Balanceamento de uma linha de usinagem numa empresa de autopeças de Curitiba

Abstract

Given the current aggressive competition in the automobile industry, the analysis and the continuous improvement of production processes are essential to sustaining and expanding corporate profits, following the concepts of lean manufacturing and optimization. In this work, the elimination of wasted times related to idleness is discussed, which is the result of unbalance of operations along a production line of a machining company in Curitiba. First, the data were collected in the factory floor, associated to the machining tasks required to produce the parts and their respective processing times. The estimation method of machining times, currently in use at the company, was tested and validated, whenever necessary, some parameters were adjusted. Thereby, the machining times of the same tasks in different equipment were obtained. Some of these tasks need to occur in a specific sequence, then a precedence relations diagram, encompassing all tasks, was elaborated. The restrictions on the assignment of tasks were also analyzed. They can happen due to device characteristics which limit machining only to certain tasks. Moreover, some tasks are constrained by special conditions of the process. Thus, not all the tasks can be performed on all the machines. Balancing of tasks was accomplished using a mathematical model presented in this work. Finally, the results were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, in relation to productivity gains and also to possible reductions costs. Significant results were obtained, as a reduction of approximately 10% of the cycle time and a lower unbalancing between operations. Finally, these results were discussed and other improvements were proposed.