Elimination of constraints in the production process of power equipment components and the analysis of the resulting benefits

Abstract

Abstract The article presents the results regarding the elimination of constraints in the production process of a power equipment subassembly, a boiler chamber, together with an analysis of the benefits resulting from this, both financial and non-financial. The significance of bottlenecks in the production process, ways of its identification and limitations - in general - are presented. The article is a case-study of an attempt to eliminate the bottleneck in the production process of the boiler chamber, which turned out to be the process of drilling and marking-off, and work stations representing these processes. In order to eliminate the limitation, it was decided to replace the existing tracing and drilling work with a numerically controlled device - a boring machine moved from the liquidated department.. As a result, labor-intensive, manual chambers marking-off and the process of drilling holes with a smaller diameter drill have been eliminated. A number of benefits has been demonstrated resulting from the elimination of the bottleneck in the process, first of all, it was possible to reduce the duration of the marking-off and drilling operations and reduce the costs of the boiler chamber production process.