Implementation of Value Engineering for Production Process Efficiency in Metal Stamping Industry

Productivity can be increased by modifying the production process to achieve the best cycle time, but the quality of product doesn’t decrease. This research aimed to increase the efficiency of the metal stamping process in an automotive company by considering the value engineering aspects. Value engineering (VE) is a systematic analysis of the functions of various components and materials to lower the cost of goods, products and services with a tolerable loss performance or functionality. Before the progressive die design changes were made, this automotive company required an additional process machining to produce one of their products, because the result of the progressive dies have not reached the specified quality standards, where the specified product height is 8.5mm ± 0.5 with ironing 7% of the material thickness, while the actual product height achieved 11mm with ironing of 0-10% at a height of 0-9mm and 40% at a height of 9-11mm. In response to this situation, this company attempted to increase the drawing height by 2.5mm and then cut it with a turret machine, but this process was inefficient. Therefore, researchers made changes to the design of progressive dies to produce products without using the turret machine. In the design of progressive dies, researchers considered several aspects, such as the process sequence within the progressive dies, the material tension during each drawing process, and the ironing of the material. After the design changes, the target ironing 7% of the material thickness was achieved without changing any other dimensions, and it has an impact on reducing the production cost by 10.87%.