ABSTRACT
Theaim of this study is to investigate why the implementation of Unity and Efficiency in Production(UEP)is not yielding the expected results in PAN. The overall operations, production and sales are still on the low trend.This survey examined how the adaptation of UEP tools and the level of functions integration relate to the overall implementation success.A well-structured questionnaire distributed andcollected from fourty respondents (at supervisory level) were analyzed to determine the level of understanding of the philosophy, the usage of UEP tools and the scope of the UEP implementation in relation to the success of the implementation.The chi-square test statistics was used to test the research hypotheses generated at 0.05 level of significance. This is to find out if there exists relation between the adaptation of this method and the overall success of the UEP implementation.
The result of the hypotheses tested revealed that all critical aspects were more or less considered (i.e. 4 out of 15 were not taken into account by at least 50% of the respondents). The lowest score (critical value) of 40% is an indication that all aspects considered are relevant/important for this research work. This is also an indication that the findings flow in line with established theories and literatures. The hypotheses also show that majority of the tools have remarkable relationship with UEP implementation success. The overall responses from questionnaireanalyzedclearly show that the UEP concept was not fully integrated into all company operations/functions. This made the overall expectations of using the principles notentirely fulfilled.
The general inferencefrom this survey is that activities in PAN could be enhanced for high level of productivity and efficiency if all findings and recommendationsmade are critically considered by management in the entire value chain.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT
Customers have numerous choices when it comes to buying any product. Combined with choices available to the consumer and expectation of shorter order fulfillment lead times, customers have become more fickle in their purchasing decisions and less loyal to their old long-standing business relationships.
In recent years, companies have become increasingly focused on market demand and customers responsiveness. This has led to the implementation and adoption of manufacturing improvement and optimization techniques in the automotive industry. Optimization is necessary for the control of any business process to achieve better product quality, high productivity with low cost.
Optimization is defined as minimization or maximization of cost function with variable input parameters. The word optimization commonly refers to the mathematical handling of parameters in order to maximize or minimize a mathematical function. The global optimization is about finding the best possible solutions for given problems. This makes optimization of various systems an increasingly important activity. Apart from this, manufacturing systems are also optimized using any of the process improvement methods. Improvement methods such as lean, just in time, six sigma and the likes, have contributed immensely to system success and profitability.
In order to optimize the manufacturing process, a company has to have the ability to identify its main bottlenecks in manufacturing process. It needs to be able to set the proper goals, i.e. grouping company‟s activities into modules and set the control points.
