Jones Manufacturing Company
...g the distances between moving the parts across the entire room like from B to D in the current diagram, or from D all the way back to A as in steps four and five. In following the order of all seventeen operations, I also noted that there doesn't seem to be any automation or use of technology to help streamline the communications flow between departments either. Everything seems to still be a very labor-intensive and manual process. There appeared to be bottlenecks in both departments A and C. My layout was an attempt to minimize the time and effort required to move these parts back and forth several times during the overall process. Purchasing the gravity conveyors to aid in this also seems like it would be beneficial and worth the investment. The conveyors would certainly assist in maintaining a consistent production flow even beyond the five weeks needed for the first shipment. I also suggest switching where shipping and receiving currently are because I would think you'd want to receive materials closest to where the process starts and ship from where the process either ends or where you'd store the finished goods inventory. To accomplish this, one additional alternative after shifting around the departments to maximize the most efficient flow between them, would be to move the office to where the unused space currently is and make the office where the “work-in-process” storage could be held. Overall, I think a huge hindrance is the layout of the plant layout. That SPMF area wasn't originally set up for this part number in the first place. It's great to have that additional space, but if JMC isn't up for investing in almost a total remodeling of the area, then I don't believe they should've taken the ord...