A system study on the production of flint bottles in Manila glass plant

• Main Authors: Centeno, Marco Paolo P., Marasigan, Mitshi G., Ng, Rosni Jane T.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2000
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/12027
• Institution: De La Salle University

Executive Summary. Manila Glass Plant produces flint bottles, which refer to the colorless bottles, to serve the beverage, pharmaceutical and food industries. The production of flint bottles is done in a line, which consists of three lines namely A1, A2 and A3. The production is handled by the Operations Department, which is divided into three. These are the Raw Material, Batch Plant and Furnace (RBF) Department, Glass Forming Department, and Cold End Operations Department. In line with this, the production process of flint bottles is also divided into three major operations. These are the raw material, batch plant and furnace operations, which is handled by the RBF glass forming operations, which is handled by the Glass Forming Department. RBF operations refer to the part of production, which starts from feeding of raw materials up to the furnace operations. Glass forming operations refer to the part of the production, which begins from the I. S. machine up to the annealing lehr. Cold end operations deals with the work-in process that comes out from the annealing lehr up to the packing of finished goods. Upon analyzing the present production system of flint bottles in Manila Glass Plant, three weaknesses have been identified. These are the occurrences of defective units that go beyond the limit of the company machine breakdown, and occurrences of unallowable excess production. Based on the WOT-SURG analysis that has been conducted, the occurrences of unallowable excess production will be the focus of the study. Unallowable excess production traces its roots on the scheduling of production, which begins by the Operations Planning Group. The schedule merely consists of the planned production volume, date when the product is needed and the number of days that the product will be run. However, the final schedule of production will be made by the Operations Department. This is because it still has to consider other factors such as mold and packing material availability, and some technical consideration specifically the single and double gob operations. Although these factors have already determined by the Operations Department, there are no systematized criteria used in the production. Human judgment plays a very important role in the present scheduling. The present scheduling system used by the company results to unallowable excess production, which means non-compliance to the company's standard that there should be a +10% of the planned production volume. This is because production is not stopped although the desired production volume is already achieved, which is brought about by the unprepared job sequencing. Systematized criteria are not used in the production because the company heavily relies on their standard of having a minimum of 3000 gross per job to assure that the cost incurred in setting up is compensated. This is because the ideal production volume for each run is not determined. The group presents two sets of proposed system. The first set deals with the present inventory level of unallowable excess production, which states that these bottles should be culletized. This is because the bottles have been stored in the warehouse for more than six months and it is no longer recommended to reprocess it because a higher cost will be incurred by the company. On the other hand, the second set refers to the minimization of unallowable excess bottles in the future. The group proposes an automated scheduling program based on prioritization that includes the computation of the economic manufacturing quantity. Through simulation and comparison with the historical data, it has been proven that the proposed system minimizes the unallowable excess production. In addition, a controlling and monitoring system, which will be done manually, is also included in the proposed system in order to make the necessary adjustments when the unexpected events occur.