Maritime University of Szczecin
Akademia Morska w Szczecinie
2010, 24(96) pp. 68–73 2010, 24(96) s. 68–73
Additional production tasks – case study
Dodatkowe zadanie produkcyjne – opis przypadku
Jerzy Okrzesa
PPUH Filplast-Głogówek Sp. z o.o.
48-250 Głogówek, ul. 3 Maja 54, e-mail: jerzy.rada@vp.pl
Key words: production, solution for production organisation, production management Abstract
The article herein presents the example of production solution during performance of additional, big and prestige production task. This task was conducted simultaneously to a current ordinary production in a determined time, with existing production area, machines, technological capacity and existing number of human resources. It shows solutions that were applied for additional production contract in a situation of full capacity load of current production.
Słowa kluczowe: produkcja, rozwiązanie organizacji produkcji, zarządzanie produkcją Abstrakt
W artykule zaprezentowano przykład rozwiązania produkcji przy realizacji dodatkowego dużego i prestiżo-wego zadania produkcyjnego. Zadanie to było prowadzone równolegle z bieżącą produkcją w oznaczonym czasie, przy istniejącej powierzchni produkcyjnej, potencjale maszynowym, technologicznym i ludzkim przedsiębiorstwa. Przedstawiono rozwiązania zastosowane przy produkcji dodatkowego kontraktu w sytuacji pełnej bieżącej produkcji.
Introduction
The dynamically changing economic environ-ment, large competiveness of other companies on the market, seasonal increase and decrease of orders, all require from production companies effi-cient solutions. The example of such effieffi-cient, that is flexible and innovative, solution in a highly changeable economic environment is an establish-ment of a company from construction branch, which simultaneously will be a production com-pany.
Company X is a production, service and trade company from a construction branch and it produ-ces, among others: doors, windows, insect nets, window sills, facades, skylights, winter gardens and other constructions on the basis of aluminium profiles (ALU) of different systems. Moreover, it sells the above mentioned products (also products of other manufactures), deals with deliveries, mea-surements, assemblies, project and construction,
work and described above construction assessment, as well as it provides project consulting in a scope of constructions. The company X together with company Q is a one owner group that consists of four production plants: ALU constructions produc-tion plant, two PVC windows producproduc-tion plants and one roller blinds and garage gates production plant. It happens very often that products from company X, are a bigger part of purchase order made by a client of company Q, and all products are a subject to one delivery to a client.
Company X realizes its strategy, which includes: production, supplying and assembly of joinery (branch term: “aluminium constructions”), ALU for buildings and construction objects, according to general procedure: (A) Consulting, (B)
Measure-ments, (C) Production, (D) Delivery, (E) Assembly,
(F) Guarantee, (G) Service [4].
The above mentioned procedure elements (first five) have a crucial significance for terms and de-livery times concerning additional production task.
Additional contract
Delivery times, time and production period
Adopted by Company X assumptions concern-ing realization of additional contract with current overload of production capacity included: produc-tion of repetitive, one type and identical product in one series, in a strictly determined time. This addi-tional production task was called by Company X: Segments Contract. The decision concerning its acceptance was made in July 2008.
Contract conditions were as following:
start of production: from about 10.08.2008, end of production: till about 31.10.2008;
one time contract;
deliveries (supplies) of ready constructions and products made about twice a week, sometimes three times a week;
contract realization period was for a branch and Company X and extremely high production sea-son, that means there were many purchase or-ders (in more – urgent) in the same period of time.
Description of the Object
The described establishment is newly built [1] group of buildings with modern architecture, that is situated in the centre of Warsaw, and consists of office area for hire with usable area of: 35 000 m2 and total area of: 63 000 m2. Facade walls were designed with a use of innovative (entering con-struction market and architectures’ visions) seg-ment and module system (segseg-ment-based / unitized façade). Group of buildings consist of: one, ten floor building, one, six floor building and there is also a two level car park. The project was designed by architectural office JSK Architekci (Fig. 1) [1].
Fig. 1. Horizon Plaza in Warsaw, Domaniewska street, photo-graph by M. Czarnota
Rys. 1. Horizon Plaza, Warszawa, ul. Domaniewska, fot. M. Czarnota
This investment was designed so as to be quickly established so profits and income from hire of office area could be immediately generated. This caused to apply the solution of segments (segment facades) – which enabled the diversification of production and assembly between few companies (without work collision between them). One com-pany would not be able to complete this in such short time. It wasn’t exist bigger company in the country at this time.
Production and segment deliveries were done by three companies: Company X from Opole region, Company Y from Poznań and Company Z from Wrocław.
Product
For production company X, which took over a contract, this was a one type product – identical and repetitive (B segments, Fig. 2) and never before produced by this company. This caused difficulty in calculation of work time, because number of work-ing hours needed for production of one segment was not known. This problem was solved by as-suming production times devoted to similar activi-ties concerning other products. This helped to work out the initial difficulty relating to estimation of number of segments that were due to production.
It was an innovative product: each segment weighed over 300 kg with a size of: high 3.53 m x width 1.35 m, so it was a height of one storey [2]. It was both architectonically innovative (system not widely known and applied in architecture and by architectures), and innovative when it comes to construction because it enabled production diversi-fication so that the required number of identical segments could be produced in significantly shorter time by few production companies, that were able to produce segments in their own plants. The cru-cial aspect of the system is that during assembly of segments in plants, the companies will not interfere each other, which happened very often when few companies at one time and on their parts did assembly of ALU or other kinds of facades (e.g. structural or mullion-transom curtain wall). The very important factor is that companies were able to assemble objects on the establishment quickly and easily, without having to put up extremely expen-sive scaffoldings.
A and B type segments were alternately assem-bled on the establishment (Fig. 3). A type segment with a less complex construction, consists of one big glass block and electrical window shutters. B type segment with a much more complex struc-ture consists of one fixed glass element, one glass element that can be opened, opaque elements, and electrical window shutters.
Fig. 2. B type segment (from technical documentation of Alumen company) [2] Rys. 2. Segment typu B (z dokumentacji technicznej firmy Alumen) [2]
Fig. 3. A and B type segments, photograph by J. Okrzesa Rys. 3. Segmenty typu A i B, fot. J. Okrzesa
Production
Organization of production
In company X it was assumed to reach the total capacity in 4-5 weeks from start of production, that is 40 segments a week. Such solution enabled to estimate the volume of contract, which Company X was due to perform. This volume amounted to 315 B type segments produced in the period of VIII–X 2008.
Superior priority was to start the production and deliveries of B type segments to the establishment, as soon as possible and with biggest amounts that were possible.
Initial production in Company X was to verify (due to new product):
real production time of one module, real production efficiency.
In order to eliminate risk of engaging almost all (previous) production and work capacity only for the performance of this additional contract, produc-tion capacity was increased by creating new pro-duction hall, employing new workers, establishing adequate production realization and remuneration settlement, and training and informing workers about realization conditions of this additional con-tract.
Due to decision concerning additional tion, Company X established and created a produc-tion strategy in order to perform ordinary and addi-tional production in the time of highest season. This solution, together with plan and schedule of actions, was presented during informative meetings of pro-duction team, which than consisted of 17–18 em-ployees, and included:
• detailed design of segments production – put on boards – in a meeting room during the whole pe-riod of additional project realization;
• remuneration rules, rules concerning work and production realization;
• daily production reports relating to segments which were collected and generally available for workers of additional contract;
• after each month of segments production there was a meeting with workers who participated in the additional contract, during which a summary and settlement of a month was made;
• daily supervision over production manager and vice president of Factory X, concerning produc-tion, its settlement, deliveries and supplies. In Company X the decision was made to change (adapt) the storage hall into a production hall no. 2 for the purpose of segments production.
For the realization of additional Segments Con-tract and due to the above fact there was a necessity to prepare working tools, including work posts such as. additional assembly table.
New daily work cards, a list and daily produc-tion report were also established [3].
Initially (August 2008) the new production was started in an existing crew system of production organization. Somewhere between VIII–IX 2008 new work centre task system of production organization was introduced. Two worker teams were established and produced from the beginning to the end one segment, which moved together with table and with two worker team through all work centres.
This system was established to simplify settle-ment of one segsettle-ment realization and to provide adequate remuneration for workers. It has to be mentioned that all workers learned the following production operations: cutting, milling, assembling, fitting, sealing, glazing, packing.
Nevertheless, for the efficient realization of ad-ditional Segments Contract, the alternative work
centre crew system of production organization was
introduced. This was done because it was assumed that current habit of crew system can prolong time of required production capacity. Therefore, except for few days, from the beginning IX 2008 of the realization of additional Segments Contract, work centre crew system was introduced. All workers present in a given day in hall no. 2 were assigned to different work tasks, technological centres, and performed work strictly in those assigned centres. Those workers formed a crew which work was settled according to number of segments produced in a given day, and segments were transported from one work centre into the other according to order of production actions.
Remuneration for work
Human resources were a crucial aspect when it comes to success of additional Segments Contract completion, therefore special attention was paid to: workers, their selection, increase of a number of
workers, training, performance of Segments Contract with them, and then decrease a number of workers to previous level of about 18 people; Special remuneration, system, and high
remu-neration rates – motivation of workers.
In Company X during realization of additional Segments Contract:
production was made in hall no. 1 (current or-ders) and simultaneously in adapted hall no. 2 (Segments Contract realization);
work on segments production was more profit-able for the workers;
some specialists and more experienced emplo-yees that were necessary to perform current pro-duction orders, obligatory remained in hall 1; the increase of work capacity was done not only
due to increase of number of workers, but owing to the increase of work capacity of already employed workers, with a use of adequate and motivating remuneration system;
it was impossible to find in such a short time qualified workers and employ them for the pe-riod of three months.
System of official orders (mainly during over-time) can be efficient only tentatively, that is during one week period, but this solution did not prove correct in maintaining assumed work capacity for 3 months.
In order to realize additional Segments Contract, production team in Factory X consisted of:
new (external) workers (employed under civil contract) to perform work in hall no. 2 (Seg-ments Contract). These were mainly assembly workers, that had their own established business activities, who knew ALU construction produc-tion work, cooperated with Company X, and were not at that time engaged in assembly work on construction sites;
newly employed workers, who were not specia-lists but employed for performance of simple activities (under employment contract for the defined period) both in hall no. 2 (Segments Contract) and in hall no. 1 (current production); workers already employed in Company X,
spe-cialist working only in hall 2 (Segments Con-tract) or only in hall no. 1 (current production); workers already employed in Company X,
specialist working both in hall 2 (Segments Contract) and in hall no. 1 (current production), depending on the decision of production ma-nager.
The above different group types of workers were to perform different production tasks (hall no. 1 and hall no. 2) during one period of time. Therefore, there were different types of their remuneration settlement depending where (which production task), when and how many hours did the worker performed [1, 4].
The above solutions were consistent with: labour law (Labour Code),
contracts with employees,
Industrial Health and Safety Regulations, human honesty and morality.
The above data collected on a daily basis, were approved by production manager and archived. All workers performing Segments Contract could at any time check the archived Daily Work Card.
Summary
The established by Company X decision processes, assumptions, as well as procedures and actions such as:
1) remuneration and settlement system for emplo-yees;
2) organization of ordinary and additional produc-tion;
3) organising informative, settlement and recapitu-lating meetings with employees;
4) constant supervision over production, deliveries and settlements;
enabled company X to perform current and addi-tional production and addiaddi-tional Segments Con-tract.
For the fact that identical and repetitive product was produced, the settlement and organization of production was simplified.
The difficulty was not only that decision con-cerning additional production had to be made in a time of increased number of ordinary purchase orders, but also the realization time was very short. The agreed assumptions and solutions proved to be correct for production realization of Segments Con-tract. Well established production system, clear and understandable settlement of employees’ remunera-tions, attractive remunerations and clarity of production results, as well s alternative solutions of production organization are the basis of success concerning additional contracts.
Work centre task system:
• more efficient and fair settlement of work per-formed by employees, from two worker teams; • training of all workers so that they obtained
production skills relating to all existing work centres;
• it was more easy to training and engage new workers and increase production
but
• required significantly more time, at the initial stage of Segments Contract realization, in order to achieve assumed capacity.
Work centre crew system:
• enabled to achieve the superior, initial require-ments, that is to produce relatively big number of segments from the beginning of production, but still not maximum;
• made workers to obtain the high level of specialization and efficiency in a given work centres;
• turned out to be a more flexible and resistant system when it comes to lack of supplies, because when there was a lack of semi products (which happened occasionally), only a work centre depended on those semiproducts did not work
but
• it did not require all workers, who realized Seg-ments Contract, to learn individual activities at different work centres;
• daily settlement of workers’ remuneration be-tween several crew members was not always fair for all workers, that formed this crew in a given day, e.g. when there was a lack of semi products supplies.
Finally Company X made 350 B type segments, till 31 X 2008. This success was due to proper pro-duction organization in both halls in Company X. Moreover, this remarkable efficiency was caused by: workers who were properly introduced into
production process and remuneration settlement, and were adequately motivated, as well as by reli-able and efficient supervision over them.
References 1. www.horizonplaza.pl.
2. Dokumentacja techniczna systemu fasad segmentowych firmy Alumen; Horizon Plaza, 2008. (General Designer – architectonic office JSK, General Contractor – DECOMA Sp. z o.o., Facade Contractor – ALUMEN Sp. z o.o.). /Technical documentation of segment-based facades sys-tem from Alumen company; Horizon Plaza, 2008.
3. OKRZESA J.: Opracowania i dokumentacja produkcyjna,
2008 r. /Studies and production documentation, own work, 2008/.
4. OKRZESA J.: Organizacja produkcji przy dodatkowo
przyję-tym dużym zadaniu produkcyjnym. Ekonomika i Organi-zacja Produkcji, 2010, 5, Warszawa /Work organisation with additional big production task. Economics and Pro-duction Organization, 2010, 5, Warsaw/.
Recenzent: prof. dr hab. inż. Oleh Klyus Akademia Morska w Szczecinie
