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Frontiers in Business, Economics and Management
ISSN: 2766-824X | Vol. 12, No. 1, 2023
217
OptimizationandEnhancementofCompanyA'sC
ProductProductionLine
Huajian Fu*
School of Management, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo, CO 255000, China
* Corresponding author: Huajian Fu (Email: 2609755505@qq.com)
Abstract: This study focuses on addressing bottleneck stations within manufacturing enterprises, emphasizing the importance
of effective methods to enhance production line balance. The primary objectives are to elevate the production line's balance rate,
subsequently improving production efficiency, and reducing overall production costs. The research centers around A Company's
C-type liquid crystal display screen production line, employing production line balance theory and industrial engineering (IE)
technology methods. Additionally, a 0-1 integer programming model is integrated to optimize and rectify production line
imbalances. The optimization process results in a substantial enhancement of the balance rate and output, aligning with the
evolving production development requirements of enterprises. This paper provides valuable insights into the practical application
of industrial engineering techniques for optimizing manufacturing processes.
Keywords: Liquid crystal display screen; Production line balance; Industrial engineering; 0-1 integer programming.
1. Introduction
After years of development, China has become a global
manufacturing power, but most of the manufacturing
enterprises are in an extensive stage, most of the enterprises
lack core competitiveness, the pursuit of quantity and ignore
quality. The changing market environment has put forward
higher requirements for Chinese enterprises, and the
transformation and upgrading of enterprises has become a top
priority. At the same time, the "14th Five-Year Plan" put
forward higher requirements for China's manufacturing
industry, enterprises from the traditional industry 2.0, industry
3.0 transformation to industry 4.0, must improve production
efficiency, reduce input to improve output, reduce production
costs. In manufacturing enterprises, the assembly line
production mode, which aims at pursuing a "one stream"
production mode, is still the core production mode of many
enterprises today [1]. Therefore, the optimization of assembly
line production is particularly important, and production line
balance has always been the focus of assembly line
optimization research, which has received the attention of
various enterprises. In this paper, we take Company A's laptop
LCD C production line as the research object of the problem,
find out its specific problems, and analyze the reasons, based
on the theory of production line balance and IE technology
method, combined with the 0-1 integer planning
mathematical model to put forward a set of specific
improvement programs, to optimize the existing production
process, improve the balance of the production line, meet the
requirements of the order output, and improve the enterprise's
benefits.
2. Company A Product Line Status and
Problem Analysis
Founded in 1983, Company A has industrial distribution
bases in many regions at home and abroad. It is a listed
company mainly engaged in computer, communication and
other electronic equipment manufacturing. After more than
30 years of development, the company has a total number of
employees more than 25,000 people, the annual revenue of
more than 30 billion yuan. Liquid crystal display is the first
batch of products produced by Company A, and it is also the
product with the largest demand and production at present.
This paper chooses the liquid crystal display of laptop
computer as the research object. Due to the impact of the
novel coronavirus pandemic, consumer demand for
computers is increasing, and the market demand for Company
A's products has also increased significantly. In order to seize
more market share, Company A has built a number of new
product lines. However, because most of the production lines
are simply copied in accordance with the existing production
lines, the production process and equipment have not been
updated in time, and there are many unreasonable production
line layout. With the substantial increase in order volume, the
existing production capacity can not meet the market demand,
and the phenomenon of product shortage often appears, and it
is urgent to optimize and improve the product line.
At present, Company A adopts an 8-hour working day and
needs to complete the output of 240 products per day to ensure
the completion of the daily order requirements. the main
process of the products of production line C can be divided
into 10 processes, which contain a total of 31 operational
elements, the specific content is shown in Table 1. According
to the formula related to production line balance [2], we can
get the production line balance rate (P) = 79.14%; balance
loss rate (d) = 20.86%; production line smoothing index (SI)
= 36.88; daily output = 217 units (rounded). From the above
indicators, it can be seen that the existing production line
balance rate is low, there is still much room for improvement,
and the daily output is far lower than the daily order demand,
so improving the production line balance rate and increasing
the product output is an urgent problem to be solved.
218
Table 1. Product process flow and standard operating time
Process O
p
eration Standard time (s)
1 Glass substrate handling 1 ITO glass input 3.39
2 Glass washing and drying 110.51
2 ITO graphic pre-etching
3 Photoresist coating 16.02
4 Prebake 34.76
5 Exposure 25.06
6 Expose 33.46
7 Indurate 22.37
3 Etching and de-molding
8 Etch 33.50
9 De-mol
d
38.78
10 Purge and dry 59.86
4 Directional alignment
11 Coating agent 20.15
12 Solidification 68.96
13 Directional friction 22.79
5 Empty box production
14 Upper glass plate printing adhesive 8.48
15 Lower glass plate printed adhesive 8.49
16 Spray line
r
11.30
17 Antagonistic press-fit 29.13
18 Solidification 73.18
6 Liquid crystal infusion
19 Cuts 22.69
20 Perfusion liquid crystals 51.17
21 Seal 26.00
7 Reassign 22 Purge 66.35
23 Reassign 12.91
8 Finished product inspection 24 Light table inspection 20.19
25 Electrographic inspection 30.68
9 Polarizer
26 Attach the polarize
r
34.90
27 Stick down the polarize
r
34.94
28 Upper
p
olarizer
d
efoame
r
11.31
29 Lower
p
olarizer
d
efoame
r
11.60
10 Packaging and storage 30 Wrap 46.34
31 Store 56.50
3. Optimization and Comparison
3.1. 0-1 Integer Programming Modeling
In real problems, involving yes or no decision problems,
there are only two possible choices yes or no, since there are
only two choices, we only give two values of 0 and 1 to the
decision variables, such a linear program that requires all
decision variables can only take 0 or 1 is called 0-1 linear
programming. Adopting the 0-1 integer planning method, the
process flow and operation sequence of the C product
production line is abstracted into a mathematical problem,
constructing a model that satisfies the constraints, and
reassembling each operation element to finally achieve the
effect of a smooth production process and balance of each
process. The 0-1 integer planning model is constructed with
two goals: first, to reduce the number of workstations, and
second, to reduce the production beat [3]. Therefore, the
following two types of production line equilibrium
optimization models are established: (1) Type I model, where
the production beat, the number of work elements, and the
standard time of work elements of the whole production line
are known, and the minimum number of work processes is
found, subject to all constraints. (2) Type II model, keep the
total number of processes unchanged, and find the shortest
production beat subject to all constraints.
3.2. Solving 0-1 Integer Programming Models
In this paper, Lingo software is used to program and solve
the 0-1 integer planning model of the C product production
line of Company A. The optimization results of two types of
models are shown in Table 2. From the optimization results of
the first class, when the product production line beat CT =
132.14s, the minimum number of workstations N = 9, and the
number of workstations decreased by 1 compared with the
original process. Calculated to obtain the production line
balance rate of each evaluation index: production line balance
rate (P) = 87.93%; balance loss rate (d) = 12.07%; production
line smoothing index (SI) = 19.68; daily output = 217 units
(rounded).
Ta bl e 2 Class I 0-1 integer planning model solution
results
Working
p
rocedure
Operational
elements Time (s)
Process 1 1, 2, 3 129.92
Process 2 4, 5, 6, 7 115.65
Process 3 8, 9, 10 132.14
Process 4 11, 12, 13 111.90
Process 5 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 130.58
Process 6 19, 20, 21 99.86
Process 7 22, 23, 25 109.94
Process 8 24, 26, 27, 28 101.34
Process 9 29, 30, 31 114.44
From the results of Type II optimization, when the number
of production line stations is determined to be unchanged N =
10, the minimum station beat is CT = 113.90s, compared with
the original bottleneck process time reduced by 18.24s.
Calculated production line balance rate of the evaluation
indexes as follows: production line balance rate (P) = 91.81%;
balance of the loss rate (d) = 8.19%; production line smooth
index (SI) = 13.80; daily output = 252 units (rounded).
219
Ta bl e 3. Class II 0-1 integer planning model solution
results
Working
p
rocedure
Operational
elements Time (s)
Process 1 1, 2 113.90
Process 2 3, 4, 5, 6 109.30
Process 3 7, 8, 9 94.65
Process 4 10, 11 80.01
Process 5 12, 13, 14, 15 108.72
Process 6 16, 17, 18 113.61
Process 7 19, 20, 21 99.86
Process 8 22, 23, 25 109.94
Process 9 24, 26, 27, 28, 29 112.94
Process 10 30, 31 102.84
3.3. Comparison and Selection of Optimization
Options
From the above, it can be seen that after the optimization
of the two types of 0-1 integer models, the relevant production
indexes of the C product production line have been
substantially improved compared with the original scheme.
However, specifically, the evaluation indexes of the
optimization results of the Type II 0-1 integer planning model
are significantly better than those of the Type I 0-1 integer
planning model. Especially in terms of daily output, the daily
order quantity of Company A's C product is 240 units, and the
Type I optimization scheme does not improve the product
output, and the daily output is still 217 units < 240 units,
which cannot meet the daily order demand. While the Type II
optimization plan, the product output is improved
significantly, the daily output is 252 sets > 240 sets, which can
effectively solve the current urgent needs of Company A.
Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, it is
recommended that Company A selects the Type II 0-1 integer
planning improvement plan as the final optimization plan,
which recombines the operational elements between
processes to improve the output and production efficiency.
4. Conclusion
This paper chooses Company A's liquid crystal display
product line C as the research object to explore the methods
and specific programs to improve its production line balance
and product yield. After describing the production process
and determining the standard operation time, two types of 0-
1 integer planning models are constructed, and Lingo
software is used to find out the optimal allocation of operation
elements, and the two optimization schemes are compared
and analyzed, and it is found that the Type II 0-1 integer
planning improvement scheme is more competitive, and it is
chosen as the final solution. After optimization, the number
of workstations remains unchanged at 10, but the balance rate
of the production line is further increased to 91.81%, the
smoothing index is reduced to 13.80, the production beat is
reduced to 113.90s, and the daily output is increased to 252
units, which is an obvious optimization effect.
In short, production line balance is of great strategic
significance for the development of manufacturing
enterprises. At present, many scholars have proposed
numerous theories and methods for the study of production
line balance. Due to the diversity of production line objects in
enterprises, specific production line balance problems require
specific theories and methods for research and analysis. How
to put forward a universally applicable theory and method of
production line balance under the premise of production line
diversity is of great significance to the development of
enterprises and countries.
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