Improving the Sakchi Petrol Pump

Q.2

Improving the Sakchi petrol pump

Understanding the fleet that the petrol pump caters to: Bikes, scooters and cars. The fleet that is being catered to requires Petrol and Diesel with most of the two wheelers fueling petrol for Rs100 or Rs200 and the four wheelers fueling diesel and petrol mostly for Rs500. (1Ltr Petrol = Rs70, 1Ltr Diesel = Rs66)

Current location and layout: Sakchi roundabout near the entry to the market. Adjacent to a major city junction and on the same line as a mini shopping street that is frequented by families in Jamshedpur (outlets such as Reliance, Citi Bazaar, KFC, Delhi Darbar etc)

Existing conditions within the petrol pump: Evenings get very crowded with the hustle of the crowd that comes via the Sakchi junction as it is a major roundabout that leads to various parts of the city

Petrol Pump Layout: Without a defined entrance and exit route, the petrol pump has 2 paths that lead into (our out) of the station. It has 6 dispensers, 2 each at a point with 3 such points and a path between them. The first 2 points cater to cars and automobiles that require petrol or diesel (the 2 dispensers have petrol and diesel at the first 2 points) whereas the last point has 2 diesel dispensers.

Traffic flow pattern: The vehicles that enter the station enter from both sides and move towards the respective dispensers. The petrol and diesel ones have blue and red colour coded boards that show which dispenser caters to which. The four wheelers usually hit the first 2 points whereas the two wheelers opt to go to any of these points since all of them have petrol dispensers. While crowded, the two wheelers are sent only towards the last point with 2 petrol dispensers to manage the crowd and queue.

Looking at the service process matrix to understand the petrol pump station we can understand that it is one that has a lesser labor-intensive workforce. Fueling and cash collection being the only two major tasks done by the employees. The fueling is usually done by employees stationed at the 3 points whereas the cash collection is done by one employee who is usually common to all 3 points. Thus it falls towards the mass service in this aspect. The degree of customization and interaction also is minimal in terms of the choice between petrol and diesel which dictates the dispenser the traffic will flow towards. Over the years, very few technological improvements have been brought about, one being the payment process towards cashless transactions and the introduction of a basic queue management system for two wheelers that enter from both the directions of the station towards the dispenser.

From an operational point of view, the traffic into the petrol pump is one that majorly determines the cycle time of fueling an automobile. An attendant tagging system where as soon as the vehicle enters the station from a defined entrance, if it is directed to the station that it should be sent to for fueling minimal time, it will increase the overall efficiency of the station. The payment systems can also be tweaked in such a way that it doesn’t happen during or after the fueling where it might eat up time at the station and the dispenser is idle. A major operational change that can be brought about would be having the payment set up outdoor or away from the dispenser based on a bill method that can be used to collect the cash/make appropriate payment.

Q.3

Meagel Stelplast

Current process and situation:

• Production is run based on a made to order cycle. This also meant holding a certain inventory throughout and a certain reorder point. Average inventory: 3000 horns, Reorder point: 500
• Number of employees were 12. 6 who worked on a wage basis and 6 who were on a per piece basis , 2 skilled testers.
• Assembly process was a batch mode with a disconnected worker paced system. The plant worked 26 days a month, 9 hours a day. Workers were not skilled in individual tasks and the erratic demand caused the process to shift on the product-process matrix.
• Provided 3 year warranty claims even though it was Rs50 less than the branded ones.
• Lead time for raw materials – 4 days. Copper wire maintained as per requirement.

Information from the BOM:

• 35 components that constituted one horn (Of which two were assembled in the factory and the rest were bought from suppliers)

Identification of bottlenecks:

• The lead time from suppliers
• The assembling in the factory.

Problems Identified:

• Lack of demand forecasting. Ordering process usually done on the basis of experience and historic data and hence not accurate.
• The work stages followed was hardly standardized at the stations. The tasks had no proper process flow (for eg: Casing in left hand, tool in right and sometimes vice versa) which could reduce the standardized process that has to be followed if OEMs are the market being aimed at.
• Work in progress inventory in batches not stored or moved efficiently nor is the material management done efficiently.
• Faulty supply parts could eat into the warranty claims offered by the company.
• Manpower utilization is not optimal, because of lack of a disconnected system.
• Procured many automation devices, such as coil winding machines, automatic fastening machines and test benches but hesitant adoption of new technology.
• Unutilized vacant land near the site.

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Bottleneck present: Housing Assembly and Packaging

Batch Size of horns: 30 units

Working Time: 9 hrs a day, 26 days a month

Breaks: 30 min for Lunch, 10 min x 2 for the 2 tea breaks

Effective Production time/Day:  490 mins