The Quanta Planning System in a Mechanical Engineering Department

Abstract

Before the Quanta Planning System was implemented on the shopfloor, work between departments tended to suffer from a lack of coordination. It often happened that two groups were simultaneously manufacturing the same kind of product with the result that some machines were overloaded while others stood idle. To illustrate this consider the following situation:

• (a) One department manufactured new tools, but occasionally also repaired tools.

• (b) There was one department for tool repair. However, if this group had nothing to repair, it also manufactured new tools. Production was often interrupted, because repair jobs had first priority and as a consequence the throughput time per tool was generally very long.

• (c) The maintenance group was responsible for maintaining machines and assembly belts. If this group had no maintenance job on hand, it was often assigned urgent jobs, provided that they were not too complicated.

• (d) There was a group of apprentices, who were normally under instruction but who were also assisting toolmakers.

• (e) The machines were maintained by specialists of the mechanical engineering department. Because of irregular job issuing the capacity was sometimes overloaded and sometimes underemployed.