Gideon Tyree

Case Study #1 – Pump Teardown Review Process

ET 6390 – 3/4/2025
Questions –
1. A dedicated operator could be provided for stations G, H, and I, as this would prevent
bottlenecks from forming at this point and instead allow a smooth flow through these
stations. However, this may produce more waste than it eliminates, since this would
require an operator to be paid and be unavailable for other tasks even during downtime;
if XYZ Company is interested in this solution, a study should be conducted to determine
if the benefits outweigh the cost. Alternative solutions include using kanban cards to
signal to operators when there are pumps waiting to be tested, hopefully prompting
quicker responses which should reduce waiting times and consequently reduce the
occurrence of large “slugs” of pumps. XYZ Company might also consider transitioning
the formal review to an online format so that operators do not need to leave their stations
to attend, which will serve the triple purpose of eliminating travel time between stations,
possibly allowing operators to multitask and complete both operations at once as long as
their operations are not so attention-demanding that they would be impeded by the
distraction of an online review meeting, and providing an almost instant message to
review participants that the meeting is starting; taken together, these benefits should
dramatically reduce the bottleneck status of the formal review and should provide a more
cost-effective alternative to the previously mentioned solution of hiring a dedicated
operator for stations G through I. This solution, however, carries the potential downsides
of distracting operators during critical tasks and introducing the risk of technical issues
interrupting the meeting. Yet another solution to investigate is finding a way to reduce
the amount of time spent photographing parts; not being privy to the exact methodology
used, I cannot give a specific method of saving time, but four hours seems an excessive
amount of time to spend taking photographs. If this time is reduced, it will be one more
way of reducing the amount of time spent in the bottleneck zone of stations G, H, and I.
On that subject, it should also be reevaluated whether it is necessary to have a separate
space for stations G, H, and I, since they are not operations which run continuously and
do not require any special equipment; moving them to one of the other areas where
operators spend most of their time would have a small but not insignificant impact on the
overall process time by reducing time spent moving between areas.
2. The use of CMM equipment and/or vision systems has the potential to create a more
objective standard for determining which pumps pass inspection; this will speed up the
inspection process while simultaneously reducing errors. For example, CMM equipment
could be used to detect pitting in the surface of the pump which might either be missed
by unaided human experts or lead to wasted time as they debate amongst themselves
whether it is sufficiently pitted to be considered defective. The same is true for detecting
other types of defects. Since the company has already identified which measurements
are critical, it should be a simple matter to set bounds on each measurement and then
use CMM and/or vision systems to check whether each critical measurement falls within
acceptable limits; the process could even potentially be automated, which would free up
engineers to focus on other steps of the teardown process. A company called Accu-Tech
is currently using a multi-sensor device which runs on software similar to traditional
CMM software but can use both tactile sensing and vision-based sensing within the
same program (https://www.qualitymag.com/articles/84915-case-studies-new-territory-
with-vision-inspection), which could serve as a model for XYZ Company. Additionally, an
 article in The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology
(https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s001700170179) presented a system using a
combination of CMM and vision systems to reverse engineer CAD models of complex
surfaces, which could possibly be used for the pump teardown process. A paper in IEEE
Sensors Journal (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9666865) explained a
system for measuring microscopic holes which would use a vision system to self-
calibrate an otherwise traditional CMM machine, which would be difficult to position in
such a small hole by hand; obviously, this is not directly relevant to XYZ Company’s
dilemma since the pumps do not have any microscopic parts, but it is still an intriguing
development in the integration of CMM equipment and vision systems and there is a
non-zero possibility of some aspect of it being tweaked to make it more broadly
applicable.
3. The first three S’s can be implemented in the teardown process by ensuring that every
workstation is free of all unnecessary items, fully stocked with the necessary items in
well-labeled and easily accessible storage spaces, and there is adequate room to place
and work on pumps while keeping them distinct from one another to prevent accidentally
transposing the results of tests on different pumps. By doing this, the time spent in the
pump teardown process can be reduced by eliminating the motion waste which would
otherwise result from searching for tools, as well as the time and inventory waste which
would occur if there were more pumps waiting in inventory than the station had space to
work on them. The third S is vital not only to ensuring that the previous three S’s are
made habitual, but it also to standardizing and documenting the pump teardown
process, which directly addresses one of the root causes of wasted time in the process
determined by the Why-Why diagram; with a clearer idea of how to conduct the process,
it should be easier to train new operators and existing operators will be able to perform
their tasks more efficiently. Finally, the fifth S has a strong correlation to efficiency
improvement by sustaining the continuous maintenance and improvement of the prior
four steps, while additionally incentivizing the implementation of other waste-reduction
measures such as those suggested in question 1 due to the acknowledgement of teams
who improve efficiency. Especially relevant is the fact that the fifth S will require training
engineers on the teardown process, which will work synergistically with the
standardization introduced in the fourth S to make the entire operation run more
smoothly with less room for operator error or delays due to indecisiveness. Overall, the
5S tool is likely to correlate relatively strongly to reduced pump teardown time. The main
cause identified for long delays is the periods spent waiting for approval, which the
methods suggested by 5S will not address as directly as some other solutions
mentioned previously, such as hiring a dedicated operator for the final three steps of the
process, but taken together all the small improvements introduced by 5S will serve to
streamline the teardown process and will have a cumulative impact more significant than
the sum of its parts. In addition, the first three S’s will not only reduce motion waste but
will ensure that, should the other methods fail and a large “slug” of pumps does get
released all at once, the operators will not be overwhelmed and will have a neat place to
store each pump until they are ready to work on it. The fourth and fifth S’s in particular
will have an impact beyond merely speeding up individual stations but will radically affect
the entire process by implementing standardization and training on the most effective
practices. If XYZ Company is interested in testing the effectiveness of these
improvements, they might perform one What-If scenario including the 5S improvements
and one without and compare the results.