Automated assembly system exercise:

PINARELLO GATES S.P.A.

Pinarello Gates is a medium size company located in Roncobilaccio. The production site is 70000mq, 40000 of these are
indoor.
Owing to the continuously growing market that has lead Pinarello to increase its revenue year after year, the top
management has decided to start the construction of a new 5000mq building to host the commercial offices and a new
warehouse.
Mr Predacchio, plant manager and your boss, is telling you about the last meeting he had with Mr Pinarello, owner and
President of Pinarello Gates.
Mr. Pinarello, I have asked this meeting with you to talk about a new opportunity. With a few euros, it is possible to
modify the project for the new building so to get an indoor area of 7500mq.
Ok, then?
Let me go onyou know that we still assemble the control box of our automatic gates in a way that resembles
craftsmanship. Each operator has its own station and does all the assembly operations on the circuit board using very
different toolsfirst the soldering gun to weld fuses, then the screwdriver to fix the circuit board to the case
It has been like this for 40 years, I have started in my fathers garagethe first control boxes were as big as this suitcase
and the first remote controls were as big as this packet of cigarettenow we do control boxes as big as this pocket diary
and remote controls as big as this box of matches.
So much time has passed since then. I have bought the products that are manufactured by our main competitors so to
have the possibility to dismount them and check the quality of their assembly process. Strict tolerances show an assembly
process that is extremely accurate. I do believe that the only way to achieve such a high quality is the one of automating
our assembly process
Mmmm, now I start to understand the point go on please!
I have studied the solutions that have been proposed by the two main companies of industrial automation operating in
our sector. The best solution is the one to set up a line for final assembly of our control boxes. This new line could be
located in the new building that should be a little bit larger and be connected to the old production site.
I dont care about the location of the linehow much would it cost?
WellI made a rough calculation, nevertheless the final cost would depend upon several factors
I do not have any appointment this afternoon. Please go on and tell me all these factors!
The most promising proposal by the contacted companies is as follows: the line will be made up of 5 stations in a circle
and could be with or without buffers. This line would require the presence of two operators. In line management (with
special reference to management of the line stops) operators could follow the policy according to which the operator
changes the defective component with a good one: after the unit (product) is repaired, the machine is re-started. I have
collected the main data for the analysis to be done.

Have you already done a detailed analysis of these factors?

Well, to tell you the truth first I wanted to discuss with you
I see. Let us do like thisI do not see any problem in making the new building bigger. Nevertheless, I want a detailed
analysis of different alternatives. I like this project, but I want to be sure that you analysed all the relevant factors: plant
costs, managements costs, problems in implementation, influence on our organizationwe will meet again next week.

Now Mr Predacchio is talking to you:

Dear colleague I rely on you. I promised to Mr Pinarello something that goes beyond my knowledge but I rely on your
skills and expertise. Would you be able to prepare for me a detailed analysis so to answer our presidents requests? Of
course if everything works out well, you will get something in return the director of our manufacturing engineering
department is gonna retire next year and we will need to find a suitable person to replace him
The tasks I assigned you are clear. You will need to prepare an electronic sheet to compute the following parameters:

- probability that machine stop (Yi);

- matrixes [Mi] of machines;
- matrixes [Oi] of operators;
- transition matrixes of machines;
- transition matrixes of line;
- output vector.
Once you have made this electronic sheet, you will be able to compute the output vector associated to different design
solutions also keeping into account different possibilities for line management and using data in ATTACHMENT 1.
Then it would be possible to do a rough analysis of the economic convenience of different alternatives. I want you to
highlight all critical issues that cannot be quantified economically.
In order to help me prepare the report for Mr Pinarello, I ask you to analyse the costs in the two alternatives: line with
and without buffers said Mr Predacchio repeating what Mr Pinarello said before.

ATTACHMENT1
Defect Probability:

X1 X2 X3 X4 X5
0,0213 0,0011 0,021 0,02 0,013

Sensor intervention level:

b1 b2 b3 b4 b5
0,96 0,9 0,96 0,94 0,96

Costs:
- Hourly cost for operator working in-line 20
- Unit cost of circuit board 18
- Cost of components that are assembled on each circuit board 12

Other relevant information:

- Cycle time: 3 minutes
- Time for intervention of the operator: 4 minutes
- Yearly demand: 46.000 pieces
- Vector of unit entering the line {1; 0; 0}