Bottleneck Improvement

Company Profile

Located in northeast Alabama, Anniston Army Depot is DoD’s Center of Technical Excellence for Ground Combat Systems. With its state-of-the-art maintenance and overhaul facility, it has earned the reputation of "The Tank Rebuild Center of the World." Over 3000 direct employees and an even larger number of contractor and vendor employees make it one of the major economic drivers in the state of Alabama.

Situation

The management at the Anniston depot was concerned about a widening gap between cost accrual and revenue generation. Primary reason for this gap was the existence of sharp bottlenecks in certain areas where long queues made parts to wait. These bottlenecks were causing longer cycle times for tank overhaul and thereby longer time for revenue realization. Key amongst these problem areas was the Turbine Engine overhaul operation.

The Turbine Shop is a complex manufacturing environment since there is a high degree of uncertainty in the processing times and the routings (they depend on the condition of the part). Planning and scheduling of this operation was perceived to be a major research problem.

Solution

The Alabama Productivity Center team identified critical bottlenecks in the process and suggested ways to de-bottleneck those operations. Measures to improve the operational efficiency of the turbine engine overhaul operation were suggested. Simple methods for improved planning and scheduling were researched and implementation mechanisms formulated. The team is now carrying out applied research on efficient planning and scheduling methods for this complex remanufacturing environment.