Approach:
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Lean Manufacturing
Our team chose to convert Sonic Speakers to a lean manufacturing system and
reduce the inventory over a five year period to twenty percent. This twenty percent
inventory buffer will allow Sonic Speakers to cover its peak sales times without worrying
about running out of inventory.
Cellular Manufacturing System
When approaching the problem our team decided to use a cellular manufacturing
system. We chose a cellular manufacturing system because our assembled products are
all speakers. Having a product all of one family allows workers to increase productivity
because only the dimensions of our product change while the end result stays the same.
Having a product all of one family allows the workers to use the same equipment on each
model of speaker reducing set up and throughput time. This in turn allows multifunctional workers within a cell to influence the quality of the product. A cellular
manufacturing system also reduces the cost of quality because the workers are
responsible for their own work within a cell.
Designing of cells
The designing of cells has a large impact on product times and product
quality. Our cells were designed to have a powered conveyor feed each individual
cell the product. The tables the workers are working on are hydraulic scissor lifts
that also have a thirty degree hydraulic tilt lift so workers can access the entire
front and back of the product without reaching over the tables. The tops of the
hydraulic tables are gravity rollers so the workers can glide the product onto the
powered conveyor to go to the next work station instead of pushing it across a flat
surface. All of the materials needed at each workstation are behind the workers
separated into bins to increase efficiency.
Organization of Cells
Our team chose to have two lines of four individual cells and an end cell
where the products are tested, packaged, and labeled for finished goods storage.
Our team arranged our cells by first sorting the dimensions of each speaker
produced and then placing them into a large speaker and small speaker category.
These two categories will be produced on separate assembly lines to reduce set up
time when changing jobs and increase overall efficiency. The four individual
cells were then broken down by the time it takes to perform each task. Our team
chose to have cell one to be wood assembly only. This is because after the
assembly of the wood it takes sixty minutes for the glue to dry. After the speakers
are assembled in cell one they are placed onto a thirty inch wide power conveyor
sixty feet long that travels at one foot per minute to give them the required sixty
minutes of drying time before reaching cell two. Cell two is the carpet attachment
area. This is a single process cell because of the long assembly time it takes for
carpet attachment. Cell three is placing the speaker into the box and wiring the
speaker box. Cell four is closing the back of the speaker and attaching all
accessories. Cell five has the two feeds from the two different assembly lines
going to a single cell five. Our team chose to have a single fifth cell because of
the short time it takes to test each speaker and carton, label, and palletize them.
After a full pallet has been assembled a forklift takes the pallet away to be
wrapped in cellophane for stability and then places where the ASC system
determines via his RFID scanner. Note however that after year six, a second fifth
cell will need to be added as the company increases production.
Alternative Manufacturing Systems
An alternative system to Cellular manufacturing is to run either a flow
shop or job shop type environment. Our team felt that a flow shop would have
been undesirable because even though each worker would only have one or two
responsibilities, the setup time would increase when changing over speaker sizes,
the workers could become more vulnerable to repetitive motion injuries, and our
production was high enough for each type of speaker. Sonic speakers doesn’t
produce enough speakers per day for this type of operation to be efficient and cost
effective. Our team chose not to go with a job shop manufacturing system because
there was very little variability of our product and we needed an organized way of
completing each type of speaker before starting the next type.
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Inventory Control
Because Sonic Speakers has such a large starting inventory, a feasible solution
had to be created as to how to place the most frequently used products in an easily
accessible manner to optimize order picking time. Our team chose purchase a warehouse
management system (WMS) for fifty thousand dollars called ASC. The benefits of the
ASC system are as follows:
Receiving Module
 Compares expected receipts with received goods to report discrepancies.
 Directed put away to tell operators where to put received goods.
Picking Module
 Optimized picking for efficiency and accuracy.
 Directed picking to tell operator what to pick and the location from which to
pick it.
 Directed picking of both raw materials and finished goods.
 Schedule customer orders, pickers, and dock doors.
 Support for batch and wave picking, as well as many other picking
variations/combinations.
 Generate bills of lading, compliance shipping labels, and shipping reports.
 Supports kitting and critical cross-docking.
Inventory Management Module
 Zone control, replenishment, moves, repacks, and more.
 Provides lot traceability, code date and expired date logic for FIFO.

Directs operators to conduct cycle and physical counts as part of regular daily
work.
 Features a no-shutdown "floating physical" count.
Because this warehouse management system is so powerful, it organizes all of our
products into an ABC inventory control style for us. The system then cycles through the
oldest products first so the company doesn’t run into a last in, first out situation. The
entire system runs on RFID technology. RFID tags eliminate the need for barcode
scanning in the warehouse and essentially make it possible to locate every piece of
inventory in the entire warehouse from raw materials to finished goods. RFID technology
also make it possible to keep real time inventory control for raw materials so an order can
be placed to the minute when a specific raw material has reached its reorder point. The
ASC system with RFID technology also makes it extremely easy for order picking. When
filling an order, a forklift driver has a handheld RFID scanner with a built in computer
screen that displays all of the information for the upcoming job including where the all of
the speakers are in the warehouse and the most efficient way to retrieve the speakers for
the current job. This will decrease order picking time because all of the routes for the fork
truck driver will be optimized by the computer.
Alternative Inventory Control Methods
One alternative inventory control method that our group decided to not choose
because of cost was a pick to light system. A pick to light system is still arranged in an
ABC style of inventory control but instead of RFID technology telling the driver where to
go, a lighting system on the pallet racks do. On a particular order the driver punches in
the order number into his handheld scanner and a light illuminates where the first
speakers are in the order. When the fork lift driver is finished picking that line in the
order, the next line for the order lights up and so on. Our team chose not to implement
this type of system because pick to light systems are designed for warehouses that have
extremely large and diverse products and usually cost over one million dollars to install.
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Plant Layout
When designing the floor plan of the facility, an activity relationship chart was
built to aid in the placement of different departments. This chart helped our team to
display the departments that needed to be close to one another to optimize time and
efficiency, to reduce waste, and to determine which departments needed to distance
themselves from one another. From the activity relationship chart, a giant meatball
diagram was developed to shorten the distance between A & E lines while trying to
increase the length of the undesirable X lines. Our team concluded that the meatball
diagram was too huge and tried another approach to place departments using a systematic
layout planning (SLP) design. This design still factors in the activity relationship chart
but doesn’t assign how much space is required for each department. Once a solution is
formulated by placing the most A’s and E’s next to each other while keeping the X’s
away, then the space requirements are taken into consideration. The appropriate layout
was then selected after we performed the quantitative analysis on the proposed
arrangements. The plant layout our team came up with is a basic horseshoe design.
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Assumptions made about the Warehouse
When designing the warehouse system to meet Sonic Speakers needs, we
assumed that the warehouse wasn’t just a complete empty building. During plant layout
we addressed and assumed that the warehouse was a new facility and that it came with a
security system already installed. Our team also assumed that in order to keep the break
room adequately stocked and full we would sub contract a vendor and give them
exclusive rights to the break room. This would ensure that all the food and beverages for
sale were maintained regularly and that Sonic Speakers wouldn’t have to purchase costly
vending machines. Our team assumed that Sonic Speakers would have previously used
manual or electric pallet jacks for the workers on the shipping and received docks to
move pallets around and fill trucks. Therefore our team didn’t take this cost into account
when organizing a financial plan for the facility. Our team also assumed that the building
would already have installed all necessary dock seals and bumpers for the docks to be
usable. Our team also made the assumption that a lighting system was installed in the
warehouse when it was built to additional lighting was needed.
TODD!!!
Dock and Truck Management
Our team was faced with a difficult problem trying to estimate the number and
size of trucks to optimize shipping of finished goods. To solve this problem we first had
to look at the typical size of our orders and the frequency of those sizes.