Productivity improvements in a refrigeration equipment company
Tutor / Supervisor
Student
Ibars Cubel, David
Document type
Bachelor thesis
Date
2019
rights
Restricted access - author's decision
Publisher
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
UPCommons
Abstract
Thermo King isa leading company in the manufacture of transport temperature control systems. In the factoryReftrans S.A., refrigeration units for vans are designed and manufactured. The plant has 4 production cells where a wide range of units are assembled, approximately 27,000 per year. The objective of this work is to increase the productivity of the plant intwo ways: reducing the manufacturing time and reducing the material cost of manufactured units. In order to achieve this aim, a process analysis of one of the plant's production lines and three productivity projects have been carried out.Once the operations timesinvolved in the projects havebeen reduced, the processes in the line have been redistributed, in order to reduce the operator's cycle time.The objectives of reducing manufacturing and cycle times have been met, allowing that 356annualunits more could be produced. The componentssavings have been more than 36,000 euros per year,but without achieving the initial objective. This fact has been compensated when calculating the savings for extra work, which have been more than 25,000 euros per year.After calculating the NPV and the IRR, it can be stated that the investment is profitableand with a return period of 1.6years
