Productivity Improvement of Mixing Process Using Cause and Effect Analysis

Abstract

Productivity plays an important role in any industry which enables a firm to compete in a competitive global world. Higher productivity of a firm leads to prosperity of nation and better standard of living for the whole society. Productivity provides an idea about how efficiently resources in a company are utilized. Rubber products have played a major role in many industries throughout the year. Rubber roll is an essential component which is used in a textile, plastic industry, rayon, paper mill and printing industry. For a product to have a good quality, the product should be made with standardize process and with consistent quality. Rubber roll and other rubber products are made by mixing process of various ingredients and the quality of this product depends on how the compound is mixed with ingredient and how efficiently the rubber is masticated. The purpose of this project is to examine the rubber roll manufacturing process. The concept of work study to observe in detail is used to improve the productivity. Work study of the mixing process is carried out, how the rubber compound is masticated and in what cycle time a particular compound is been made. Quality of the rubber compound is compared with respect to its cycle time. The mixing process is taken into consideration, by taking number of trials, problem related with the mixing process are identified. On the basis of this study a standardize process of mixing operation and the time for each particular compound is proposed, to increase the production rate of compound with specified quality. To achieve the above mentioned objectives the Method study technique was used for collection of data of mixing process and on the basis of observation unnecessary elements were eliminated thereby reducing the cycle time of the process. Quality of the product is checked from Rheometer graph to compare the obtained quality of the product with respect to the specified quality. Corrective action are taken to improve the effectiveness of equipment used for mixing process. Based on the observations a detailed cause and effect diagram is constructed. With the help of this study and after the necessary modifications, the goal is achieved by a proposed standardized mixing process, which in turn leads to the productivity improvement.