Development of a Production Planning Method for the NIFOR Digester Screw Press

Abstract

In most production environments, the problem of efficiently scheduling production jobs on several machines is an important consideration when attempting to design a work plan that makes effective use of the available resources because job scheduling in manufacturing is at the crux of production planning because of its impact on revenues. This work examined the production planning and scheduling of jobs at the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR) with the aim of developing an effective production planning method for the production of one of its products the Digester Screw Press (DSP). The material flow pattern and current manufacturing practice were observed and production data was collected on machine set up and run times. The data collected was used to estimate the actual average run times for all the machines and the total processing times for each of the three components that make up the Digester Screw Press. The Microsoft Project 2003 was used as a tool in producing an improved job schedule based on the shortest processing time rule. The technique has reduced the general processing time for the production of DSP from 157hours to 99hours. It provides low machine waiting time, high machine utilization and reduced job tardiness across the shop floor.