Designing Toshiba's Notebook Computer Assembly Line Case Study

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Kemisha Ware DBA 8475 Unit III Case Study (Toshiba) April 2015

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Toshiba is a multination electronics corporation which is headquartered in Japan. Toshiba is a company this is known for being a global force in its industry. Globalization in the business industry involves companies, personnel and even governments interacting and integrating in order to engage in international investment and trade (Decenzo and Robbins, 2010). Toshiba maintains its global competitive advantage by mass producing products and shipping them around the world. The mass production of Toshiba products is accomplished quickly and efficiently using the assembly line method. The assembly line method of production is best for producing items in a continuous process. The assembly line process follow specific step and the assembly steps are done in areas referred to as stations (Jacobs and Chase, 2010). An assembly line can be comprised of humans as well as machines. At Toshiba, there are both computers and human employees working the assembly line. The assembly line was designed by engineers but the engineering section manager, Toshihiro Nakamura proposed changes to the current process. The assembly line includes a conveyor belt that is 14.4-meters long. Workers stand side by side working the assembly line with assistant from the supervisor referred to as the supporter (Jacobs and Chase, 2010). Toshiba currently operates with a single assembly line. As the process is currently designed, the manager wanted to increase capacity from 150 units per day to 300 computers a day. Operating on one single assembly line wouldn’t be beneficial for heightened capacity. Pushing out 300 units per day cannot be done with just one single assembly line with workers only operating on a 7.5 hour shift. Currently if there are 10 workers on the assembly line and each employee is at a different “station”. Taking a look at the excel spreadsheet and all of the

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processing times at each station it can be seen that the hold up in processing is at station 9 during the software load (Jacobs and Chase, 2010). If we add the 31 seconds for inserting the memory card for hardware test to the 71 seconds for the test DVD process we get 102 seconds. There is a total of 208 seconds for software load but this step is conducted at the same time on three separate products. Therefore we divide 208 second by 3 and get 69 seconds. Adding 69 to 102 gives us 171 seconds total and this total time needed to finish at station 9 can be used to help with calculating capacity time. Toshiba needs to focus on maximizing its capacity. If the organization maintained the proper number of staff members and continued to have 10 employees running an efficient assembly line for 24 hours a day 7 days a week with each employee working 7.5 hours a day, the company can continue to perform at its maximum capacity. The goal to increase toward 300 units a day is not beneficial for the company. In order to reach this goal, employees will have to work overtime, which could lead to lower employee morale and under performance.

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References DeCenzo, D. A., & Robbins, S. P. (2010). Fundamentals of human resource management, 10th Ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Jacobs, F. R., & Chase, R. B. (2010). Operations and supply chain management (13th ed). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

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Working longer hours could lead to employees being more tired while on the line and they may not have anyone available to relieve them. As the performance of the employees begins to suffer so the quality of work they are putting out. Toshiba should consider relying more on computers and machines and less on increasing the work load of human employees if the company wants to successfully redesign its assembly line system.

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