Scribd
Upload
29 views

Lubricating Oil Blending Process A) Definition of The Process

Uploaded by

Bulent Erdogan
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
29 views

Lubricating Oil Blending Process A) Definition of The Process

Uploaded by

Bulent Erdogan
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Lubricating Oil Blending Process

a) Definition of the process

I will describe you lubricating oil blending and filling process. Normally production process is a little
bit more complex then my description. But I will try to explain shortly in order to draw a less complex
Flowchart. As I couldn’t reach an existing flow chart I will provide mine. All production times and
units are specified by a personal survey.

Inputs of the process are Raw Materials (Base oil and additives) and packaging. Output is packaged
lubricating oil.

It exist two basic in the process architecture. It is a product layout flow shop production process.

- Blending Process (Bulk Production)


- Filling Process (Packaging)

Lubricating companies are market driven companies. That means they start to design production
processes with a set of key competitive priorities that market needs. For example packaging type’s
quality level of the products or on-pack campaigns can change the filling process. So I will describe
you only “1 litter packaging” filling process.

They use “Make to Stock” production strategy. We use quarterly sales forecasts in order to match
production with consumer demand. Lubricating oils plant characteristics are production prior to sales
order based on forecast, end products sold from inventory, controlling of inventory is critical and
distribution and warehousing of end product is important

Lubricants production is a “cost efficient” flow. As we use make to stock method responsiveness is
not a critical focus for our system. We are mainly concentrated on producing best quality with lower
price. As there are a lot of international competitors in the market, cost is the critical focus on the
production. If you could not produce on “the operations frontier” of cost affiance you can’t stay alive
on price wars.

b) Process Design:

Changing the setups of filling machine. (1lt, 4lt, etc...)


Normally production process is much more complex than my design. For example, after blending
process, if it needs to produce another recipe, tanks should been cleaned by a flashing process. Or it
is possible that a product could not pass QC tests. In that case another emergency process driven by
R&D department starts in order to normalize process.

Production starts with blending of additives and base oils in blending tanks. It is possible to produce
15 different recipes with 15 tons capacity in same time. This process takes 60 minutes.

Quality control process takes 10 minutes. If product passes the tests we send it to swing tanks in
order to wait until filling time. Pumping takes 5 minutes.

Before starting filling process, filling machine setup has to change. It takes 1 hour. It causes a big
buffer on the process.

Filling process has three steps; Feeding package, Filling and Packaging (Box and Pallet). I take 6
minutes.

c) Filling process:

It is possible to blend 225.000 liters of product in one hour but filling capacity is only 5.000 liters. So
filling process is the main part our productions critical path. I will analyze basically filling process and
flow times of each unit.

Palleting

Throughput Rate: Feeding is made by two labors they can feed 6.000 units in one hour. Filling is an
automatic process machine can fill 9.300 units in one hour. Boxing is manual again 5.000 can pass
from this unit in one hour. Composing a pallet takes 5 minutes each pallet has 600 products. It means
that palleting unit capacity is 7.200. As feeding, boxing and palleting are made manually, they are
limiting production capacity it is possible to improve production by complete automation.

Flow Time: It takes 6 minute for each product to complete filling system. 10 second on feeding, 20
second filling, 30 second boxing and 5 minutes palleting.

Inventories for each unit: Little’s Law (I = R x T)

R R T T I
Througput Througput Flow Flow
Rate Rate time time Inventories
(1 Hour) (1 Minute) (second) (Minute)
Feeding 6.000 100 10 0,17 17
Filling 9.300 155 20 0,33 52
Boxing 5.000 83 30 0,50 42
Palleting 7.200 120 300 5,00 600
System 5.000 83 360 6,00 500

Conclusion: Adding automated feeling and packaging systems to the both sides of process can
increase production capacity. If we need additional production capacity it is possible to buy another
filling machine only for filling 4 litters packages in order to decrease buffer time.

You might also like