DIECRAFT AUSTRALIA PTY. LTD.: A CASE STUDY

Prepared by:

Md. Rezwanur Rahman Majumdar Id#110304

Md. Rafsan Jani Id#110313

Mahdi Hossain Id#110335

OUTLINE

• Diecraft at a Glance

• Market & Competition

• Product Offerings

• Order Processing

• Engineering Design Process

• Manufacturing Process

• Final Assembly Cell

• Plant Loading

• Production Scheduling

• Findouts from emergency meeting

• Solutions

DIECRAFT AT A GLANCE

6, Radford Rd, Reservoir VIC, 3073, Australia

DIECRAFT AT A GLANCE

Founded by John Rabin in 1953, known as Rabin Engineering

Producing High Quality Moulds for the Plastic Industry & Others since 1961

Purchased by Tupperware in 1963; named as Diecraft Australia; Moved to Reservoir; Continued producing high quality till now

MARKET & COMPETITION

Tupperware: The Major Customer

Tupperware accounted for more than 90% turnover by supplying over 14

countriesStiff competition from

Korea, Portugal & Japan

Competitors have faster turnaround times and lower

prices to the customers

PRODUCT OFFERINGS

Moulds

New mould

Standard Non Standard

Conversion

PRODUCT OFFERINGS (CONT.)

Lead time: 15 weeks for a standard mould and 17 weeks for a non-standard mould.

Annual production capacity:

130-150 moulds, which included 20-30 conversions.

Less expensive soft steel moulds, easier and faster to make but low quality.

ORDER PROCESSING

Bidding Process.

Request For Quote(RFQ)

Detail Drawings And Due Date

Inclusion of Mould Concept by Customer

Company.

RFQ Forwarded To Sales Engineer

Kick-off Meeting

Tentative Schedule

ENGINEERING DESIGN PROCESS:

Time requirement for a detailed design:100 and 300 hours.

Physical requirements: Bolster plates, hot runner, cores, cavities and strippers.

CAD:Detailed design in computer aided design(CAD).

Programming:Writing the codes for computer-numerically-controlled(CNC) machines.

Engineering

MANUFACTURING PROCESS

Job shop type of operation

Two shift productionThe Bolster cell & unit cells manufactured in parallel

Three stages in machining operation:• Turning, milling, drilling• Heat treatment by vendors• Finishing operation, demanding close tolerance

and precision machining, on EDM machines.

Sent to Quality Assurance Section for verification

FINAL ASSEMBLY CELL

Responsible for fitting the bolster plates and

units components

Sent to test center, put the mold into

action

Sample of final plastic product sent for

customer approval,

After approval, mold shipped to customer.

Assembly operation might take 50-1000

hours.

Total manufacturing process might require

1700 hours on average, including

300 hours of design.

PLANT LOADING

Capacity 125 moulds per year Detailed plan for the next 14-15 weeks Driven primarily by delivery commitments, processing requirements, assumptions related to complement of labour and machine resources available.

Recognizing potential mismatch between available capacity and proposed work load.

PRODUCTION SCHEDULING

Details scheduling involves: Disintegration of tasks Assigning tasks to workers Scheduling of overtime Subcontracting some tasks

Top concerns: Utilization of workers and satisfactory performance with due date

commitments

Reducing lead times Recording & updating done in real time and reviewed weekly

FINDOUTS FROM EMERGENCY MEETINGRequests for engineering changes during mould processing increase completion time

Holding a job waiting for customer clearance

Adding more permanent skilled labour may increase cost

Lump order creates domino effects and causes inordinate delays.

SOLUTIONS

Customer should adhere to the initial design submitted.

All the engineering change requests while product processing must include extension of product delivery date.

Customer should be informed about before the date of clearance

Hiring a few number of labour additionally

Increasing work shift to three

And to have a maximum order acceptance limit in each quarter.

THANK YOU