Establishing monthly production targets with varying number of employees

M

macoise

My company manufactures electronic products under a high-mix / low-volume scheme. We have established different assembly lines to cater to each product group;meaning Assembly 1 can manufacture Product A, B, or C at any given time while Assembly Line 2 can manufacture Product D, E and F, and so on.

Each of the products have equivalent Product Unit value (PU) depending its size and complexity.

For example, product A is equal to 1 PU while products B, C, D are equal to 2 PU each.

If we set our production goal to 1000 PU per month, that will make 2.5 PU per employee if we currently have 500 employees. Given the above, how should I establish my target PU per employee if the number of employees keeps changing every month?
 
P

palmer

The only thing I can think of is base it on average number of employees per month.

We have months where we are slow and lay ee's off due to the lack of work. This somestimes changes the monthly output depending on what they are producing. We have a large variety of products but there is a base and then shifts from that base.

If you don't know from month to month how many ee's you will have it is like throwing darts at a dart board (or being a weatherman on tv :lmao:). Best guess scenario.
 

DanteCaspian

Quite Involved in Discussions
The book Made-to-Order Lean: Excelling in a High-Mix, Low-Volume Environment may be of some help for you. It should give you some tools to do what your asking and offer methods on how to do it better.

I met Greg, the author a couple of years ago when taking the course that was derived from his book. An excellent approach to simplification to HMLY work places. Some of the manual functions offered in the text are irrelevant if you have a robust ERP system and real-time scheduling, but the principals of the science are essential in my opinion.
 
B

bhmdave

My company manufactures electronic products under a high-mix / low-volume scheme. We have established different assembly lines to cater to each product group;meaning Assembly 1 can manufacture Product A, B, or C at any given time while Assembly Line 2 can manufacture Product D, E and F, and so on.

Each of the products have equivalent Product Unit value (PU) depending its size and complexity.

For example, product A is equal to 1 PU while products B, C, D are equal to 2 PU each.

If we set our production goal to 1000 PU per month, that will make 2.5 PU per employee if we currently have 500 employees. Given the above, how should I establish my target PU per employee if the number of employees keeps changing every month?

I guess I am confused. Why would your target PU per employee change? Wouldn't your PU per employee stay at 2.5, driven by your product mix requirements, determining your number of employees needed? If you had a product mix requirement of 750 PU, at 2.5 per employee, you would need 300 employees.
 
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H

Harold P

My company manufactures electronic products under a high-mix / low-volume scheme. We have established different assembly lines to cater to each product group;meaning Assembly 1 can manufacture Product A, B, or C at any given time while Assembly Line 2 can manufacture Product D, E and F, and so on.

Each of the products have equivalent Product Unit value (PU) depending its size and complexity.

For example, product A is equal to 1 PU while products B, C, D are equal to 2 PU each.

If we set our production goal to 1000 PU per month, that will make 2.5 PU per employee if we currently have 500 employees. Given the above, how should I establish my target PU per employee if the number of employees keeps changing every month?

Maybe I am missing something but why would you even have a target per employee?

Does the number of assembly lines vary each month? Could you have targets for each line instead? This could encourage improved team work and cooperation amongst the employees on the lines. :2cents:
 

rmf180

Involved In Discussions
Harold hits the nail on the head! Properly used, LEAN is not about driving people to produce the number of widgets you want, it is about producing the number of high quality products the customer wants. Too many companies miss the boat when they focus on headcount, utilization, etc. Truely sucessful LEAN companies treat personnel costs as fixed. How much cooperation will you get from a workforce which sees every improvement followed by a round of lay offs? Respect for people, the second pillar of LEAN. Pay attention!
 
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