The objective of this Major Qualifying Project (MQP) was to reduce Primetals’ cycle time and setup time for pinions at workstation WWC1 by 20%. WWC1 was identified by Primetals as the bottleneck in their value stream for pinion manufacturing, with a processing time over twice as long as every other step in the process. The team applied lean manufacturing techniques to reduce waste at WWC1. Additionally, the team designed and manufactured a custom gage, a crucial tool for the WWC1 workstation. These combined solutions resulted in a 16% decrease in total cycle time per pinion at the workstation. The reduction in setup time derived from the team’s solutions was over 37% per pinion. This total reduction in cycle time aided in relieving the bottleneck at WWC1 resulting in Primetals being capable producing 120 more pinons per year. Assuming there is a demand for those 120 additional pinions, this could increase potential pinion sales revenue by as much as $1,200,000 per year without increasing labor and machine availability

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Onder, Serra Beysun
• Bernier, Elizabeth Anne
• Rockwood, Molly M
• Aldrich, Emily M
• Viens, Jonathan E

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-022817-110529

Advisor

• Towner, Walter Thomas
• Bergstrom, Torbjorn Stansen
• Vassallo, Helen G.

Year

• 2017

Sponsor

• Primetals Technologies

Date created

• 2017-02-28

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Industrial Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright

Last modified

• 2020-12-29