Adapting Industrial Engineering Techniques to Optimising Productivity in Manufacturing Operations

The conversion department is in desperate need of increasing production while reducing input resources. The conversion department is a recently formed department inside company XYZ in South Africa, and it is currently moving from the introduction phase to the growth phase of its life cycle. The current productivity in the Converting department is a significant obstacle that impedes the growth of the South African-based factory and is unsuitable for long-term operations. Lead times that are a fraction of the takt time, staff and equipment utilization ranging from 40% to 70%, no standardised work, and the absence of standard operating procedures all have a detrimental impact on productivity and need the adoption of industrial engineering approaches. As a result, the study will use industrial engineering techniques such as work-study, and ECRS (remove, combine, reorganize, simplify) to analyze the reasons that contribute to overall low productivity and strategies to improve it. To answer research questions, researchers used a pragmatic research philosophy to examine data based on these components. The researcher also conducted a literature review to validate current knowledge of manufacturing department productivity. The study’s goal is to boost overall productivity and help the department navigate the growth-to-maturity phase of its life cycle.