TO INCREASE PRODUCTION ON ZF 9S MAIN ASSEMBLY LINE

Table of Contents
About Ashok Leyland ........................................................................................................................... 2
Learnings ............................................................................................................................................... 2
Total Productive Maintenance ........................................................................................................ 2
5S........................................................................................................................................................ 4
ZF 9S Gear Box.................................................................................................................................... 6
Baseline: ............................................................................................................................................ 7
Target: ................................................................................................................................................ 8
Bottomline: ...................................................................................................................................... 10
Appendix .............................................................................................................................................. 11
List of main processes (grouped under respective stations) ....................................................... 11

Table of figures
Eight pillars of TPM ............................................................................................................... 2
ZF 9s Gear Box..................................................................................................................... 6
9S Gear Box Main Assembly line (Actual) ............................................................................. 7
Proposed layout for six stations ............................................................................................ 9

Table of Graphs
Graph 1: Cycle Time for four stations ............................................................................................... 8
Graph 2: Cycle Time for six stations ............................................................................................... 10

Table of tables
Cycle Time for four stations ................................................................................................................ 7
Cycle Time for Six stations ................................................................................................................. 9
About Ashok Leyland
Ashok Leyland is the 2nd largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles in India, the 4th largest
manufacturer of buses in the world and the 16th largest manufacturer of trucks globally.
With a turnover in excess of US $ 2.3 billion (2012-13) and a footprint that extends across 50
countries, they are one of the most fully-integrated manufacturing companies this side of the
globe.
Over 70 million passengers use Ashok Leyland buses to get to their destinations every day while
over 700,000 trucks keep the wheels of economies moving. With the largest fleet of logistics
vehicles deployed in the Indian Army and significant partnerships with armed forces across the
globe, they help keep borders secure.
Headquartered in Chennai, India, their manufacturing footprint spreads across the globe with 8
plants; including one at Ras Al Khaimah (UAE). Their Joint Venture partners include John Deere
(USA) for Construction Equipment, Continental AG (Germany) for Automotive Infotronics and the
Alteams Group for the manufacture of high-press die-casting extruded aluminum components for
the automotive and telecommunications sectors.

Learnings

Total Productive Maintenance

TPM is is a system of maintaining and improving the integrity of production and quality systems
through the machines, equipment, processes, and employees that add business value to an
organization. It is a tool mostly used in automobile companies, its having 8 pillars. TPM pillars
helps to maintain good quality with the available machines.

Achieving Zero Accidents, Zero defects and Zero Breakdowns in the entire production system
life cycle.

Figure 1: Eight pillars of TPM

Pillars:

1. Jishu Hozen (JH)

2. Kobetshu Kaizen (KK)
3. Planned Maintenance (PM)
 4. Quality Maintenance (QM)
5. Education & Training (E & T)
6. Development Management (DM)
7. Safety, Health & Environment (SHE)
8. Office TPM (OTPM)

1.Jishu Hozen (Autonomous Maintenance)

Maintaining Basic Conditions on Shop Floor and in Machines

2. Kobetshu Kaizen (elimination of losses)

Improvement is everyones activity

Improvement is to eliminate Production losses and reduce cost.

3.Planned Maintenance (enhancing the life span of equipment)

Focus on prevention
Improvements in Reliability, Maintainability and cost.

4.Quality Maintenance(Zero Defects)

Developing Perfect Machine for perfect quality

Eliminating In-process defects and customer complaint

5. Education and Training

Poka-Yoke

Mistake-proofing
Use of mechanical, electric devices for the prevention of defects and manual errors

Kaizen

(change for better/continuous improvement)

When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that
continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the plant head to the assembly
line workers.

6.Development management

Developing Machines for high equipment effectiveness

Quick process for developing new products

7. Safety, Health and Environment

Buidling healthy environment and ensure safety.

8.Office TPM

Improving Offices Man-hour efficiency

5S

5S stands for:

Sort

Remove unnecessary items and dispose of them properly.

Make work easier by eliminating obstacles.

Reduce chances of being disturbed with unnecessary items.

Prevent accumulation of unnecessary items.

Evaluate necessary items with regard to cost or other factors.

Remove all parts or tools that are not in use.

Segregate unwanted material from the workplace.

Need fully skilled supervisor for checking on regular basis.

Don't put unnecessary items at the workplace & define a red-tagged area to keep those
unnecessary items.

Waste removal.

Set In Order

Arrange all necessary items so that they can be easily selected for use

Prevent loss and waste of time by arranging work station in such a way that all tooling /
equipment is in close proximity

Make it easy to find and pick up necessary items

Ensure first-in-first-out FIFO basis

Make workflow smooth and easy

All of the above work should be done on regular basis

Shine

Clean your workplace completely

Use cleaning as inspection

Prevent machinery and equipment deterioration

Keep workplace safe and easy to work

Keep workplace clean and pleasing to work in

When in place, anyone not familiar to the environment must be able to detect any problems
within 50 feet in 5 secs.

Standardize

Standardize the best practices in the work area.

Maintain high standards in workplace organization at all times.

Maintain orderliness. Maintain everything in order and according to its standard.

Everything in its right place.

Every process has a standard.

Sustain/Self discipline

To keep in proper working order.

Also translates as "do without being told".

Perform regular audits.

Training and discipline.

Training is goal-oriented process. Its resulting feedback is necessary monthly.

ZF 9S Gear Box

Figure 2: ZF 9s Gear Box

The 9 speed gearbox is used in those trucks where high range of torque is needed. The high
torque is produced by the help of planetary gear system which engages when low gears (1,
2, 3,4, 5) are applied. It is a synchromesh type gearbox.

The total ratio of the 9 speed gearbox is 12.73:1. It carries 8.8 liters of oil for lubrication.
Baseline:

Figure 3: 9S Gear Box Main Assembly line (Actual)

Table 1: Cycle Time for four stations

STATION Cycle Time(in minutes)

1 15

2 11.7

3 14.6

4 11.5
 Graph 1: Cycle Time for four stations

Number of Gear Box produced in a shift =

= 32

Total number of gear box assembled in 480 minutes: 32

Requirements:
Total number of operators: 4
Total number of man-hours required: 4 X 8 = 32

Productivity = =1
To increase the production, we need to reduce the cycle time, which is the time taken at
bottleneck.

Target:
Objective: To increase the number of gear boxes produced in a shift.

Two ways of improving production:

1. Eliminating non-value process
2. Line balancing

But, these two ways didnt work out much, as eliminating non-value processes had little impact
on achieving our target and balancing the line was not possible beyond this limit due to sequence
and nature of the work.

To increase production, we considered increasing two more stations in the line, as to reduce
cycle time.
 Figure 4: Proposed layout for six stations

Steps:
1. The average time was allotted to each station.
2. It was ensured that there is no fragmentation of continuous processes while distributing
the processes among stations.
3. Bottleneck was identified (Station 4 had the highest cycle time in the first iteration)
4. The cycle time of station 4 was reduced by shifting some processes to its nearby
stations(considering step 2)
5. As cycle time of station 4 was reduced, station 2 was the new. bottleneck

With identifying station 2 as the bottleneck and available resources, he reached the threshold.

Table 2: Cycle Time for Six stations

STATION Cycle Time(in minutes)

1 9

2 9.1

3 8.6

4 7.35

5 8.3

6 7.98
 Graph 2: Cycle Time for six stations

Since station 2 is the bottleneck, cycle time of the entire process will be 9.1 minutes

Number of Gear Box produced in a shift =

= 52.7 ~ 52

Total number of gear box assembled in 480 minutes: 52

Requirements:
Total number of operators: 6
Total number of man-hours required: 6 X 8 = 48

Productivity = = 1.08

Bottomline:
(Productivity for proposed layout) > (Productivity for current layout)

So, the proposed layout can be considered.

Appendix

List of main processes (grouped under respective stations)

Station 1 Time: 9 minutes
1 Fitment of ID plate
2 Crimping of PTO Cone
3 Fitment of Bearing Plate with lever
4 Reverse ideal insertion
5 Insertion of Main shaft + Lay shaft
6 Forks(with selectors plate) + pivot bolts tightening & torqueing

Station 2 Time: 9.1 minutes

1 Insertion of strainer
2 Insertion of Bearing Plate
3 Bell Housing with oil circulation pipe
4 Drain Plug & side plug tightening & Torquing
5 PTO Cover Mtg bolt tightening & Torquing
6 Three Bottom Plug Tightening + Torquing

Station 3 Time: 8.7 minutes

1 IPS mounting
2 Lubrication oil pump mounting

Station 4 Time: 7.35 minutes

1 GC Housing
2 Casing plate fitment
3 Fitment of idler pin & circlip
4 Sun gear insertion
5 Planetary Range Sub. Assembly ( Hammering + mtg. bolts pre-fit)

Station 5 Time: 8.3 minutes

1 Planetary Range Sub. Assembly (Tightening + Torquing)
2 H/L Pivot Screw Tightening + Torquing
3 Detent Plunger
4 Speedo fitment
5 Rev. & Neutral switch
6 2 Nos. Tubes Fitment

Station 6 Time: 7.98 minutes

1 Air leak test