A Case Study Application of Time Study Model in an Aluminum Company

This paper presents a case study in the development and application of a time study model in a hollowware aluminium manufacturing plant. The organization engages in the production of three product lines: kettles, frying pans, and cooking pots of diverse categories. The motivation for this study was the need to intervene in frequent crises that normally arose between the employee-association and the management of the company regarding questions of productivity. The three products have similar production processes. Hence, the method of breaking down the processes into jobs and tasks was adopted and analyzed through the use of differential calculus. This method was applied to the manufacturing processes with the kettle production system drawn as an example. The kettle production process consists of several major activities including stamping and oiling, press forming, trimming, spinning, degreasing, polishing, labelling, wiping and wrapping, spout holing and bumping, inspection, riveting, and packing. By understanding and applying the model, managers can logically trace the effects of time wastages on the production output of systems and their effects. The study’s most important finding is that the time of producing a unit of product is directly proportional to the number of production stages involved and the time spent at each stage. This can be represented by some structural equations, which are characteristics of the system being studied. The limitations of the study lie in the variability of the major components of the system. The model does not incorporate some variables which may influence decisions made based on the computation of time for which the model may be used. (