Acme Biomed Case Study

Introduction

Acme BioPed is a manufacturer of custom orthotics, partnering with Chiropractors and Podiatrists to provide custom orthotics for a range of medical issues related to foot care. Located just north of a major urban center. The manufacturing plant is open from $8$:$00$ to $4$:$305$ days per week.

Process Overview

The manufacturing plant $($lab$)$ consists of $4$ production lines with $10$ staff per line. The first part of the process involves applying the logo to the top cover. Approximately $60\%$ of orders require a personal top cover. The next step involves picking material for all orders, then the technicians$$ machine the base of the orthotic. From the technicians, the order is scanned into $1$ of the production cells which produce the orthotic. Quality control inspects the product before shipping picks it up and processes the order for shipping.

Customer Information

The organization receives orders from over $2000$ health care practitioners on a yearly basis. Each practitioner can have between $1$ order to $100$ per year. Approximately $500$ to $600$ orders are received daily through the customer service department. However, during peak orders can reach $1000$ per day. Assumer there are $20$ working days per month.

Since custom orthotics are covered via health plans, customers tend to order towards the end of their coverage year. So$,$ the peak demand months are June and July, with the main push towards the end of the year. See the demand table below.

Month Demand

January $9,820$

February $9,980$

March $10,100$

April $10,235$

May $10,654$

June $12,894$

July $11,465$

August $8,263$

September $14,682$

October $16,234$

November $18,756$

December $17,549$

Orders for custom orthotics are received via the Gaitscan system with an electronic scan of the customers foot, or via the mail with a box containing the foam imprint of the customer$$s foot. The customer service department processes the paper work and ensures that the order includes the necessary information need for the manufacturing processes. Acme BioPed ships daily to customers, health practitioners as the order is completed.

Supplier Information

Raw materials are shipped from two suppliers on a weekly basis based upon the forecasted demand. Once processed by receiving, the material handlers provides the inventory to the Material Picker in production.

Manufacturing Lab

The production steps are outlined below in the next sections.

Personal Top Cover

There are two production staff in this area that run $2$ machines. The big machine can process $10$ topcovers $(5$ human feet$)$ at a time and takes $3$ minutes to run while the small machine can process $6$ topcovers $(3$ human feet$)$ at a time and takes $2$ minutes to run. The operators also performs the following tasks:

$$ Walks outside the printing room to pick up orders

$$ Puts orders on trolley inside the room

$$ Sorts the orders by date

$$ Carries the order in batches based upon the machine size e$.$g$.$ large, small

$$ Preps the files on the computer

$$ Takes the completed top covers off the machine

$$marries the top covers to the baskets containing the orders

$$ Preps the machine for the new orders

$$ Presses button to run the machine

$$ Carries finished orders to cart

Materials Picker

Pulls cart from behind station picking area

Picks materials needed for each order and places in basket

The materials picker is interrupted often, with production staff asking questions about which material is in the basket or getting the correct material or getting additional material

Cycle time $=2$ minutes $37$ seconds

Scanner

The scanner scans the order into the technician area and sorts and organizes the orders for each technician. She places the orders $($baskets$)$ in roughly batches of $10$ each per technician. Inventory at this point can be high as the orders wait for the technicians to machine.

Cycle time $=35$ seconds

Technicians

There are $6$ technicians that machine the base of the orthotic, $1$ is male and $5$ are female. $3$ of the technicians are experienced and $2$ are have moderate experience and $1$ technician is brand new. Each technician walks to the trolley to pick up a batch of $10$ to $12$ baskets and then walks back to their work station. At each work station there are $3$ types of machines $($flat grinder used $20\%$ of the time, grinder, finishing grinder$)$ that are required to machine the base of the orthotic. The technicians, while they do the same thing don$$t follow the same process to complete their work. Some produce up to $100$ per day while others are only producing $70$ per day.

This operation has been deemed a bottleneck and used to be in the production line. It was moved to in front of production to achieve a smoother flow, however, the technicians are still producing approximately only $500$ to $580$ per day.

$$

Key Tasks

$$ Walk to rack to pick up batch of $10$

$$ Walk back to work station

$$ Sort baskets by type $($diabetic$,$

$$ If diabetic or com