Int. J. Mech. Eng. & Rob. Res. 2013 Anusha L et al.

, 2013

ISSN 2278 – 0149 www.ijmerr.com

Vol. 2, No. 3, July 2013
© 2013 IJMERR. All Rights Reserved

Research Paper

PART AND INFORMATION FLOW CHART (PIFC)

MAPPING FOR ESTABLISHING PULL SYSTEM
IN HEAT TREATMENT AND MACHINING LINE
Anusha L1*, H Ramakrishna1, Sadashiva Baligar2

*Corresponding Author: Anusha L,  anusha.lakshman.88@gmail.com

This paper is to demonstrate the adoption of the Part and Information Flow Chart (PIFC) to
establish PULL/Just-In Time (JIT) System at an automotive industry for a model component in
Heat Treatment and machining line. PIFC is one of the lean tools, also known as Material and
Information Flow Chart (MIFC) or Value Stream Mapping (VSM). It is widely used as a framework
for systematic and structured improvement activities in JIT implementation. In addition, PIFC is
a versatile tool to scrutinize in detail relationships between materials and information flows from
the beginning until the end of any process. The PIFC used is a means to map how the materials
and information is been delivered along the system, in visualizing the studied area. Findings
show that PIFC is an effective tool in identifying wastes (Muda) and source of the waste, areas
for improvement as well as appropriate tools for Kaizen activities.

Keywords: Kaizen, Muda, PIFC, PULL System/JIT, TPS

INTRODUCTION based on customers’ need by identifying and

understanding the customers’ values. Hence,
The process of structuring, operating,
it is characterized as customer focused,
controlling, managing, and continuously
eliminating waste, creating value, dynamic and
improving industrial production systems is
continuous. Just-In Time (JIT) production
commonly associated with basic philosophy
principle mainly based on producing only
of Toyota Production System (TPS). The
saleable products that market need, which
process of finding the points that harm quality,
represents the spirit of creation by the founder
costs, safety and production at workplace, and
“Kiichiro Toyoda”.
to improve them is commonly associated with
basic philosophy and concepts of Kaizen. The TPS is not new to most automotive
philosophy of TPS defined as a process of industries; manufacturers from Japan, such as
optimizing the existing production activity Toyota, Kayaba and Honda, initiated it by which
1
Department Of Industrial Engineering and Management, DSCE, Kumarswamy Layout, Bangalore-78, India.
2
Automotive Manufacturing Industry, Bidadi industrial area, Ramanagar District, India

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Int. J. Mech. Eng. & Rob. Res. 2013 Anusha L et al., 2013

local car assemblers and their suppliers follow is been classified as: (i) transportation; (ii)
it. The reasons why it is applied may vary but it inventory; (iii) motion; (iv) waiting; (v) over
is been executed with the same objectives, processing; (vi) over production; and (vii)
which include on-time delivery, to maintain defect. Ohno believed that these wastes
quality, to increase profit by reducing account for up to 95% of all costs in non-Lean
operations costs and to remain competitive in Manufacturing environment. The Lean
the local as well as global markets. Enterprise Research Centre, Cardiff, UK,
The main goals of TPS are cost reduction through their research reinforced the above
and improvement of productivity, which focuses statement, which concluded that, for a typical
on activities such as eliminating waste, physical product environment, 5% of the total
reducing inventory and continuous activities were Value-Adding Activities (VAA),
improvement. 60% were Non-Value-Adding Activities
(NVAA), and the remaining 35% are necessary
Thus, this research seeks to identify all but NNVAA. Since NVAA is a waste, many
wastes and source of wastes as classified in manufacturers who are aware about this matter
the TPS philosophy and to implement strived to eliminate as much waste as possible
appropriate lean tools for improvement in their system.
activities for the model component at Heat
Treatment and Machining line. The effectiveness of TPS are supported by
a set of lean tools such as Kanban system,
LITERATURE SURVEY Standardized Work (SW), PIF (MIFC/VSM),
In TPS, waste is been defined as anything Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Single
related to the process that adds cost but does Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED), Continuous
not add value to the final product produced. Flow Manufacturing System, Kaizen, 5S,
Waste identification and elimination is one of Heijunka system and others.
the TPS’s goals and believed to be one of the PIFC is the most widely used tool in JIT (Pull
most effective ways to reduce the production System) implementation. Taiichi Ohno, the
cost and increase the profitability of many creator of the TPS and Kanban system in
companies. Some of the examples of wastes Toyota created this tool. PIFC is been used to
elimination activities are elimination of rework, teach TPS and lead major TPS projects in
unneeded transportation, waiting time, rejects Toyota. The main function is to; visually
and non-value-added activities such as multi represent the flow of material and information
handling, recheck and marking process. To on individual processes. Originally, this tool
eliminate waste (Muda), it is important to within the company passed on; through the
understand what waste is and source of the learning by doing, without any standard
wastes. document on how to develop the PIFC.
Taiichi Ohno, Toyota’s Chief Engineer, Eventually, this idea was put forward and
during the development of the TPS almost 50 formalized by Rother in his book “Learning to
years ago, identified seven wastes (Muda). It See”, which teaches the methodology on how

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to exploit this tool and named it Value Stream groove (1G) and two grooves (2G), which
Mapping (VSM). requires tool change and type changeover at
Therefore, most manufacturers, journals and the machining line. The machining line runs on
books use the terms VSM to demonstrate this 8 h per shift and runs in two shifts per day, all
tool instead of PIFC, which is used by Toyota year long except for public holidays and major
and its’ suppliers only. As research done by shutdowns.
Toyota Assembler Team, rather than VSM, the The machining line is a semi-automated
PIFC term and methods is used. production with manual loading and unloading
Both tools, PIFC and VSM have similar at the beginning and the end of the process.
functions and serve the same purpose except The Team Leader (TL) would do the tool change
for some differences in the iconic illustrations and type changeover from 1G to 2G or vice-
during the mapping process. They are rated versa once every day depending on the
as one of the most efficient visual illustration requirement of the customer (Assembly
mechanism in capturing the current state of the PULL). The type change takes a minimum of
system, identifying the long term vision, and 30 min or may vary. The heat treatment runs a
developing a plan to get the target. In VSM, batch production process and maintains some
lead-time for each process is been shown at amount of Work-In-Process (WIP) to meet the
the bottom of the map, in the form of total lead- customer demand without any assembly line
time for the process. While in PIFC, lead-time stoppage.
and related information about the process such Part transfer or loading and unloading
as working time and shift operation are located process between the two work areas is done
at the top of the map. Therefore, it is easy to by a material handler (PC-Production Control
access via PIFC, the detailed information member) in large quantities according to the
about process. production order, i.e., the PC member takes
care of this transfer using tow motor and dolly
CASE STUDY BACKGROUND to carry parts. When the request arrives, the
The assembly line of the automotive industry PC member will refer to the requested part
works on the customer demand, which works using Kanban and accordingly load the parts.
on a PULL system. The assembly line acts as If no parts were available, PC member would
the customer for its subsequent process, post a delay Kanban indicating the
machining line and heat treatment area. My requirement of part.
case study area for this research is between
heat treatment area and machining line for a The production planner/production control
model line component PART X*. The department on a monthly basis prepares the
machining line produces PART X-part, that is production schedule. This schedule used as a
supplied to next process (Heat Treatment-Jig reference point by the production department
Setting), which is currently working on a PUSH to monitor their weekly and daily production
system. The PART X part has two types—one outputs and variations in fulfilling the

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customer’s order. The schedule usually is, comparison. Current PIFC for model line
updated further as needed according to daily component PART X is as shown in Figure 1.
requirement.
ANALYSIS
METHODOLOGY There are many wastes identified in the
This is a model component based case study; system. Kaizen Point Check Sheet (KPCS) is
therefore, through the following process data been used to document all the wastes and
was gathered. Observation were done during areas that were identified for Kaizen, as in the
normal production time with the aid of Table 1 below.
documents such as Standard Operating We would focus on improving the system
Procedures (SOP), existing Process Flow with the help of PIFC for the model line using
Chart (PFC), Daily Production Report (DPR) the Type-III standardized procedure for which
and conversation with the production engineer “takt time cannot be calculated, and the same
and line leader. By using stopwatch and by work is not repeated”, using the Operational
referring to Production Control System (PCS) analysis chart, Workload chart. For any Type-
data is collected. For cycle time analysis, time III standardized work, Total Workload = Regular
study method was been used according to the Working Hours.
method introduced by Frederick W Taylor. With the help of workload chart as shown in
Then, standard cycle times and batch figure 2 and 3, operation analysis chart shown
processing time for the studied line were been in figure 4 and 5, it is found that PC-2 member
studied. These data was been used during line was doing a supplementary job of walking to
analysis, mapping current PIFC and data other PC member (PC-1) to collect child
Kanban, Kanban post exchange with PC-1
member. This included muda of 1.67 %( 7min
Figure 1: Current Part 28sec) of walking and 0.51 %( 2 min 20 sec)
and Information Flow of exchanging. The PC-2 member also did
the irregular job with the muda percentage of
4.48% (19 min 50 sec).
Through Operation analysis and Workload
chart of the PC members under study, it was
found that PC-2 member was doing a
supplementary job of walking to other PC
member (PC-1) to collect child Kanban,
Kanban post exchange with PC-1 member
and this included muda of 1.67% (7 min 28 s)
of walking and 0.51% (2 min 20 s) of
exchanging. The PC-2 member also did the

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Table 1: Kaizen Point Check Sheet (KPCS)

Line Machining Line Component: Part X (1G and 2G)

No. and Heat Treatment
Types of waste Areas Description

1. Transport Part handler (PC member- PC1: Muda of waiting and walking for kanban
Heat Pick up and supply, PC2: exchange between both the PC members
Machining Pick up and supply ) was been identified.

2. Inventory Machining- FG chute line side No FG inventory or Large FG stored of the type
that is not required / requested by next process.

Heat treatment (Jig setting) No stock available for the actual required part
to do jig setting and also at instances, there is
no stock of either type of the variant of a
particular part.

3. Motion Machining Line TL has to check the status of stock and delay
posted at the Heat Treatment (jig setting area)
to do type change. No proper triggering for
machining line happening.

Heat Treatment The child kanban moved from jig setting area
to heat out by the member.

PC 2 member For exchanging the kanban post, the PC

(Machining Pick up member is walking back and forth.
and supply)

4. W aiting Heat Treatment Parts are not available to do jig setting. The
(Jig setting) stock piled up on the chute side is a mismatch
of what is required and what‘s requested.
Delay of parts.

5. Over production Machining Line Due to frequent machine breakdown and the
bottleneck process within the machining line,
it takes extra man-hours and energy such as
electricity, oil.

irregular job with the muda percentage of 2. No standardized work applied at study area
4.48% (19 min 50 s). and operators performed their task without
fully adhering to SOP.
The following are the conclusions made
through data collection and observation: 3. Operators frequently stopped production
due to machine breakdown.
1. Triggering at the machining line for doing a
type changeover is not taking place 4. Large delay of parts at Heat treatment-jig
properly. setting area, waiting for parts from the
machining line.

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5. No stock of required parts, due to a Figure 5: Operational Analysis Done

mismatch of, what is required and what‘s for PC-1 Member-Heat Treatment
requested at Jig setting area.

Figure 2: Workload Chart of

PC-2 Member-Machining Line

6. The machining line is operating on a PUSH

system and limited continuous flow, with a
delay of not producing the requested parts.
7. Bottleneck occurred between both
workstations with low work-in-process
Figure 3: Workload Chart of PC-1 stock.
Member-Heat Treatment
There are many non-value added activities
such as walking to other PC member, collect
child Kanban, movement of child Kanban within
heat treatment area, movement of Team
leader/Team members to collect the status of
delay posted at heat treatment area.

IMPROVEMENT ACTIVITIES
A set of Lean metrics identified for the case
study area, also known as, lean parameter is
Figure 4: Operational Analysis Done for the most common tool used by many
PC-2 Member-Machining Line
manufacturers to measure and monitor the
impact of implementing JIT techniques in their
company. This is been used as a guide for the
team to achieve its target and it helps to drive
continuous improvement and waste
elimination.
For this case study of a model line purposes,
the lean metrics such as product lead-time,
cycle times, capacity, overtime, breakdown

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times, and continuous flow manufacturing 5. Plan the production hours to meet any delay
system is been adopted. All the metrics are that occurs.
been documented in Cell Kaizen Target Sheet
EXPECTED RESULTS
(CKTS) as shown in Figure 6. Target for the
metrics was set based on the company’s As the implementation is still in process, the
results are to be calculated. After the
targets which is to run the production at or less
implementation fully settled and stabilized as
than the assembly takt time. Then, improved
well as the line performance being achieved
PIFC designed and mapped as shown in
the set target, we use the Cell Kaizen Target
Figure 6.
Sheet (Table 2) to perform results comparison
Figure 6: Proposed Part on the metrics used.
and Information Flow
Table 2: Cell Kaizen
Target Sheet (CKTS)
Line: Machining Model line Part X
and Heat Component: (1G and
Treatment 2G)
Metrics Existing Target Results
Line cycle 78 < 72
time (s)

Manufacturing 300 335

capacity
(parts/shift)

Delay 35/more zero Yet to

(Numbs) Calculated
Five major improvement activities are been
implemented to achieve the mentioned Break-down 2 h/more zero
time (h)
targets:
Continuous No Yes
1. De-link the routing between the flow manufac-
workstations; eliminate the Kanban turing system
exchange between the two PC members.
2. Workload balancing and reduce bottleneck AKNOWLEDGMENT
process. I would like to thank Mr. Madhukumar B C,
3. Continuous flow manufacturing system and Manager, Automotive Manufacturing Industry,
eliminate mouth-of-word communication Bidadi, Ramanagar District, India, for his
(among the team leaders/team members) valuable guidance through out this project work.
between both workstations. I would also like to thank Mr. Prasanna D,
4. Eliminate stability issues such as machine Group Leader, Automotive Manufacturing
breakdown and quality problem through Industry, Bidadi, Ramanagar District, India, for
detailed root cause and counter measures his usefull mentorship through out this project
analysis by using 5-Why methods. work.

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