MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING PROCESSES FOR OFF-ROAD BUGGY’S FUEL TANK PRODUCTION

In automotive industry pre-production design and developing a prototype is major substance to enhance the quality and productivity of the process. There is lot of software packages available to simulate the production plan virtually and analyses the bottlenecks, waiting time, lead time and process outcome without spending more cost and time rather taking make and break decisions. Software simulations are the best way to improve the production plan and design by trial and error. In this paper, production plan of a fuel tank used for off-road buggy is solely designed and analyzed with value stream mapping, initially the production plan designated to make 200 fuel tanks per week using man power resources and the demand increased to 2000 tanks per week which lead to implement the automation for the process. The production floor is divided based on the process which is to be carried to make the fuel tank that begins with blanking, continuing folding, welding, final welding and inspection. The total KPI for the 200 fuel tanks per tank found out to be 91. 49 minutes due to manual production process and for 2000 tanks per week found to be 17.16 minutes. Activity utilization charts are also included to show the difference in working span in traditional manufacturing process and automated manufacturing. As the manufacturing is flexible cell, the shop floor design was not changed to reduce the investment.