What is Line Balancing? | Industrial Engineering - Mechanical Engineering PDF Download

Benefits of Line Balancing

Reduction of Waiting Waste

• Waiting waste is one of the eight types of waste in Lean manufacturing, referring to idle time when operations are not fully synchronized. This occurs when operators wait for materials or the completion of another task, and includes equipment downtime when machinery isn't operating. Line balancing ensures that operators and machines work together harmoniously, preventing overburdening or idleness. By minimizing downtime, it effectively reduces waiting waste.

Reduction of Inventory Waste

• Inventory waste, another type of waste, occurs when there's an excess of raw materials, work in progress, or finished goods, indicating inefficient capital allocation. Line balancing standardizes production, making it easier to avoid build-ups or surplus inventory. By reducing idle time, it minimizes work in progress and aligns production time closer to takt time, ensuring timely delivery.

Absorption of Internal and External Irregularities

• Line balancing reduces variations within a production line, creating a stable and flexible system that can adapt to changes. For instance, if customer demand changes, affecting takt time, operations can be quickly realigned through line balancing. The predictable nature of changes in a balanced line makes it easier to adjust the production rate.

Reduction of Production Costs and Increase in Profits

• Effective line balancing leads to synchronized performance of workers and machines. No operator is idle, and all machines are utilized to their full potential. This maximization of manpower and machine capacity results in greater process efficiency, reducing costs and increasing profits.

How can you achieve line balancing?

Calculate Takt Time

• Understanding your takt time is crucial, as the goal of line balancing is to match the production rate to takt time. Tulip provides a Takt Time App and Takt Time Dashboard that facilitate the calculation and tracking of takt time, seamlessly integrating it into your production process.
  

Perform Time Studies

• Conducting time studies helps determine the time required to complete each task along a production line. This involves finding out how long employees and machines spend on each part of the process. While traditional methods involve a stopwatch and clipboard, modern options leverage IoT connectivity and cloud computing. With sensors and manufacturing apps, manufacturers can now perform automatic and continuous time studies, eliminating human bias and sample size limitations.

Identify Bottlenecks and Excess Capacity

• Analyze the data from your time studies to identify parts of the process that take longer than takt time, which can lead to late deliveries, high shipping costs, or unhappy customers. Also, identify parts that take less time than takt time, indicating excess capacity.
  

Reallocate Resources

• Consider task precedence, the sequence in which tasks must be carried out, and use a Precedence Diagram if necessary. Rearrange tasks to address bottlenecks and excess capacity. Move resources—workers and equipment—from areas with excess capacity to bottlenecks. This reduces waiting waste and improves production flow. Group tasks to minimize idle time and maximize machine and equipment utilization. Share the workload logically among operators based on performance data, aiming for synchronization where each group of tasks is completed in the same amount of time.
• Evaluate if you have too many or too few workstations. Improved process efficiency from line balancing might create excess capacity, suggesting the need to remove workstations or combine processes. Strive to reduce imbalance between workers and workloads where operators perform consecutive tasks as a unit, maximizing output in the desired time frame.

Make Other Improvements

• Analyze quantitative data on your lines to identify additional opportunities for improvement. Implement process improvements by adjusting operator time, machine time, and setup time. For example, provide additional training to workers who take longer to complete tasks, facilitate transitions to reduce changeover times, upgrade machines, and ensure adherence to proper machine setup and maintenance SOPs. Lean practices such as 5S and visual management create a coherent workspace, reducing time wasted looking for tools and improving efficiency. Poka-yoke, or error-proofing, helps catch defects early, increasing output consistency.

Conclusions

• Line balancing is a crucial optimization task in industrial settings. By enhancing line efficiency, organizations can reduce Lean manufacturing wastes and unlock greater value.