Group No.

Donner Company
Case write up for OM course
Group Number 5
Members:
KEK Sashank
Pooja Gupta
Sangbarta Chakraborty
Sandip Datta
Sanket Kale

:
:
:
:
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1511393
1511444
1511431
1511430
1511398

a) Information flows within Donner factory:

The schematic for information flows within the Donner factory is shown in Exhibit 1. Plummer
and Altmeyer give an estimate of the time required and cost to complete the order to the
customer. If the customer accepts the bid, Altmeyer gives the material specifications to
procurement manager who procures all the raw materials to complete the order. Factory
order is prepared which reaches Flaherty who schedules all the operating processes so as to
complete the order within the estimated time. The information flow in the exhibit shows a
sample order as it flows through the assembly line covering all the standard processes.

b) Capacity analysis:
i.

Use of alternative technologies:

Donner company has seven manual drills and one CNC drill for drilling operation. As can be
seen from Exhibit 2 of the case, the setup time required for CNC drill is 16 times that of setup
time required for manual drill. But the run time of CNC drill is 16 times lesser than manual
drills. Hence for orders of large size, CNC drilling would consume lesser time than manual
drills.
As with the profile punches, the setup time for CNC router is 3 times that of manual punch
press while the time required per board by CNC is only half of what is taken by manual punch
press. Hence for profile punching the order size has to be considerably large enough to get
the advantage from CNC punch press.
The following calculations find the minimum order size above which CNC drill CNC router
would take less time than manual machines to complete the processes.
Let x be the number of boards ordered.
Comparing 1 Manual drill time = 1 CNC drill time for x boards
15+0.080*500*x=240+0.004*500*x => x = 5.92
Hence for orders of size >5 CNC drill is the suitable option.

Group No. 5

There are 7 Manual drills and one CNC drill. If we consider the case each board is fed into each
manual drill simultaneously the equation gets modified to
15+0.080*500*x/7=240+0.004*500*x => x = 60.58 [7 simultaneous manual drill usage]
Hence for orders of size >60 CNC drill seems the suitable option but it is highly unlikely to get
n number of manual drills free for 1 order as there will be almost continuous simultaneous
stream of orders being made and worked upon.
Similarly Punch press and CNC router has a trade-off in setup time and run time.
Let x be the number of boards ordered.
Comparing 1 Punch Press time = 1 CNC router time for x boards.
50+1*x=150+0.5*x => x = 200
Hence for orders of size >200 CNC router is the suitable option.

ii.

Standard Labour Time

As we clearly proved in the last part that for an order of one board we would be only using
one manual drill. And we have also proved that in case of using one drill for one order, CNC
drill can be used for orders of quantity greater than 6 boards. But in the case of using seven
drills for one order, CNC drill should be used for orders greater than 61 boards.
In this question, we have to find the standard labour time for an order of 1 board, 8 boards
and 200 boards. In case of 1 board it is clear that only 1 drill can be used. In case of 8 boards,
we have two options of either using 1 drill or 7 drills in manual method. If only 1 drill is used,
the condition from previous part says for order greater than 6 boards, CNC drill is more
preferable. The option of using 7 drills for an order of 8 boards is discarded because it doesnt
make economic sense to separate individual boards and use different drills for boards from
the same panel. Calculations show that using CNC drill would save the standard labour time
by a great extent. For an order of 200 boards, it is clear that only CNC drill has to be used.
All the calculations are explained in the table attached in the Appendix. Calculations show
that the standard labour times for the given orders are as follows:
Order size

Drill method chosen

1
8
200

Manual
Manual (CNC)
CNC drill

Standard Labor Time

(in minutes)
396.55
654.05
1840.25

In the case of profile punching we saw that the order size has to be more than 200 for CNC
router to take less time than manual punching press. For order sizes of 1 and 8 boards, manual
profile punching takes less time. For order size of 200, both CNC router and profile punching
take the same time and hence the decision depends on the availability of the resource in case
of profile punching.

Group No. 5

As can be observed from the exhibit, the drilling process is the bottleneck process irrespective
of the batch size and also irrespective of the decision to use manual drilling presses of CNC
presses. Hence it becomes necessary for Donner, to schedule in such a way that the drilling
processes, both manual and CNC are never starved.

c) Problem identification and resolution:

Following are the problems identified by Donner company as have been discussed in the
case:
1. Changing nature of orders: Order sizes ranged from 1 circuit board per order to more
than 1000 circuit boards per order. Also, every order required different processes and
different materials as specified by the customer.
2. Rush orders: On an average Donner received three rush orders in a week which had
to be delivered within four days adding to the pressure of already congested assembly
line.
3. Productivity: A large number of orders required rework because the products failed
the inspection process.
4. Quality: About 9 in every 10 returned orders were because Donner had missed
performing one or two operations. These returned boards had to be worked upon
again and delivered again within one or two days.
5. On time delivery: The company had to quote three weeks for orders less than 1000
boards and four weeks for more than 1000 boards owing to competition. The
deliveries had been late by almost 9 days on an average in the recent months.
On the basis of problems identified, Donner Company can implement various actions to
improve their productivity, quality performance and on time delivery promise.
1. Breaking of large orders into smaller sizes: The size of orders varies from as low as
only 1 circuit board per order to more than 1000 circuit boards per order. Hence if a
smaller order is stuck behind a larger order, it takes a lot of time for the larger order
to finish before starting the work on the next order. If the larger orders are split into
smaller sizes, the subsequent smaller orders can be put in between them to ensure
delivery of smaller orders on time. This would also reduce the need to expedite the
orders by a large amount.
2. Have a different line dedicated for rush orders: Donner receives about three rush
orders every week. Hence Donner can have a dedicated assembly line to complete
rush orders and also deliver on time. This line will mostly be occupied owing to large
number of rush orders but the workers can be given the work of normal orders
whenever there are no rush orders since the skills required are not very different.
3. Prepare a checklist of processes: Every 9 in 10 orders returned by the customers are
because Donner missed one or two processes during production. Hence, Altmeyer,
the design engineer, when producing the factory order can also produce a checklist
of operations to be performed to complete the given lot. This checklist will be
attached to the rack which carries the boards of that order and the workers will tick

Group No. 5

the checklist option after completing that process. This would ensure all the activities
are completed in sequence and no activity is missed out when completing the order.
4. Use of ICT for quicker procurement: Donner needs to make contracts with the
suppliers to ensure cheaper procurement costs. The suppliers should be developed
to meet the requirements of Donner. Use of ERP systems like SAP with suppliers can
help suppliers track real time what orders are received by Donner and immediately
send the required material to Donner. This can reduce the procurement time required
from 4 days to about 1 or 2 days even for normal orders.
5. Apart from that, proper training of workers to develop their skills since most of the
jobs require a lot of judgement and proper layout of factory to reduce walk times of
workers must be done to improve productivity.
6. The programming of CNC drilling which takes 240 minutes of setup time is currently
done when the order reaches the CNC workstation. Instead Altmeyer can create a
programme required for that order and save it into the CNC machine beforehand. The
programme can be retrieved when the batch reaches the CNC station. The added
advantage of this is also that if Donner gets two orders with similar drilling
requirements, the saved programme can suffice both the orders thus saving the setup
time.

Group No. 5
Exhibit 1

Preparing
Customer
Bid
(Plummer
&
Altmeyer)

Metallizati
on

Yes

Customer
Response

Manual
Drilling

Factory
Order
(Altmeyer
for normal
Schnabs for
rush)

Punch
Tooling
Holes

Manual
or CNC?

Procureme
nt (1-2
days, same
day for
rush order)

Scheduling
of the
order

Inspect and
Shear

Artwork
Generation

CNC
Drilling

Panel
Preparation

Inspect,
Test and
Pack

Laminate
and Expose

Punch
Press

Develop

Electroplate

Punch
Press or
CNC?

CNS Router

Information flow in the process

Strip DFPR

Solder Dip

Etch and
tin strip

Soldermask

Group No. 5

Exhibit 2: Calculation of standard labour time for 1 board, 8 boards and 200 boards
Standard Production Times

Operation
PREPARATION

Setup
Time
(min)

Run Time
(min)

Run
Time/
Board

1 Board

8 boards

200 boards

Time taken
(Manual)

Time taken
(CNC)

Time Taken
(CNC)

Artwork
Generation
Inspect & Shear

29
0
20 0.5/panel

0
0.5

29
20.5

29
20.5

29
32.5

Punch Tooling
Holes

10 0.5/panel

0.5

10.5

10.5

22.5

IMAGE
TRANSFER
Drill
Drill (Manual)
CNC Drill
Metallization

15 0.08/hole
240 0.004/hole
10 0.75/panel

40
2
0.75

55
10.75

256
10.75

640
28.75

5 0.2/panel

0.2

5.2

5.2

10

2/panel
0.2/panel
8.5/panel
0.2/panel
0.2/panel

2
0.2
8.5
0.2
0.2

22
20.2
33.5
5.2
10.2

22
20.2
33.5
5.2
10.2

70
25
237.5
10
15

45 1.5/panel
30 0.5/panel

1.5
0.5

46.5
30.5

46.5
30.5

82.5
42.5

50 1/board
150 0.5/board

1
0.5

51
154

250

45 1.5/board

1.5

46.5

Dry Film
Photoresist
Panel Prep
Laminate &
Expose
Develop
Electroplate
Strip DFPR
Etch & Tin Strip
FABRICATION
Soldermask
Solder Dip
Profile
Punch Press
(Manual)
CNC Router
Inspect, Test,
Pack
Total Time
(min)

20
20
25
5
10

396.55

Total Time
(hours)

345
654.05

1840.25

6.60916667 10.9008333 30.6708333