THE ANALYSIS OF PRODUCTION LINES BOTTLENECKS – IDENTIFICATION AND WAYS OF MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Insufficient and limited production capability is a common problem faced by production enterprises nowadays. The production processes management is continuously improving. Theory of Constraints (TOC) is an interesting concept of planning and controlling production. TOC is a simple and most importantly, a very effective technique of production systems management.

The aim of this article is to present the possibilities offered by the application of TOC in practice. The first step in investigating the production system under analysis was identifying bottlenecks in two production lines. Improvement proposals were presented for each line.

The subject of the study is an existing automotive enterprise producing a variety of components. This article analyses two production lines. LP01 – a production line which produces only one product and LP02 which produces many different products. The authors’ research method was employed - based on the analysis of i.e.: tact time, productivity and the level of machine exploitation, profit margin.

The explorations of the authors do not exhaust all the other possible variants of improvement in production systems managed with TOC logic. The presented ways of proceeding are designated to support production managers in decision-making processes. Reducing the impact of bottlenecks to a minimum entails independence from constraints. Due to such operations production processes will be much more productive.

Key words: production line, theory of constraints (TOC), bottleneck, productivity, automotive industry