Project of Manufacturing a Central Air Handling Unit for Demanding Construction Facilities

People constantly strive for progress and improvement, both on a personal and professional level. The same applies to a company and, within it, to the products and/or services that the company offers on the market. The author of the diploma thesis analysed the process of planning and manufacturing air handling units at the company Systemair d.o.o. The result of the SWOT analysis consists of strategies that the company could use and implement to achieve its set goals in the future. I shall mention some of the more important ones:

Problem

People constantly strive for progress and improvement, both on a personal and professional level. The same applies to a company and, within it, to the products and/or services that the company offers on the market.

Solution and Method

The author of the diploma thesis analysed the process of planning and manufacturing air handling units at the company Systemair d.o.o. In the air handling unit assembly department, there is still considerable room for manoeuvre for improvements or optimisation of the assembly process.

Results

The result of the SWOT analysis consists of strategies that the company could use and implement to achieve its set goals in the future. I shall mention some of the more important ones:

• The company is known worldwide, it is recognisable, reputable, and these advantages must be exploited to acquire new markets. At the same time, these advantages can be used to reduce the impact of competition.
• Demanding customers who also require more complex solutions must be acquired with qualified personnel and quality work. To create the conditions for this, it is necessary to invest in education and professional development of personnel.
• To maintain and improve competitiveness, it is necessary to consider and adopt measures to improve the internal organisation of the company. This measure simultaneously leads in the direction of reducing overtime and unexpected short-term actions.
• Additional measures, including organisation, must work towards reducing complaints. These are further connected with the reputation and credit rating of the company on the market.
• Greater chances of success on the market are connected with product diversity. Personnel must master all products that the company offers. Therefore, it is important that key personnel also participate in the development of new products that the market already demands or that we anticipate it will demand. All too often, we reduce the personnel function merely to repetitive work processes, whilst neglecting the information that employees possess and which is connected with customer satisfaction and expectations, with knowledge of market conditions and the competition.
• Spatial and technological conditions must be adapted to market opportunities. Modern tools support efforts for better quality and also for shortening the necessary manufacturing and assembly times, which has positive effects on reliability and the length of delivery times. Mistakes happen everywhere, to everyone. In order to minimise these in the air handling unit assembly department and consequently also reduce product complaints, it would be advisable to introduce certain changes. One of these is certainly a checklist of air handling unit component parts and their installation. It would be sufficient if this contained a few key points, such as the type of air handling unit, a list of all functional units, components and connections, etc. In the case of such a checklist, it could not happen during handover of the unit to the customer that a component or unit would not be installed in the air handling unit or would be omitted by mistake. Before packaging and storing the unit, the foreman would review all points on the checklist once more, tick them off, and in this way also give the product the 'green light' for handover. Such a checklist would be archived for each air handling unit together with the technological documentation and construction drawings. In the case of any complaints, shifting responsibility for the error to the assembly department would be reduced, and the person responsible for the error would have to be sought elsewhere. ** Another proposal is the improvement of tools required for assembling semi-finished products or for assembling air handling units.** The tools currently available to workers are anything but poor, but the market offers specific, new tools that are simpler and more user-friendly. Examples include gripping clamps, drilling countersinks, measuring instruments, aids for inserting functional components, etc. Improvements are certainly also possible in the scheduling of projects. This means that there would be no delays in product delivery and consequently no payment of so-called penalty points or contractual penalties. In this way, workers in production would also be relieved, as they occasionally work overtime during periods of high order volumes. By purchasing a press for manufacturing panels, considerable time could be gained. This would significantly shorten the adhesive drying time in panels. This currently takes 15 hours; with the help of a press, it could be halved or reduced to 4 to 6 hours, depending on the size and quantity of panels. This means that more panels would be manufactured in the same time. Unlike the current distribution of force on the panel surface using weights, with a press this would be achieved uniformly. There are therefore quite a few ideas for improving the work process in the air handling unit assembly department. Since Systemair d.o.o. is a company that constantly improves in its field and takes into account the ideas and suggestions of its employees and trends that prove profitable on the market, I am convinced that some of these will come to life in practice in the future.