Valeo Engine Cooling in Mjällby mainly produces truck coolers. At the
production site, there is on-going work to phase out the automobile cooler
manufacturing and concentrate the production to one facility. At the same
time the main production flow needs to be improved.
The purpose of this Master's Thesis is to analyze the flow of coolers from
the brazing furnaces through the different crimping and welding assembly
stations, to find problem areas and implement changes to improve the
situation. The analysis has pointed out three different areas:
- The need to increase throughput of the brazing furnaces and lower
the work in progress levels by reducing change-over times
- The necessity to organize the crimping stock in FIFO and improve the
layout
- The importance of having a separate stock area assigned for manual
welding assembly
Currently, the brazing furnaces are operated 24 hours a day and this is
still not sufficient to meet customer demands. Therefore, every extra hour
of production that can be gained is valuable. The work with the change-overs
in the brazing furnaces has resulted in a step-by-step guide to shorten the
change-over time. It is based on the SMED methodology (Single Digit Minute
Exchange of Die) and an analysis of shift reports from the furnaces. The
yearly extra profit that would be made by implementing each step has been
calculated to be between 2 and approximately 15 million SEK. The work is
supposed to point out the importance of working on reducing the change-over
times and show which actions are the most profitable. The actions include:
reducing the number of belt speeds in the furnaces, having an end of line
stock for all products, optimizing change-overs on the same belt speed and
shorten the time used for changing belt speeds.
Today, the crimping storage is very unorganized and difficult to overview.
The plan is to store the cores in rows of wagons, instead of pallets, and to
use the FIFO (First In First Out) principle. The stock levels fluctuate
heavily over the week. To be able to dimension the new storage area the
variations have been carefully analyzed. Two layout suggestions were created
and compared. Both alternatives have advantages, but one of them was found
to be superior due to higher safety and better stock organisation. The
layout of a nearby water leak test station had to be changed in order to
have the cell working as efficiently as today. The final layout alternative
made this possible using a smaller area than today.
The analysis of the main process flow showed that today there is no separate
storage area for manual welding. Instead, these products are mixed within
the robot welding assembly stock, and thereby complicating the work for the
operators. A new storage area was needed with an area able to store 15
pallets. From the decision factors two layout alternatives were created. The
chosen alternative is located closer to the manual welding cells and
requires less extensive layout changes. To have everything working on the
least possible area, the supply of tanks to a nearby crimping station had to
be done with supply trains. These wagons were ...
