DONNER COMPANY

Case Analysis

Group AG1 Aryan Jain Hamza Umar Nikita Jain Parth Shah Preetinisha

(13610) (13627) (13632) (13635) (13637)

INTRODUCTION

Donner Company was started in 1985. Since the start of operations, it had specialized in making circuit boards for experimental devices and for pilot production runs. Edward Plummer was the President and Bruce Altmeyer was the firm's Design Engineer. The manufacturing process involved production of circuit boards known in the trade as "soldermask over bare copper"(SMOBC) boards .Edward Plummer is reviewing the position of the company in 1987 so that operations for 1988 can be planned effectively.

ORDER PROCESSING
The flow diagram of Donners order processing process is shown below:

Estimate Labour and Material Costs

Prepare a bid for customers/clients

No

Bid Accepted?
YES

No Order Processing

Rush Order or Normal Order?

NORMAL

RUSH

Order Size>1000?

Promise Delivery in 3 weeks Log Blueprint & factory order sent to supervisor

No

Promise Delivery in YES 5 weeks

Send Specifications and documents to purchasing agents Finalize Scheduling Decisions

Release Order to Shop Floor

The Manufacturing Process for the Printed Circuit Boards at Donner Company
The manufacturing process comprises of 3 major steps:
Preparation Stage: This stage deals with preparation. After placing the order, customers

provide master artwork to the company. The master artwork contains image of the circuit design which is converted into a negative image showing the actual dimensions. After this the company buys epoxy sheets which are cut in to 8- 12x18 panels that have holes drilled into them to fix them to the table during Image Transfer Stage.

Preparation Stage

Receive master artwork from the customer

Create negative image from received artwork

Buy Epoxy Sheets of size (36 x 48)

Inspection of Epoxy sheets

Cut sheets into 8 12x18 panels

 Image Transfer Stage: Here, the panels are pinned to the table and approx 500 holes are

drilled into them as per customer design requirements. The drilling can be done either manually or using CNC Micronic Jr. High Speed drills and programmed drilling patterns that are fed to the CNC. After this, drilling and metallization is done followed by DFPR coating and they are exposed to UV rays for etching the circuit pattern onto the panel. After etching, panels are electroplated with the bare copper conductors with tin and etching out the exposed DFPR.

Image Transfer Stage

Manual Drilling Drilling process

Pin panel to drill table

Metallization

?
Drilling by CNC Micronic Jr. High Speed Drill

Tin Stripping

Washed scrubbed and coated withDFPR

Chemical Etching of exposed DFPR

Tin Plating

Electroplating bare copper conductors

Wash out unexposed DFPR using DFPR developing machine

Lay negative of artwork on the panel and expose to UV Light

Fabrication Stage: In this stage, panel is processed through solar mask and silk-screening, it leaves behind a protective epoxy coating over the circuit traces The exposed copper is covered with solder due to solder bath process. In profiling, panels are cut and sized according to customer required dimensions. Profiling can be done, either by CNC routing or by Stamping. This is followed by visual inspection and electrical testing. Now circuit boards are sent for packaging and shipping thereby completing the process.

Fabrication Stage

Solder-mask

Molten Solder-bath

Panel Profiling

CNC Routing

Punch Press

Packaging and Shipping

Visual Inspection and Electrical Testing of circuit boards

Order size to schedule on CNC Router and Punch Press:

If we consider m as the order size, Setup time(min) 150 50 Run time(min) 0.5/circuit board 1.0/circuit board Total time(min) 150+0.5m 50+m

CNC router Punch Press

Time taken by CNC router = 0.5m+150 Time taken by Punch Press = m+50 Equating and solving the above two equations, we get m=200. If we take an order size of 210, Time taken by CNC Router= 0.5*210+150 =255 min; Time taken by Punch Press= 210+50=260 min. If we take an order size of 100, Time taken by CNC Router=0.5*100+150=200 min; Time taken by Punch Press=100+50=150 min. Hence, if m>200 CNC Router should be used and if m<200 Punch Press should be used. CNC Router Punch Press Order size > 200 Order size < 200

Time needed to produce an order size of 8 circuit boards , 80 circuit boards and 800 circuit boards:

Order size 8 80 800

Total time(min) 694.05 3889.50 5369.00

Time taken/ Board (min/ board) 86.76 48.62 6.71

Note The above calculations have been done on excel sheet, and the corresponding table is shown in the subsequent pages.

No of Boards = 8
Standard Production Time
Times (in minutes)

Total Run Time Operation Type PREPARATION

Artwork Generation Inspect & Shear Punch Tooling Holes IMAGE TRANSFER Drill Manual CNC Drill Metallization Dry Film Photoresist 1. Panel Prep 2. Laminate & Expose 3. Develop Electroplate Strip DFPR Etch & Tin Strip FABRICATION Soldermask Solder Dip Profile Punch Press Inspect and pack Total 50 45 1.0/board 1.5/board 8 12 45 30 1.5/panel 0.5/panel 1.5 0.5 5 20 20 25 5 10 0.20/panel 2/panel 0.2/panel 8.5/panel 0.2/panel 0.2/panel 0.2 2 0.2 8.5 0.2 0.2 15 240 10 0.08/hole 0.004/hole 0.75/panel 320 0 0.75 29 20 10 0 0.5/panel 0.5/panel 0.5 0.5

Operating Time

Setup

Run

29 20.5 10.5

335 0 10.75 5.2 22 20.2 33.5 5.2 10.2

46.5 30.5 58 57 694.05

No of Boards = 80
Standard Production Time
Times (in minutes)

Total Run Time Operation Type PREPARATION

Artwork Generation Inspect & Shear Punch Tooling Holes IMAGE TRANSFER Drill Manual CNC Drill Metallization Dry Film Photoresist 1. Panel Prep 2. Laminate & Expose 3. Develop Electroplate Strip DFPR Etch & Tin Strip FABRICATION Soldermask Solder Dip Profile Punch Press CNC Router Inspect and pack Total 50 150 45 1.0/board 0.5/board 1.5/board 80 0 120 45 30 1.5/panel 0.5/panel 15 5 60 35 5 20 20 25 5 10 0.20/panel 2/panel 0.2/panel 8.5/panel 0.2/panel 0.2/panel 2 20 2 85 2 2 7 40 22 15 240 10 0.08/hole 0.004/hole 0.75/panel 3200 0 7.5 29 20 10 0 0.5/panel 0.5/panel 5 5 29 25 15

Operating Time

Setup

Run

3215 0 17.5

110 7 12

130 0 165 3889.5

No of Boards = 800
Standard Production Time
Times (in minutes)

Total Run Time Operation Type PREPARATION

Artwork Generation Inspect & Shear Punch Tooling Holes IMAGE TRANSFER Drill Manual CNC Drill Metallization Dry Film Photoresist 1. Panel Prep 2. Laminate & Expose 3. Develop Electroplate Strip DFPR Etch & Tin Strip FABRICATION Soldermask Solder Dip Profile Punch Press CNC Router Inspect and pack Total 50 150 45 1.0/board 0.5/board 1.5/board 0 400 1200 0 45 30 1.5/panel 0.5/panel 150 50 5 20 20 25 5 10 0.20/panel 2/panel 0.2/panel 8.5/panel 0.2/panel 0.2/panel 20 200 20 850 20 20 0 240 10 0.08/hole 0.004/hole 0.75/panel 0 1600 75 0 29 20 10 0 0.5/panel 0.5/panel 50 50

Operating Time

Setup

Run

29 70 60

1840 85 25 220 40 875 25 30

195 80

550 1245 5369

Specific actions to be taken by Mr. Plummer to reduce the average flow time of jobs processed by Donner:

1. Specialization of job tasks should be done to make the manufacturing process more systematic and organized. Each worker has to be assigned to a particular job task. This will prevent constant shifting of workers from one job to another in a haphazard fashion and reduce inefficiency. Also recruiting new workers may be considered, as specialization of job task may require increase in workforce. 2. Wastage of time can be avoided by proper positioning of equipment. There are certain cases in which more time is taken as equipment of subsequent process is not located in the vicinity. Hence, considerable improvement can be achieved as intermediate time elapsed between the processes could be minimized. 3. Rush orders should be dealt with separate workers and resources to ensure better job flow. Also, the procurement process has to be worked upon as delay in delivery of raw materials creates hassles in the scheduling job and subsequently in the entire process (only after raw materials are received, factory order and blueprint is sent forward).
Problem faced due to varying size of orders:

Donner is trying to do too much by accepting a mix of small and large orders and this policy is creating the following impact: Impact on Shop Floor: 1. Random and non - uniform allocation of workers in various tasks leading to confusion and decrease in productivity. 2. Wastage of time due to unorganized functioning, causing unnecessary delays in finishing the job. 3. Difficulty in determining future course of action due to the varied order size being handled. Hence, the upcoming effects cannot be predicted when work piles up and it is difficult to counter bottlenecks prevalent. Impact on various performance measures: 1. Adherence to delivery time becomes difficult. 2. Compromise on the quality standards which leads to increase in rejection rates. 3. Difficulty in monitoring individual employee performance. 4. Reprocessing creates additional costs. 5. Reduction in overall efficiency as compared to competitors.

Conclusion

Donner Company has a lot to do to improve the efficiency of its operations. The bottlenecks in the process should be dealt with appropriately and specialization of job task should take place. Wastage of time should be avoided by proper positioning of factory equipment and the procurement process should be worked upon to ensure better flow. Also, it should not handle varied order sizes. All these considerations can help it improve its productivity and efficiency.