Spaghetti Diagram
Spaghetti Diagram
Spaghetti Diagram
Various methods and tools can be used for production and assembly
workstation layout evaluation and design support. The paper describes the concept
of worker movement analysis tool based on Spaghetti diagram as a result of
international project focused on lean production. The presented solution allows to
create diagrams and evaluate them according to time, distance, number of visited
places, etc.
1. Introduction
layout” there are various criteria. One of the criteria can be the workers´
movements. Spaghetti diagram is an aid to support their visualisation and
analysis.
There appear some modern accesses how to fulfil above mentioned
demands. One of them is concept called Industry 4.0. - Digitalisation for
productivity and growth. This concept depends among other things also on:
- “The application of information and communication technology (ICT) to
digitise information and integrate systems at all stages of product creation
and use (including logistics and supply), both inside companies and across
company boundaries;” [8]
- “Collection of vast quantities of data, and their analysis and exploitation,
either immediately on the factory floor, or through big data analysis and
cloud computing.”[8]
2. Lean Production
Lean manufacturing or lean thinking [9, 10] has its origin in the concept to
achieve better economic results with a special focus on waste elimination. The
concept of waste (Mudas) is based on Toyota production philosophy by Taiichi
Ohno [11], which was later identified as Lean Production or Lean Thinking [9]. In
principle, there are seven basic types of waste:
- Transport, which does not add value to the product and therefore the costs
associated with transporting are counted into waste.
- Inventory, e.g. stocks of materials, unfinished products during the
manufacturing process as well as finished products in stock.
- Motion, thus any movement of the product which does not add to the
product value.
- Waiting, i.e. any kind of waiting.
- Over-Processing, i.e. added value of products, that the customer does not
actually requires.
- Overproduction, namely the production of more products than necessary.
- Defects, i.e. products or services are different from customer requests or
from desired specifications.
3. Spaghetti diagram
Spaghetti diagram, Spaghetti chart, Spaghetti model or also Spaghetti plot
is a method to view the movement of the object in the system with help of a line
[12]. The surveyed moving object may be a worker, material and so on. A system
in which such object moves can be a production area, part of a building, or
workshop. The result resembling spaghetti gives its name. Fig.1 shows an
example of Spaghetti diagram [13].
Analysed process
specification
Worker movement
specification
If we have a drawing of layout in scale, the tool can be used directly in the
workshop proposal because such information is sufficient for the analysis.
For the implementation of the concept has been processed the Excel
application. Application is combination of Excel functions and VBA macros.
Application fulfils following identified requirements:
- easy application and use of all its functions,
- the possibility of easy expansion and replenishment by users,
- compatibility with other applications to support Lean Assembly,
- ability to integrate applications into a larger unit.
144 Katarína Senderská, Albert Mareš, Štefan Václav
The first task is to load the layout. The second task is to define individual
points – places in the layout to or through which the worker moves. Fig.3 shows
an example of assembly workstation layout loading with the principle of
determining the coordinates of individual points.
workshop 2D model
loaded into Excel
cursor movement
defined points
The test of proposed system for worker movement analysis was realised in
the company Eurostyle Systems Slovakia Ltd. based in Liptovský Mikuláš. The
company is a supplier of components for the automotive industry. The workplace
for verification of the proposed system is the workplace for assembly of plastic
panel that is mounted in the back door of Peugeot 208 which is produced in the
PSA Peugeot Citroen Slovakia in Trnava.
Department at which the proposed program was tested is aimed at the
assembly of automotive components (Fig.5) – the luggage compartment cover. In
the process of its production, a plastic panel comes on the conveyor to the
checking station where it is checked. If the panel is correct, it is transferred by
workers to another workplace. If it is not correct, it is moved into the scrap box.
Gradually the panel passes through six stations. The last station is a palette that
stores packaged finished parts.
In the workplace there are pallets (buffer stores) from which components
are transferred to individual workplaces. Two workers operate all six stations.
They also supply the stations with necessary components. One worker operates
the conveyor, checking station, workplace 1 and workplace 2. The other worker
removes parts from the workplace 2, operates the welding machine, inserts parts
in plastic bags and places packed parts into pallets. Since the maximum duration
of the operation is 36 seconds, it is clear that the workers are constantly on the
move.
At the end of the shift it is obvious that workers feel tired. To reduce the
burden on workers as a result of walking, it was decided to analyse the movement
of workers during work. The aim of this analysis is to determine the actual path of
workers’ movements. For this purpose it was used the above-mentioned software
tool.
146 Katarína Senderská, Albert Mareš, Štefan Václav
2 3 4 5 6
1
7 8 9
11
12 13
10
Legend: 1 – conveyor; 2 - checking station; 3 - box with plastics fasteners; 4 - workstation 1; 5 -
workstation 2; 6 - welding machine; 7 - table with plastics bags; 8 - stand for paper separators; 9 -
racks for paper separators; 10 - box for final products; 11 - scrap box; 12 - boxes with sound
insulators; 13 - rack
Fig.5 3D model of analysed assembly workstations
Worker 2 Worker 1
Distance of 2 workers
Distance of the two workers movement according to movement according to
defined classification defined classification in %
From the graph we can see the distance the worker passed and into which
category movements belong (transport, movement, supplies, etc.). The
observation was performed for 10 minutes. Results are shown for a second
worker. During this time, there were repeated the same movements and were
made 10 pieces of product. During this time the worker walked a total distance of
68420 mm. Calculated on a manufactured item that is 6842 mm. Since per one
shift, the average production is 490 units, the minimum distance travelled by
workers for one shift is 3352.58 metres.
148 Katarína Senderská, Albert Mareš, Štefan Václav
The total distance is even greater because of the need to supply workplace
2 with sound insulators from buffer stores. The station for components packaging
needs to be supplied with plastic bags and the box for the finished parts must be
supplied with separating cartons. It is also necessary, in case a defective piece
occurs to take and put it into Scrap box. Since a faulty piece can be detected by a
second worker at the welding station it is needed to increase the overall length of
the distance by the distance which the worker must walk to Scrap box and go back
to workstation 2.
Supplying workplace 2 with sound insulators needs to be done once for
every 20 units produced products and the distance is 4500 mm. This increases the
overall distance by 112.5 metres per shift.
Supplying with plastic bags needs to be carried out once for every 100
units products and the length is 4050 mm. This increases the overall distance by
201.6 metres per shift.
On average in one shift are detected 5 faulty units at the welding
workplace. This increases the overall distance by 62.5 metres per shift.
When finished parts are placed in containers, separating cartons must be
inserted between the individual pieces. In one container, there are 24 parts
arranged over 8 units in three rows above each other. The separating cartons are
inserted between the individual rows to separate the rows from each other, e.g. 1
carton for every 8 pieces of the product. This extends the overall length of 73.5
metres per shift.
Other cartons are put into each row to separate pieces from each other, e.g.
one box for every other piece. As these cartons are smaller, after inserting a large
carton, a worker takes smaller separating cartons (4 pieces) at once and puts them
in a container. This extends the total length by 122.5 metres per shift. The total
distance travelled by a second worker per one shift is therefore 3925.18 metres.
In terms of the lean production concept, these motions are waste of type
Transport and Motion. It is therefore necessary to look for ways how to minimise
them or completely eliminate. The first step to eliminate losses is their
identification. The created Excel application allows to quantify the losses caused
by the transportation and movement. The developed application helps turn
attention to the right direction, i.e. to identify the biggest problems. Of course, it is
not possible to eliminate all non-value added movement of workers, but it is
possible to be able to reduce them. Consequently, it is possible to use the gained
information as a basis for optimising the workplace in terms of layout, to achieve
lower total distance the workers must walk during the workday, and thus less
working time.
Spaghetti diagram application for workers’ movement analysis 149
7. Conclusions
Acknowledgements
The article was written as part of the VEGA 1/0477/14 and the VEGA 1/0824/12
projects supported by the scientific grant agency of the Ministry of Education of the
Slovak Republic and of Slovak Academy of Sciences.
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