisioning and waiting times.
The processes were then assessed on how and where manufacturing depth could be reduced to lower production costs.
Preparation of time studies/process studies:
- Coordination on existing description of work steps and definition of process sections and measuring points.
- Determination of time types to be recorded for humans.
- Briefing of our consultants on the detailed procedures and the specifics of processes and occupational safety
- Creation of study frameworks for data collection (time studies)
- Informing the employees about the objectives and the implementation of the data collection
The results of the project include:
- Documentation of all collected process data, complete and replicable
- Evaluation of all time components according to REFA methodology and operational requirements, also reproducible.
- A list of observed anomalies and waste
- Proposals for increasing value-added and reducing the allowed time for assembly
The savings achieved by using time studies according to REFA methodology totalled 21% of production costs, which led to an annual reduction in assembly costs of 219.000 €.
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