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Application of ranked positional weights method in springbed production

line balancing
To cite this article: Ikhsan Siregar 2020 IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 801 012098

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TALENTA CEST II 2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 801 (2020) 012098 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/801/1/012098

Application of ranked positional weights method in springbed

production line balancing

Ikhsan Siregar*
Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Sumatera
Utara

*
Email: Ikhsan.siregar@usu.ac.id

Abstract. In the current era of globalization, business competition demands industries in

manufacturing to improve their business strategies are increasingly. The company that
produces spring beds of various sizes has experienced rapid development. Spring bed 180 cm x
200 cm size has the longest process and research on the springbed production line is 180 cm x
200 cm. The company has 9 work stations with 19 work elements with time variation of work
elements which are 50 seconds to 2737 seconds. The problem experienced by the company is
the bottleneck at the assembly station because it has the longest cycle time of 2737 seconds.
One method used in assembly line balancing is the RPW method (Ranked Positional Weights).
The RPW method is an approach to solving problems in line balance and finding solutions
quickly by the number of workstations determination at a minimum by giving weight to each
work elements that has been placed on all work elements. Using the RPW method, obtained
line efficiency, balance delay and smoothing index were 86.09%, 13.91% and 1418.45 with the
number of work stations is 8.

1. Introduction
In the current era of globalization, business competition demands industries in manufacturing and
services to improve their business strategies are increasingly. Industries are expected to increase the
efficiency of production process time so that there is no waste of time that harm the company in
achieving the expected level of production. Competition between companies does not cover regional
and global regions, therefore every company competes continuously in business and ways capable to
compete and have a competitive advantage in order to survive and develop. This is globalization and
consequently in competition. This competition must be supported by the smooth production process by
the company itself [1].
The company is one of the manufacturing companies that produce spring beds have 3 product
specifications, namely 100 cm x 200 cm, 140 cm x 200 cm and 180 cm x 200 cm. The problem of
inaccuracy in the order delivery schedule is caused by an improper production schedule or an under-
optimal production scheduling system. Of the three sizes that will be examined is the spring bed with a
size of 180 cm x 200 cm because it requires the longest assembly time compared to the other
specifications. Observations were made on the making of springbed mattresses and bottlenecks
occurred at per beam assembly stations because the assembly time of per beam is too long. Therefore
it is necessary to balance the line to increase productivity, increase line efficiency, balance delay and
smoothing index. The production line balancing focuses on improving line efficiency, which is aim to
increase productivity. Line balancing uses a work elements assignment balancing approach from
production lines to workstations to minimize the number of workstations and minimize idle time at all
stations for a certain level of output [2] [3]. Process planning is mainly relevant to generating line
balancing set of steps required to approach specified aims, with given constraints, as an attempt to
enhance a part of the criteria [4]. Balancing assembly lines becomes one of the most important parts

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TALENTA CEST II 2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 801 (2020) 012098 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/801/1/012098

for an industrial manufacturing system that should be supervised carefully. Since then, many
industries and for sure researchers, attempt to find the best methods or techniques to keep the
assembly line balanced and then, to make it more efficient. Furthermore, this problem is known as an
assembly lines balancing [5] [6].
Line balancing is an analysis process that tries to equally divide the work to be done among
workstations so that the number of workers or workstations required on a production line is minimized
[7]. In an assembly line, the balancing of workload at different workstations is necessary to avoid the
idle time occurred between them. The time taken for the completion of task in a workstation should
match the task time of next workstations to balance the assembly line [8]. Line Balancing means
balancing the production line or any assembly line. The main aim of line balancing is to distribute the
task evenly over the work station so that the idle time of man of machine can be minimized. Parts
included in the system transfers from one workstation through the other and at the end leaves the
system as a completed product. Transfer lines uses manpower very little when compared to assembly
lines. The certain properties of Transfer lines are transfer and process of a product automatically
through a line. Objectives that should be gained balancing an assembly line are regular material flow,
maximum usage of man power and machine capacity, minimum process times, minimizing slack
times, minimizing workstations, distribute slack times to workstations and reduce production costs [9].
Line balancing consists of a series of work stations that comprises of work elements. A set of work
element having tasks which have a defined cycle time or operating time with a set of interrelated
activities in a certain order. Each work element possesses a task time which is a standard time to
complete the elemental task. The collective time of all the workstations is the total work content that
determines the total time for the assembly. Assembly line balancing is mainly done for the effective
utilization of machine and to achieve less congestion within the production system [10].
The method often used in production line balancing problems is the Ranked Positional Weights
(RPW) method. RPW is heuristic methods commonly utilized to arrange and distribute the description
element time along the workstations in the system [11]. It was introduced by Helgeson and Birnie in
1961. In this method, a Ranked Positional Weight takes into account both the Tek value and its
position in the precedence diagram. Specially, RPWk is calculated by summing Tek and all other times
for elements that follow Tek in the arrow chain of the precedence diagram [12]. The RPW method has
been recognized as one of the techniques of the line balancing process in the manufacturing industry,
which means the process of scheduling assembly activities in a production line aims to maximize
velocity and efficiency at each work station and line balancing so that all work stations operate at the
same velocity. The RPW method proved relatively easy to apply and has been used for scheduling
assembly lines in manufacturing industries [13].
The problems of the line balancing have been solved in previous studies. The research was
presented the line balancing problem in a bakery located in Indonesia. One effort efficiency to do is to
minimize the number of workstations, especially on the assembly workstation path balancing method
of production used the method ranked positional weight (RPW). The observations made in the data
collection as much as 20 times each station observed and calculated test the adequacy and uniformity
of data that can be obtained by standard time. From the data processing method RPW shows increased
production efficiency is 35% at the starting position and following a path balancing the production
efficiency of up to 83% due to, among others, the incorporation of several work stations where the
initial conditions account for 7 stations and after the merger becomes 3 work stations, while initial
jobless 2.97 to 0.33 this means that there is a decrease of 2.64 minutes. Initial wait time balance
64.28% to 16.6%, this means that there is a decrease of 47.68% [14]. Another study conducted in PVT
LTD using RPW method by Vrittika, et al. This study is used to minimize assembly time. After
applying balancing methods to existing assembly line by reducing cycle time 12 min to 10 min then
methods give an more efficient assignment of work element with improvement of line efficiency from
68.58 % to 82.33 % reduced idle time from 23.07 min to 10.6 min, smoothness index reduced from
11.58 to 7.10, increase production rate of 40 units to 48 units [15].

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TALENTA CEST II 2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 801 (2020) 012098 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/801/1/012098

Based on previous research, this research has a Ranked Positional Weight method to balance
assembly lines to improve line efficiency, balance delay and smoothing index.

2. Methodology
This study was conducted in one of the industries engaged in the springbed production in the Medan
city where the object examined in this study was a springbed size of 180 cm x 200 cm. The study
begins with observations to observe and see the state of the company directly. From the results of
observations, it is determined the problem formulation in accordance with the conditions occur in the
company so that the research objectives can be applied. The research objectives determined were a
solution to existing problems. Furthermore, the data collection is the input in conducting this research.
The data needed is the number of work stations, number of work elements, standard time, and idle
number. The standard time is obtained by time measurement using a stopwatch time study with normal
time and allowance consideration given [15]. With these data, data processing is carried out with
several stages, namely making precedence diagrams, doing work elements weighting, sorting based on
weights and task assignment for each work station. Standard time calculation is carried out for all
work centers using the formula.
100%
Ws = Wn x 100%-%Allowance (1)
Then do the line balancing is carried out by using the Ranked Positional Weight method. Then the
optimal work center calculation is done. The optimal number of work centers can be calculated using
the following formula.
Total lead time
WC = (2)
The longest cycle time

After determination the optimal number of work centers, the allocation of work elements is done
with the condition that it does not violate constraint precedence and zoning constraints. Based on the
matrix precedence the weights of each work elements can be obtained from the sum of time worked on
other work elements that have a +1 value on each row. Ranking obtained from the weight value of
work elements that have been done. The final stage is the determination of the cycle time of each work
station to improve the idle number in assembly line. Then the value of line efficiency, balance delay
and smoothing index is obtained based on the RPW method. Calculation of Line Efficiency (LE),
Balance Delay (D) and Smoothing Index (SI) can be done with the calculation below.
∑𝐾
𝑖=1 𝑆𝑡𝑖
LE = x 100% (3)
(K) (CT)

𝑛𝑆𝑚−∑ 𝑆𝑖
DL = x 100% (4)
(n) (Sm)

SI = √∑𝐾
𝑖=1(𝑆𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑥 − 𝑆𝑡𝑖)²
(5)
3. Result and discussion

3.1. Making of precedence diagram

After calculating the work center obtained the optimal number of work center is 8. A precedence
diagram for making a 180 cm x 200 cm springbed can be seen in Figure 1.

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TALENTA CEST II 2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 801 (2020) 012098 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/801/1/012098

Figure 1. Precedence diagram of springbed 180 cm x 200 cm.

Based on the figure 1, it can be seen that several work elements are combined into 1 work center
and the number of work center is 9.

3.2. Arrangement of work elements in actual condition

The division of tasks at each element for all work stations in the actual conditions can be seen in Table
1.
Table 1. Arrangement of work elements in actual condition.
Work Work Standard Number Idle
Center Elements Time
I 1 2418 2648 772
II 2 865
3 596 1601 1819
III 4 1136
5 1193 2551 869
IV 6 1600 1753 1668
V 7 1831 2006 1415
VI 8 748
9 729 1617 1803
VII 10 544
11 552
12 550
13 533
14 50
15 893 3420 0
VIII 16 1600
17 899 2737 683
IX 18 69
19 1764 2008 1228
Total 20340 20340 10441

The number of actual work stations is 9. The number of idle obtained is high of 10441. This is
indicates that it is necessary to do idle minimization to reduce the bottleneck occurs. Line efficiency,
balance delay and smoothing index are 66.08%, 33.92% and 3385.165 respectively.

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TALENTA CEST II 2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 801 (2020) 012098 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/801/1/012098

3.3. Arrangement of work elements using RPW method

The division of tasks at each element for all work stations using the RPW method can be seen in Table
2.
Table 2. Arrangement of work elements using RPW method.
Work Center Work Elements Standard Time Number Idle
I 5 1306
4 1244 2551 403
II 1 2648 2648 305
III 6 1753 1753 1201
IV 2 948
7 2006 2953 0
V 8 819
3 653
9 798
10 596 2866 87
VI 11 605
12 603
13 584
14 55
15 978 2824 129
VII 16 1753
17 984 2737 216
VIII 18 76
19 1932 2008 945
Total 20340 20340 3286

The movement of work elements between the actual method and the RPW method is on work
elements 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Work elements no 5 and 4 move to work station I, work element 1
becomes the work element of station no II, work elements 2 and 3 become work elements of work
stations IV and V, work elements 6 and 7 become work elements of work stations III and IV, work
elements 8 become elements of work stations V. Idle reduction from 10441 to 3286. The number of
work stations is 8. Line efficiency, balance delay and smoothing index respectively are 86.09%,
13.91% and 1418.45.

4. Conclusion
The problem of line balancing production needs to be done to reduce the amount of bottleneck. The
Ranked Positional Weight method is one method that can be used in overcoming production line
problems. There was a reduction in the number of work centers from 9 to 8. Line efficiency values,
balance delay and smoothing index were 86.09%, 13.91% and 1418.45%. Idle reduction occurred
from 10441 to 3286. Performance with the RPW method also proved to be better than the actual
method of the company can be seen from the reduction in the number of work centers, the number of
idle and the value of line efficiency, balance delay and smoothing index better.

Acknowledgement
Authors thank to Kartika Widya Astuti, Omaar Al Faridzi Siregar, and Alisha Rizki Siregar for the support
provided during this research and Andy Suryadi who actualize the research.

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TALENTA CEST II 2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 801 (2020) 012098 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/801/1/012098

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