| Importance of Statistics in a Assembly Plant | |
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You may have heard the expression, "it's a numbers game."
Numbers give us powerful means to work a system. By quantifying a system or a
process we can do a number of meaningful tasks such as system testing,
diagnosis, analysis, and improvements. In the scope of our assembly plant, we need statistical data to improve our current operational systems and processes, such as the Sales Quotation System. At the present time, we have insufficient, inadequate and unverified data. Unfortunately, we are basing our calculations (i.e. quotations) on these inaccurate numbers. There is no guarantee that the price quotations we give to the customers are in fact the prices we want to be selling our products at. Our price quotations are also inconsistent. Two customers requesting price inquiries for the same item may not be quoted the same prices. Regrettably, these quotations will vary depending on the sales person, previous quotation used for basis, time of the day, etc. So what is the solution? The solution lies in collecting accurate data and then having procedures in place to ensure that it stays accurate over time. We should have statistics about every item that comes out of our plant. We should know the amount of time it took for each and every step. The data collected this way is very beneficial for a number of reasons. It can help us make accurate and consistent quotations. We can fully understand the processes. We can improve upon them, cut costs, learn from our mistakes, and make an efficient productive system. How do we do it? There are at least two methods of doing this. First is the paper-based system. In this system, shop workers have a stopwatch on their workstation. They time each step and hand print the amount of time taken to do that step along with any feedback. This method is cost and time efficient. There is hardly any cost involved in adding an extra sheet of paper with the item specification sheets that are presently used. The only real cost is the extra time taken to input the data into the computer. The second more costly and longer method is to computerize this process. Each workstation has a desktop machine. The worker enters all the desired data into the computer. This data collected is directly imported into the central data server. Besides collecting information, this desktop machine has a number of other useful options as well. It can
In conclusion, the second option requires expensive, infrastructure setup and would take a long time to develop. To get started we should deploy the first option as soon as possible, though our goal should be to get to the second option.
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