Capacity improvement in HGA manufacturing of the Cheetah 18 Product

Abstract

This thesis is aimed to improve the manufacturing line capacity capacity of Head Gimble Assemble (HGA) which is one component of hard disc drive. Cheetah 18 Product is chosen as a case study due to the highest demand from the customer at this fiscal year. Furthermore, time to market is the most important concems that company needs to be achieved to overcome the competitors. The study used the concept of eliminating or reducing non value added activities at each operation of the process, thus improve the UPH (Unit per Hour). The six sigma technique and time study are used as a fundamental tools for analysis. By investigating current process, there are 2 bottleneck operations in Tail Tacking & Spot Cleaning operation. Nevertheless, increasing workforce is limited by workspace. Another operation; Gramload Adjustment, is then focused due to the capability for improvement. In conclusion, the study can reduced Gramload Adjustment operation from 4 to 3 workstations and leaded to the space availability for one additional Tail Tacking workstation. Percentage of rework returned to Spot Clean operation is decreased from 44% to <1% At last, the manufacturing line loading capacity is increased from 9.9KDGR to 11.0KDGR (11% increment) by maintaining the current product quality.