Simulation based on Theory of Constraints for Improvement Flex Print Circuit Assembly Line

Abstract

Hard disk drive (HDD) industry has a high growth rate and demand level in global market.Enhancement in HDD assembly line is necessary to increase efficiency and ability in productionsystem. So in this research a flex print circuit assembly line was analyzed. It was found that there wasa large number of works in process (WIP) from the bottleneck workstation. The model was createdusing simulation program (Charles Harrel et al,2003). It is a visual system which helps in monitoringthis real complex system. The theory of constraints (Dave Kayton, 1998) was applied. It wasshown in the simulation model that the inspection workstation is the first constraint station. So thefirst constraint was improved and then the second constraint station was found. The improvement wascontinued to the second constraint stations. As a result, the satisfied WIP level and the highproductivity of 150% were reached. After increasing the production rate by adding the number ofprinting pallets at the beginning of the line of the model, the high amount of flex print circuit werereleased into the line. Then, by the same way TOC is applied to improve the model, which canincrease the productivity up to 200%.