Productivity Improvement by Upgrading Skills Using TWI–JI in Special Purpose Machine Manufacturing Company

In the competitive world, most organizations adopt modern tools and techniques for improving their productivity without hammering other business objectives. However, in developing countries like India, which are labor intensive at the same time industry faces a paucity of skilled personnel. In order to achieve success and be profitable, MSMEs are greatly dependent on skilled operators. This study was conducted at a medium-scale special purpose machine manufacturing enterprise for operator's skill enhancement. The objective of the proposed research is to model Training Within Industry–Job Instruction (TWI-JI) management approach to empower the skills among the operators and assess them using the skill matrix and job breakdown sheet (JBS). The welding operators’ skill data has been collected and mapped for different types of welding and assembly operations. Pre-post analysis is performed using certain rating parameters to assess operators’ proficiency for TWI-JI. The implementation of TWI-JI resulted in an overall improvement of the average skill level of the welding section by 14.92%, average operator-wise skill improvement by 14.96%, and an average increase in production output is 20.12%.