Improving Efficiency and Reducing Waste in Wood Factory

Abstract

The Egyptian Company for Metal & Wood Industries facility specializes in producing high end outdoor furniture. The Factory is situated in Egypt's 6th of October City's industrial district. The factory was founded in 1986 and has since introduced a new brand ACAJIA which is focused on producing outdoor and indoor furniture. After investigating the outdoor furniture production line, two main problems were observed. The first identified issue is material waste in the spindle molder machine, which contributes to a loss ranging between 1.23% and 2.17% of the total output across all wood cutting machines. The second issue is time waste during the manual assembly process, particularly in the Preparation of Parts stage, which takes approximately 2 hours, with a significant portion of this time being considered nonvalue- adding. The project aims to enhance productivity by reducing material waste by approximately 0.19 % to 0.20 % through the implementation of jigs and fixtures technique. Additionally, it seeks to minimize time waste in the Preparation of Parts stage by around 1.7 hours through the workplace redesign technique. The implementation of the jigs and fixtures technique to address material waste in the spindle molder machine resulted in a significant improvement, saving one full working day per month. The total estimated savings from material reduction ranged between 1,885.6 L.E and 3,285.6 L.E per month. On the other hand, applying the Workplace Redesign technique to improve the Preparation of Parts stage led to a time saving of 7.4 hours per month, with an associated cost saving of approximately 231 L.E.