Layout Optimisation for the Automation of an Abattoir Packaging Department

Abstract

Kroon s Gourmet Chickens is a chicken farm that rears its own chickens and processes these chickens so as to be sold to the public and major corporations. At the abattoir of the company, there is a continuous need to increase the throughput of the system as the demand for products is ever increasing and unsatisfied. The packaging department of the abattoir was identified by management as the bottleneck of the system, yielding the lowest throughput of all the departments within the company. A thorough literature study is conducted in order to find, analyse and utilise various industrial engineering tools and techniques that analyses the current layout, aids in the process to identify weaknesses in the current layout, provides tools to generate, plan and optimise alternative layouts, to evaluate these layouts technically and economically, and to choose the layout that optimally satisfies the problem definition of the project. The problem definition is to increase the throughput of the packaging department of the abattoir of Kroon s Gourmet Chickens. The Systematic Layout Planning methodology is the foundation according to which the project is conducted. The current layout of the abattoir and the packaging department is analysed using flow charts and relationship diagrams. The seven wastes are identified and analysed, with the adherence to the lean thinking methodology discussed. The economic aspects of the current layout that will influence the evaluation of alternative layouts are identified and discussed. Finally, the material handling techniques and the space requirements of the layout is analysed. Two general approaches to the improvement of any production line s throughput are made. The approaches being automation and improved material flow routes within the department. For the automation alternative, plans are drawn up to implement two conveyors in the packaging department with aligning workstations to speed up the product flow of the department and to minimise the inter-departmental material flow. The improved material flow routes layout is designed with the intent to minimise the number of cross flow routes intersection points of different materials within the department, and to decrease the amount of object and material sets travelling within the department. Flow process charts are drawn up for the two layouts and the products it delivers, being whole and portioned chickens, with the decrease in travelling and processing times calculated. These times are used as the basis for the economic analysis and the throughput evaluation between the layouts and the current layout in the evaluation of alternatives. The layouts improvements on the seven wastes are discussed along with changes in any material handling techniques.

After the layouts were analysed by the Analytic Hierarchy Process model, according to criteria that best distinguishes the advantages of the layouts, being potential delays, ease of maintenance, throughput and annual operating cost, the best layout was determined as the layout design based on the conveyors in the department. This layout s score of the Analytic Hierarchy Process was 58.03%, with a throughput increase in the packaging department of 47.54%.