Work Line Balancing and Production Efficiency of Manufacturing Firms in Rivers State, Nigeria

Manufacturing firms are faced with the sequencing of tasks in workstations as the capabilities of manufacturing firms is to harness resources through the effective sequencing of task assignments in workstations. Thus, this study empirically examined work line balancing and production efficiency of manufacturing firms in Rivers State, Nigeria. Content on improving production efficiency by reducing non-value-added activities, cycle time and distribution of workload at each work station by work line balancing process, was also addressed. The dimensions of work line balancing were standardized work and one-piece flow; while production efficiency was measured using product output, product quality, and lead time reduction. The Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (PPMCC) was used to test the significance of the relationship between dimensions of work line balancing and production efficiency. The findings showed that standard work procedures in work stations’ task assignments provide better work line balance and show a positive significant relationship with product output and lead time reduction. Also, one-piece flow was revealed to have a more significant and positive relationship with product quality than product output and lead time reduction. Therefore, it was concluded that implementing appropriate work line balancing in the workstations should be an ongoing activity in the production process and setting capacity utilization baselines is key to improving production efficiency.