Work improvement at an animal feed mill

Abstract

This Project was carried out at Nurinfra Mutiara FeedMill Sdn. Bhd. at Kuala Terengganu. The objectives are to identify which workstations with high cycle time and bottleneck, to propose the solution to increase the output capacity and to propose new design of manual handling. The major problem has been identified which is poor performance of the line balancing production 420. Then, three alternatives solution has been generated through adding new machine at the workstation which has high cycle time. Evaluation of all alternative has been done using manual calculation and computer simulation (Witness simulation software) to validate the results. The best proposed solution is alternative 1 which has been shown the best solution compare to alternative 2 and 3 due to the target capacity is approaches to the production target which is 12.3 tons per day as known that production target is 10.5 tons – 11 tons per day. The alternative 1 also shows that the payback period is 1.71 month (40 days) to recover the investment. For the analysis manual handling problem by using multisegment model shows the hazardous to the worker such as low back pain which is Fmuscle = 4480N and Fcompression = 4930N. Meanwhile, the analysis by using NIOSH Lifting guide shows that LI=3.7. Both type of analysis shows that the risk of lifting related low back pain is very high and that almost all workers are exposed to increased risk. Thus, suggestion to changes the design of lifting or lowering tasks is strongly recommended. Then, two machines are proposed such as inclining conveyor belt and hydraulic scissor lift table. By suggesting this both machines, the company will reduce the number of worker from 5 workers to 2 workers and the times for lifting the bags onto the pallet reduce about 18 minute to 7 minute. Total time improvement is 61.11% and human factor also be less.