IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY OF THE WORK ESTIMATION PROCESS BY REDUCING

MATERIAL AND WORKER MOVEMENT

Smita Verma
Department of Aviation and Technology
San Jose State University

Chapter 1
Introduction
Baba Diesel is the leading engine repair workshop in the Bhagalpur district of Bihar,
India. For the last decade, Baba has been the first choice for automobile engine repair work in
the district of Bhagalpur and its adjoining districts. The company has two workshops in the city
of Bhagalpur Baba Diesel and Baba Motors (a subsidiary of Baba Diesel).
Baba Motors deals with multiple kinds of engines in their workshop, including truck
engines, motorcycle engines, agricultural machinery, buses, three-wheelers, steamers, and boats.
At Baba Motors, 50% of all engines repaired are from trucks, followed by two-wheelers (20%)
and three-wheelers (15%).
Background
According to Mr. Chandra Kant Singh (2016), Director of Baba Motors, the workshop
receives 20-25 inquiries in a day, but the workshop has to reject some of these potential
customers because of the unavailability of workers, tools, and time for estimation itself. The
workshop is able to accept around 15 engines a day for estimation. Of this number, 30-40% of
customers decide not to have their engines repaired at the workshop. Thus, on average, the
workshop receives 8-10 repair orders every day. Conversation with the manager and workers
has revealed that long estimation process is one of the main reasons customers take their
business elsewhere. The manager thinks that by reducing the time it takes to make a cost
estimate for a customer, conversion of inquiries into orders will increase, and hence overall
revenue and profit will grow substantially for the workshop.
The manager describes the workshop process as follows:

Receiving:

o The customer brings the to-be-repaired engine to the workshop.

o Thereafter, the engine gets unloaded and moved to one of the available work
areas.

Estimation:
o One of the workers then performs a detailed inspection to determine the issues,
and then creates a job card describing the work required and parts needed for
repair.
o The manager takes the job card and creates the cost and time estimates. These
estimates depend on the availability of tools or equipment, parts, and workers in
the workshop.
o The manager updates the customer, and based on his or her response, the
workshop decides on the next step, which is either to queue the engine for repair,
or to assemble it and have it moved to the pick-up area.

Repair:
o Workers move the parts requiring repair to specific locations that are determined
by the parts and tasks that will be required.
o Workers move replacement parts to the engine work area.
o Once the workers have installed the replacement parts, they reassemble the
engine.

Pick-up:

o Workers move the engine to the pick-up area and inform the customer that the
repair is complete.
o The customer picks up the engine from the workshop.

Statement of the Problem

Because its estimation process alone takes several hours, this workshop has been losing
customers, and, consequently, it is facing pressure to decrease its turnaround times. Due to
increased market pressure and competition, todays customers always demand minimum
turnaround times. The workshop is keen on increasing the conversion of inquiries into orders,
and the management thinks that the reduction in estimation time could be helpful in achieving
the target.
Research Questions
The research question to be addressed in this study is: How can excessive material and
worker movement are reduced to lower the estimation time?
Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1: The layout of the workshop can be improved to reduce material and
worker movement.
Hypothesis 2: Implementation of 5S methodology at the workshop can reduce worker
travelling and tool searching time.

Chapter 2
Review of the Literature
This chapter will present a detailed review of research on current trends in lean management
in various manufacturing industries, such as the automotive, machine tool, semi-process,
electronics, steel, pump, and furnishing industries. Lean manufacturing is a multi-dimensional
management practice comprised of just-in-time-quality systems, work teams, cellular
manufacturing, supplier management, and other elements. The popular definition of lean
manufacturing, as seen in the Toyota production system, usually consists of the following
(Wilson, 2009):

A comprehensive set of techniques which, when combined, allow companies to reduce

and eliminate waste. This reduction makes a company leaner, more flexible, and more
responsive.

A systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous

improvement, usually by flowing the product or service at the pull of the customer in
pursuit of perfection.

Feld (2000) argued that there should be established a set of specific design objectives or
criteria to be achieved while designing a cell. These criteria are to be the guiding focus for good
cell design. The following is a list of general criteria to consider as part of a good cell design:

Be sure that material flows in one direction.

Reduce material and operator movement.

Eliminate storage between operations.

Eliminate double and triple handling.

Locate parts as close as possible to point of use.

4

Utilize task variation to reduce repetitive motion.

Locate all tools and parts within easy reach.

Ensure short walking distances.

Eliminate all wait time.

Keep in mind that vertical storage requires less space than horizontal storage (include
Kanban material).

Lay out machines and tools by process sequence.

Involve operators in the design process (incorporate economics of motion).

Furthermore, Feld argued that in an ideal world, all parts would be manufactured completely
within a given cell. All the necessary manufacturing processes would be located in that cell and
the parts would never have to leave the cell. Raw material would come in and a completely
finished part (ready for consumption by the customer) would go out the other side.
Liker (2003) illustrated in the form of house the most common lean tools as shown in Figure
1. The goal of lean production is set in the roof and consists of reaching for the best quality,
lowest costs, shortest lead-time, highest safety, and highest morale. The left pillar encloses the
just-in-time principle that consists of production planning and leveling tools like continuous
flow, pull system, quick changeover, and integrated logistics. The right pillar deals with Jidoka,
which has two functions: to prevent a defective part from proceeding into the next workstation,
and to separate people from machines. People are in the center of the lean-house concept since
people see waste and solve problems, which lead to continuous improvement of production
processes. In addition, it is important to consider the decentralized characteristics of a lean work
organization since responsibilities are dispersed among multifunctional teams. The foundation

of the house has to be stable for the pillars to stand steadily and consists of tools like 5S,
standardized work, and leveled production.

Figure 1. The lean house concept (Liker, 2003).

Lander and Liker (2007) noted that the performance benefits of lean systems are often
remarkable, greatly improving quality, cost, and delivery time. The authors also studied the
fundamental misunderstanding of TPS, viewing it as a specific tool kit technically implemented
in a formulaic way to achieve pre-specified results. According to Shah and Ward (2007), lean
production is a multi-dimensional approach that encompasses a wide variety of management
practices, including just in time, quality system, work teams, cellular manufacturing and supplier
management in an integrated system.

Magee (2007) categorized the different kinds of wastes in a process as follows:

Overproduction- Producing items more than required at given point of time.

Waiting- Waiting for material, machines, information, etc.

Unnecessary Transport- Carrying of work-in-process inventory (WIP) a long distance,

having insufficient transport, or moving material from one place to another place.

Over-processing- Working on a product excessively.

Excess inventory- Retaining excess raw material, WIP, or finished goods in a manner
that causes longer lead times, obsolescence, damaged goods, high transportation and
storage costs, and delay.

Unnecessary motion- Exceeding the minimum extent or number of motions required

to complete a task.

Defects- Wasting processed parts due to defects.

Unused employee creativity- Losing better ideas, improvements, skills, and learning
opportunities by avoiding the presence of employees

Sahoo et al. (2008) suggested a systematic approach for the implementation of lean
principles. They also described an application of a Value Stream Mapping (VSM).
Consequently, they constructed the present and future states of value stream maps to improve the
production process by identifying waste and its sources, and this improvement led to a noticeable
reduction in set-up time and WIP inventory levels.
There are many value streams in any organization that involve both the value added and nonvalue added actions to bring a product from the concept through development, manufacturing to
the end customer. It is difficult to choose a value stream to map due to its complexity. Tapping

and Shuker (2003) suggested breaking value stream areas into smaller streams and mapping only
those value streams that a company wants to improve.
Praveen et al. (2015) applied the value stream mapping on bearing industry which helped to
reduce the work in process, inventory and lead time. Their work provides the information about
value stream mapping and the methodology for the implementation of VSM.
According to Venkataraman et al. (2014), various organizations are implementing lean
manufacturing in recent year for reduction and elimination of waste.
Gopakumar et al. (2008) used discrete event simulation quantified through a detailed VSM
exercise to model the current systems functioning and to identify operational inefficiencies in
warehouse receiving process at a large food distribution center, which comprises of trucks with
goods reaching the destination warehouse, unloading and finally putting away the contents to the
specific aisles.
Grewal (2008) used VSM techniques as lean implementation initiatives in small
manufacturing firm and claimed 33.18 percent reduction in cycle time, 81.5 percent reduction in
changeover time, 81.4 percent reduction in lead time and 1.41 percent reduction in value-added
time.
Upadhye et al. (2010) described major actions taken by a company when it implemented lean
philosophy in order to increase efficiency and effectiveness. Their study attempted to point out
various wastages and obstacles to implementing lean manufacturing systems in The Ministry of
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), a branch of the Government of India. Lean
manufacturing systems (LMS) helps to identify and minimize waste.
Cellular layout means that the workstations are organized in a processing sequence. The
cellular layout also called a product layout. Common layout configurations used for workstations

include the U-shaped cell, the T-shaped cell, the L-shaped cell, the C-shaped cell or a serpentine
arrangement (Srinivasan, 2004; Tapping & Shuker, 2003). The traditional layout is called a
process layout where the workstations are grouped by departments or functions (Srinivasan,
2004). The advantages of the cellular layout are the following:

WIP reduction

Better space utilization

Reduction in lead time

Chapter 3
Methodology
The objective of this project is to study a systematic approach for reducing material and
operator movement at Baba Motors workshop during the work estimation process. The
reduction in material and operator movement may help to reduce the lead-time for estimation and
ultimately may increase the efficiency. Lean manufacturing methodology will be used to achieve
the goals of this project. Identifying and eliminating wastage of time will be the key element of
this project. The following are its key objectives:

To understand the workshop process for estimation

To identify the material movement during estimation

To identify the operator movement during estimation

To identify wasted movements

To determine the optimum movement for increased efficiency

Work-estimation time is a variable of interest for this activity. The project will be carried out
in the following steps:
1. Reviewing efficient-workshop-management literature
The project will search and review previous research works to understand how far
scholars in the field of interest have studied the issue. It will utilize Internet, SJSU
library and other resources to search for books, articles, theses, and other material.
After completion of the literature review, this project will present a matrix of the
factors affecting work-order creation and cost-estimation processes such as traveling
time, searching time, disassembling time, cleaning time, and assembling time.
10

Research will be conducted to discover a better storage system that may help to
reduce travelling- and tool-searching time.
2. Data collection
Data will be collected to isolate the factors mentioned in the matrix. A current
floor layout and value stream map will be prepared to illustrate material flow at the
workshop.
3. Preparing a new model/layout
Based on brainstorming and knowledge gained from the literature review, a
revised workshop layout, optimized for work estimation, will be proposed.
4. Applying the proposed changes
A section of the workshop will be selected in order to apply the suggested changes
on a small scale. Layout for that section will be changed as per the proposed model,
as will the arrangement of tools and materials.
5. Measuring the output after making changes
After the layout changes are in place, data for the factors mentioned in the matrix
will be collected.
6. Analysis
Statistical analysis of the collected data will be conducted, and statistical tools
applied to test the project hypotheses and to illustrate the objectives of the project.
Analysis will also be done using appropriate graphical displays, and data will be
compared to show how workflow and efficiency in the workshop were affected as a
result the proposed changes.

11

References
Feld, W. M. (2000). Lean manufacturing tools, techniques, and how to use them. New York:
CRC Press.
Lander, E., & Liker, J. (2007). The Toyota production system and art: Making highly customized
and creative products the Toyota way. International Journal of Production Research.
Liker, J. (2003). The Toyota way. Blacklick, OH, USA: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing.
Magee, D. (2007). How Toyota became # 1: Leadership lessons from the worlds greatest car
company. New York: Penguin Group.
Sahoo, A. K., Singh, N. K., Shankar, R., & Tiwari, M. K. (2008). Lean philosophy:
implementation in a forging company. International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing
Technology, 36, 451-462.
Shah, R., & Ward, P. T. (2007). Defining and developing measures of lean production. Journal of
Operations Management.
Upadhye, N., Desmukh, S. G., & Garg, S. (2010). Lean manufacturing system for medium size
manufacturing enterprises: An Indian case. International Journal of Management
Science, 5(5), 362-375.
Wilson, L. (2009) How to implement lean manufacturing. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional
Publishing.
Srinivasan, M. (2004). Streamlined: 14 principles for building and managing the lean supply
chain. Mason, Ohio: Thomson Learning.
Tapping, D. & Shuker, T. (2003). Value Stream Management for the Lean Office. Productivity
Press: New York.

12

Praveen S., Deepak K., and Manoj K. S., International Journal of Managing Value and Supply
Chains (IJMVSC) Vol. 6, No. 2, June 2015 DOI: 10.5121
K. Venkataramana, Vijaya R., V. Muthu K., C. Elanchezhiand Procedia Materials Science 6
(2014) 1187 11963rd International Conference on Materials Processing and
Characterisation (ICMPC 2014)
Gopakumar, B., Sundaram, S., Shengyong, W., Koli, S. and Srihari, K. (2008), Simulation
based approach for dock allocation in a food distribution center, Proceedings of the 2008
Winter Simulation Conference, Miami, FL, USA, pp. 2750-5.

13