Productivity Improvement in Personnel Parachute Production

Abstract

This research finds a way to increase product output in parachute manufacturing under existing environment realizing the true capacity of a manufacturing facility is crucial to the production planning. Since almost all kind of production activities from order management, procurement, sequencing and scheduling and so on, rely on the maximum capacity. Under bureaucratic environment, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make changes to facility, manpower levels, operational procedures, rules and policies. The case study factory is parachute manufacturing operated and owned by the Royal Thai military. Located just outside the country capital, the factory buildings are all of typical military-camped style since all of them have been alternated and modified from battalion multipurpose premises. The layout has assimilated much that of a make-to-order garment shop. By contrast, however, the parachute making business is naturally falls into the make-to-stock category to which a decent management can make the product output outclass. After all the hindrance mentioned, arrangements involving dividing production into various lot sizes are proposed and analyzed. Each of three lot sizes configurated, which are 250, 200 and 100 yields the annual output of 500, 600 and 500 units, respectively. Obviously, this shows that proper lot sizing can make difference in productivity.