1.

Line Balancing activity: Balloon filling and twisting

Overview

This activity is performed to make supervisors understand the concept of line balancing for improving
production. In this activity supervisors will be given balloons to fill air and tie it.

Time

15 minutes

Tools/Items required

Several packets of balloons and spool of threads

Setup

Participants will be divided in a group of two. Each group will be provided with one packet of balloon
and one spool of thread. Two people are called at random to play the game. The task of one person is to
fill air in the balloon and the second person has to tie it. As it takes more time in filling air in balloons
rather than tying. So, another person is sitting idle till the time when balloons filled with air reaches to
him. What the group can do is they can involve the third person in filling air in the balloons. After
adding a third person for filling air in the balloon, the idle sitting person’s time will be consumed and the
target of filling the balloon will be achieved.

Rules

The aim is to complete this task in the fastest possible time.

What's the point from this activity?

The main learning point from this activity is to make the participants practice and experience the
importance of Line balancing as to how it increases production and ensures best labour utilization.

Discussion & Debrief

In this game, two people are called at random to play the game. The task of one person is to fill air in the
balloon and the second person has to tie it.

Case1-: One person fills air in the balloon and the other person simply ties it. The output (number of
balloons filled is counted) in this case is noted.
The person tying the balloons with thread sits stands idle for some time while the other person is filling
air in the balloons.

Case2-: So, one more person is called up for the game and is asked to fill air in the balloon. The output in
this case is also noted.

Conclusion- On comparison of both the case-:

From above activity it can be concluded that the task of filling the air in balloons takes up more time
when compared to tying the balloon.

So, when two people are engaged in doing the task of filling air in the balloon, the person who is involve
in tying is also engaged in his task for more time and also the output is increased.

2. Setting Standards: The Fish Game

Overview

This activity is done to make supervisors understand the concept of Standard Work. Standardized work
is an essential part of lean manufacturing. The principle of standardized work is to reduce variability in
processes by documenting and training the best way to perform the process while insuring defect-free,
on-time delivery.

Time

No time constraints

Tools/Items required

A4 sheets and packets of pencil

Setup

The activity will be done in two steps.

Step1 - Participants will be given A4 sheets and asked to draw Fish. The variation in fish diagrams will be
shown because of lack of instructions on how to draw a fish.

Step2 - Now in this step participants will be instructed to make the fish, provided A4 sheet with 3x3 grid
on it.

Instruction will be given accordingly:

• Draw a letter X in the centre box in the left column. The X should fill the box touching the
intersections
• Draw an upward arc from the top left intersection to the top right intersection

• Draw a downward arc from the bottom left intersection to the bottom right intersection

• Draw an arc from the top right intersection to the bottom right intersection

• Draw a circle for the eye in the middle of the right grid line

• Draw an upside-down V for a fin in the middle of the curve in the top central box

• Draw two V’s, for fins, spaced evenly apart on the lower central curve

• Draw a curve from the top left point of the X to the bottom left point of the X to form the tail

• Draw an arc for the mouth starting at the bottom right intersection. Must be a happy fish!

• And finally draw four circles for bubbles – two in the middle of the central right box and two in
the top right box

Now, the 2 sets of diagrams are compared. The second set of diagram will be much more similar.. Hence
the standard of work will be much higher.

Rules

Follow the instructions carefully

What's the point from this activity?

Standardised work is one of the most powerful but under-utilised lean tools. The Standard Fish Game
activity will ensure that every customer receives the same offering, reduction in variation, also baseline
will be set for continuous improvement in the industry.

Discussion & Debrief

What usually happens when participants are asked to draw the fish, without instructions the diagrams
show variations. But what happens on the following runs is that once they asked to draw the fish, after
instruction step by step then each individual starts making almost same diagram..

The Standard Fish Game is all about setting the standards and Matching the service receivers’
requirements.
 3. Managing the bottleneck -The match bowl game

Overview

This activity is done to make supervisors understand the concept of line balancing through managing
bottleneck in the industry for improving productivity.

Time

No time constraint

Tools/Items required

5 Bowls, matchsticks and one dice

Setup

Five players, five bowls and one dice.

Steps

 Dump all matches in the bowl

Rules

 It will be followed by moving a quantity of match sticks out of the box, and through each of
the bowls in succession.
 The dice determines how many matches can be moved from one bowl to the next.
 The dice represents the capacity.
 Quantity of matches will range from a minimum of one to a maximum of six.

What's the point from this activity?

The game involves bowls matches, and one die from a pair of dice.
  Bowls are used to represent work stations, the Matches represent product inventory, and one
die is used to simulate the statistical fluctuations (or variation) in performance at each work
station or operation.

The bowls are set up as a production line representing dependent events where each operation has the
same capacity, i.e., six products per day with a range of variation from one to six.

 Each player rolls the die to determine how many matches (products) to place in his bowl. This
represents one day's production for that operation. For example, if the first player rolls a six,
then he places six matches in his bowl.
 If the next player rolls a four, he can only move four matches from the first bowl to his bowl.
Each operation is dependent on the upstream operation for input. If the next player rolls a five,
he can only move four to his bowl because there are only four available in the previous bowl
(upstream operation) in the process.
 The first player to roll a four became the bottleneck operation. If another player down stream
rolls less than a four, then his bowl becomes the bottleneck.

Each player roll the die several times in sequence to represent several days production and each time
the bottleneck nearly always appears at a different operation or players.

 The point of this activity is to show that where each operation in a sequence of dependent
events has the same amount of capacity (a balanced plant), the variation and dependent events
will cause the bottleneck to move from operation to operation, i.e., floating bottlenecks occur.
Supervisors will not know where the bottleneck will show up next and will not be able to
manage the system.

Discussion & Debrief

“The area with the biggest amount of inventory is usually a sign of a bottleneck.”

By performing this activity, it will become clear to supervisors that there is always a bottleneck in every
process. They should know how to manage the production having bottleneck. It will ensure that the
bottleneck only works on good parts by performing quality control before parts go into the bottleneck.
So, you can't afford to waste time on bottleneck.