Development of layout at Kilkee Pty Ltd, Adelaide, Australia

Abstract: Kilkee Pty Ltd is situated in Lonsdale, south of Adelaide in Australia. The
company designs and manufactures garden features and furniture made of glass
reinforced concrete. The company has 28 employees (November 2003) and the
annual turnover is about $3,000,000, which is about 16,620,000 SEK. Rita and
John Read established Kilkee in 1992. Since then the company has become a
market leader and is one of Australia’s largest exporters of these products.

The main focus of the project is the development of a new layout in a new
building at Kilkee. Mainly due to the rapid growth of the company this
additional building is required. In the new building a robot cell will be
installed. The robot cell will replace the manual spraying for most of the
products. The other products will still be produced in the existing building.

Today, the inefficient material flow and narrow spaces affect the handling
and transportation of the products as well as the overall work environment.
Waste on the floor also affects the material handling and the work
environment. The organisation of the company is not as effective as it could
be due to a high staff turnover. The warehouse is located in another
building, which makes the transport of finished products too long. The
manual spraying affects the consistency of the products, which leads to a
lot of defective products and rework.

To find the best possible solution for the future layout, a cyclic way of
work has been used. The layout alternatives were developed by using
brainstorming and the steps described in the books Systematic Layout
Planning (Muther, 1973) and Manufacturing Plant Layout (Phillips, 1997).
Information has been collected at meetings with CAMR and with John Read at
Kilkee or through observations and interviews with the workers.

Alternative layouts have been developed. After a comparison and discussions,
the best option was chosen for detail planning. The most important reasons
for choosing this option were the good material flow, the short distances
between the operations and the large storage capacity.

With the new layout the company gets a better and more effective material
flow and material handling for all their products. The new layout and the
new equipment will save money, mainly due to lower labour costs (20 percent
compared to 38 percent today) as well as higher consistency and less waste.
There will also be enough time to develop and produce new products.

The high visibility of all production stages will together with work
rotation and work enrichment increase the psychosocial work environment,
which hopefully will lead to a lower staff turnover.

The products will be produced on trolleys and the robot cell will be
equipped with rolling doors. Disturbing activities will be screened off. The
rolling doors and the screening walls will improve the safety and the
overall work environment.

The total cost of the new building and the robot cell will be approximately
$750,000 and the pay-back time will be about 2 years. The savings each year
will be about $400,000.