Circuit Board case operations management

RAJAGIRI CENTRE FOR BUSINESS STUDIES

Circuit Board Fabricators Inc Case Analysis Group 10

Group Members Don Mathews George Mano Mohan Kiran Ravi Rohan C Abraham

Executive Summary (word count 104) The following analysis will address the process flow structure, the capacity of the process, losses of the process, short and long-term recommendations for improvement opportunities.

Operations Management

Circuit Board Fabricators, Inc. is a small manufacturer of circuit boards located in California near San jose. Large computer companies such as Apple and HewlettPackard hire Circuit Board Fabricators to make boards for prototypes of new products. On a highly-productive day, the plant produces about 700 circuit boards, but was designed to run 1,000 boards per day. CBF has hired a consultant to discuss the reasons why they are not able to produce 1,000 boards per day as created. The following analysis will address the process flow structure, the capacity of the process, losses of the process, short and long-term recommendations for improvement opportunities.

Case Analysis (word count 733)



In this case the main problem is bottleneck. In any system bottleneck cannot be rectified completely. It will shift from one process to another. If we look at here, currently the bottleneck is with Clean and Coat process. As a result the system can produce only 726 boards (boards x minimum of capacity per day of each process, 60.56 x 12.00). If we increase the capacity of Clean and coat, then what will happen is that bottleneck will shift to some other process. So what we have to do is start from back. That is first determine the capacity that we need, here what we need is 1000 per day. In order to produce 1000 boards per day, the minimum capacity per day of each individual process has to be 16.66 (that is 1000 divided by 60) Now we got the minimum capacity has to be 16.66. Next step is to increase the capacity per day of all the processes which are below 16.66. So we have to check which all are that processes, they are Load (15.13), Clean (12.00) , Coat(12.00), Expose(15.63), Load (15.13), Final Test (14.48). So only by considering all these factors and increasing their capacity, the desired output of 1000 boards per day can be achieved.



CBF Inc. uses a workcenter process flow structure, one of the four major process flow structures identified in the text. A workcenter process flow structure is a “production of small batches of a large number of different products.”. Further, workcenter process “is a flexible operation that has several activities through which work can pass. The impact of the losses in the system is quite extensive. It is stated that 15% of the board are typically rejected during an early processing inspection along with an additional 5% rejected during the final testing. This results in a production order increase of 25%. Ultimately, the first inspection should not be a bottleneck of this process and there should not be any rejected boards in the final inspection. A short-term solution may be to extend the work day so that 8 production hours are optimized during a 5 working day week. If this solution produces results, then this could be a possible long term solution. Another possible production hour solution would be to incorporate 4 10-hour working days. Again, the number of boards produced would quickly determine if this is indeed a long-term solution. One of the most important recommendations would be to add another machine or two throughout the process, especially at the beginning of the board fabrication. Another long-term recommendation would be to take into consideration where more automation could be used in place of human manual work. This would decrease the amount of waste, therefore, decrease the percentage of increase of the size of order, in turn, shortening the overall time of the entire job shop process flow. Reduction of the main bottleneck, the initial inspection time duration will seriously increase the overall production of the boards within the facility to meet the 1,000 per day goal. Identify the top three process improvement opportunities As examined, the top three process improvement opportunities include: 1. A change in the total amount of hours worked by the employees (either extend hour per five day work week or work 4 10-hour days to prolong the process flow.) 2. Incorporating additional machines, eliminating manual labor work and human error 3. Change of layout in particularly the bottleneck in the first inspection station Establish performance requirements (quality, time, cost, customer satisfaction) for process improvement.



With CBF Inc., producing high-quality circuit boards is extremely important and when there are fewer wasted boards, this will save time and money in the longrun and also continue to reach closer to the goal of 1,000 boards per day. It is also stated in this case, that high-quality customer service must be supplied by CBF. Sloppy work and missed deadlines cannot be tolerated.

Adding hours to the working day may increase the costs in regards to salary pay, but if the increase in production hours meets the goal, it will be worth the cost, as more jobs can be produced and fewer defective boards are thrown away. The cost of additional machines may also tie up operational costs, but in the long run, a more automated system will also leverage CBF in providing the high-quality turn around service needed to keep a competitive advantage.


Circuit Board case operations management

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