Line Balancing Management of Electronic Circuit Board Assembly

Abstract

          The objective of this research was to manage line balancing in the general printed circuit board (PCB) assembly line by using ECRS method, the principles of motion economy and conveyor system utilization. Current production capacity was 2,010 parts per day which was lower than the demand of 3,780 parts per day or equivalent to 20 seconds per part. Two-hand process chart and cause-effect diagram were used to record the operations and analyze the causes of problems in the process. From the analysis, the main cause of the insufficiency-to-demand was non-productive and redundant methods of work. For example, inefficient sequence of operations and conveying system between the stations was observed. At the onset of the improvement, there were 11 assembly stations with the cycle time of 37.61 seconds. There were only 3 stations (stations 6, 7, and 8), heat sink assembly station, bracket assembly station, and label attaching station using 26, 30, and 24 working tasks with 25.10, 27.19, 37.61 seconds of operational time respectively. The efficiency of the whole assembly line was 53.84%. After the implementation of the proposed method, the working tasks of stations 6, 7, and 8 were reduced to 19, 18, and 14 with operational time of 18.82, 18.37 and 14.68 seconds respectively. In short, overall efficiency of assembly line increased to 82.45% after the improvement.