A CONSTRUCTION PROCESS FOR A PERSONAL

COMPUTER ASSEMBLY PLANT

SANYA-ISIJOLA, ADEMUYIWA
OCTOBER, 2006
 Table of Contents

Introduction 3
Location of PC Assembly Plant 3
Design Processes 6
The Assembly Process 9
Manufacturing Constraints 10
Tools for PC Assembly 10
PC Components 11
Safety Considerations 14
Staff Qualification 15
Assembling the PC 15
Marketing 16
Conclusion 17
References 18
Glossary 19

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1. INTRODUCTION

The main purpose of this report is to document the process of constructing a PC

assembly plant, stating factors affecting the major decisions that will be made,
as well as how they are affected by the product and the manufacturing
process, and their effect on the design of the factory. The report will also
describe the procedures involved in assembling a PC from the scratch and
discuss the setbacks involved.

The personal computer is a modular product whose components, peripherals,

and software can be designed independently and integrated into the final
system using standard technical interfaces. The modular nature of the PC
enabled the creation of an industry structure marked by a high degree of
specialization and separation of functions since its inception in the mid-1970s.

Before the design and construction of the assembly plant, a suitable location or
site for the assembly plant must be established. The location is a factor that will
determine how the plant will be designed and other processes.

2. LOCATION OF PC ASSEMBLY PLANT

Choice of location has a profound effect on the entire business life; a bad
choice may all but guarantee failure, a good choice, success. Location is a very
critical factor; its impact is not only on our customers, but on our employees and
potential business associates.

Location is more than just choosing a site for building or construction of assembly
plant and there is more to consider than just COST. There are several factors that
determine choice of site for the assembly plant, they include:

• State/City
• Location near other business
• Our customers

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 • Our employees
• Potential investors
• Cost
• Safety/Security
• Facility requirements

2.1. STATE

Nigeria is a country with 36 states; each of these states has various regulatory
requirements. Income and sales taxes also differ from state to state. Some states
and their cities are also friendly to entrepreneurship while others are less
accommodating. Availability of labor and costs of rent will also determine the
state /city where the plant will reside. Thus, the chosen state must be of benefit
to the organization.

2.2. LOCATION NEAR OTHER BUSINESS

Some specific areas in Nigeria have been set apart as industrial locations. They
contain numerous industries that produce different products. The question is: Do
we need to be visible to other businesses? Shouldn’t we be easily accessible to
our clients? The answer to these questions will be based on certain reasons and
will determine the kind of environment in which the plant will be located.

2.3. CUSTOMERS

The customers are the reason why we are in business; they could be other
organizations or end users that need our products. The location must be
convenient and accessible to our customers.

2.4. EMPLOYEES

The employees are the strength of our company, their commitment and skills will
help maintain the QoS and standards of our organization. The location of the
assembly plant must be attractive to keep our good employees.

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2.5. POTENTIAL INVESTORS

Later in the future, there may be a need to bring in investors into the organization
especially when there is need for expansion. The potential investors looking at
the long term value of the business will see location as an important factor. For
example building the assembly plant in an area that is constantly disturbed by
ethnic crisis will discourage investors.

2.6. COST

Cutting cost and maximizing profit are issues every organization wants to
achieve. There are several areas in which the plant can be located, the costs
vary from place to place. The overall cost of running the assembly plant must
also be projected before the final decision is made. After purchasing the site,
some other miscellaneous cost will be incurred before and during the building.
These may include the cost of settling Land disputes between the families that
own the Land or the AREA BOYS that tend to disturb the building unless they are
settled. Such kinds of expenses can be reduced by carrying out proper
investigation.

2.7. SAFETY / SECURITY

Safety and security are serious issues that should be examined before
determining where the assembly plant will be located. There are many volatile
areas in the country where industrial properties are vandalized, staffs are
abducted etc. The intended location must be safe and secured for the
employees, customers and the plant itself.

2.8. FACILITY REQUIREMENTS

The assembly plant may have special needs and many requirements such as
large parking space, acres of land for the building/ room for expansion, high
power consumption etc. These requirements are necessary for the effective
running of the assembly plant and should be available at the location.

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Other questions that need to be answered before choosing a location may
include

• Are there any of our competitors in that area?

• Can suppliers conveniently make deliveries in the area?
• Are the utilities needed to run the business available in the area?

3. DESIGN PROCESSES

The processes involved in the design of a plant consist of six steps:

o Benchmarking and Research

o Design Concept Development
o Design Guideline Development
o Detailed Design Process
o Material and Personnel Requirements Development, and
o Procedure Definition.

To achieve the best results, the factory design processes are executed through
these distinct phases. A design team consisting of experts from various fields is
formed and this team goes through each phase, looking for the best approach
to resolve issues.

These design processes will help in developing a factory that is flexible enough to
adapt to rapidly changing demands and product mix, while keeping costs at a
minimum.

3.1. BENCHMARKING AND RESEARCH

This phase involves reviewing the current “best practices” in the personal
computer industry through literature searches and visits to other existing PC
assembling plants especially in Nigeria. Using the existing Nigerian assembly
plants, the design team not only can select the best approach to successfully
assemble and test the PCs but also adapt them to the consumers needs.

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3.2. DESIGN CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

The design team needs to agree on the principles that would guide the design
process. Some of these concepts will be based on the team’s knowledge and
experience in manufacturing while some will base on modern Operations
Management theories. The initial design concepts will cover all areas of the
future operation of the factory, including manufacturing, training, metrics, and
management.

3.3. DESIGN GUIDELINES

After generating the overarching design concepts, the team starts to discuss the
details of what the factory should look like, and how it should operate. The
factory designs that were observed through research and benchmarking will be
reviewed, and parts of each of these will be selected based on the design
concepts. During this phase, majority of the design formulation will be done.
Once this is complete, a picture of what the factory would look like will emerge,
with only the details left to be added. These guidelines define the characteristics
of the factory; they provide for the efficient use of resources to minimize the cost
of final assembly and test, and they provide flexibility for assembling different
products. These guidelines may include the following:

• How components will be delivered to assembly

• Parallel processes for assembly and test
• Sequential process for material positioning, inspection, packing,
verification/audit, order consolidation

3.4. DETAILED DESIGN PROCESS

Once the above guidelines were developed, the specific factory layout is
defined. Because the guidelines had been developed as a cross-functional
team, the individual team members are now able to design their areas of the
plant’ layout, without risk of incompatibilities between functional areas.
The detailed design process involves comparing various vendors’ workstations
and abilities to customize their products to the specific tasks required in this

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factory. Many of the ideas for workstation design came from the benchmarking
process.

3.5. MATERIAL AND PERSONNEL REQUIREMENTS DEVELOPMENT

Once the layout of the factory is determined, a simple formulae based on the
expected hands-on cycle time for the different areas of the factory will be
developed in order to calculate the number of personnel required for different
levels of production. This in return will help forecast the material requirements for
workstations, conveyors, carts, flow racks and warehousing equipment.The
forecasts will be based on the expected mean cycle times for the different
operations: data that was collected during the benchmarking phase.

3.6. PROCEDURE DEFINITION

The final phase of the factory design process will involve the installation all of the
equipment, verification of the operation of the planned processes, and the
development of procedures that would be used for training and execution.
During the development of these procedures, the errors in any assumptions will
be analyzed, and adjustments to the layout, equipment and personnel
requirements will be made.

3.7. PRODUCTS

The design of a factory will depend on the products to be produced; it is

therefore useful to discuss the characteristics of the product prior to discussing
the design of the factory. The products are likely to be of 2 types: Desktop
computers and laptops. Both types will include various components which
include Motherboards, memory, Processor, CD-ROM, Hard disk drives, Floppy Disk
drive, and Software. Although these various components are combined together
using different configurations, the final assembly procedure is the same.

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4. THE ASSEMBLY PROCESS

The assembly process is a very important aspect in a PC assembly plant. While

the assembly process generally takes less time than loading software or testing
the machine, it is arguably more valuable to the end customer. Customers can
and will load software, but choose not to assemble their machines from
individual components. The assembly process development can be broken into
two decisions. i.e whether the assembly process will be parallel or serial. Issues
pertinent to this decision include the variability of the product assembly process,
quality concerns, and demand volume. Once this decision has been made, the
team must determine how different products or variations will be assembled.
Dedicated lines or stations can be setup for each distinct product or product
family, or a single line or generic station can be used at which all of the different
products will be assembled.

4.1. PARALLEL Vs SERIAL ASSEMBLY

4.1.1. Parallel Assembly

In a parallel assembly structure the entire assembly process is completed at a

single station, with stations replicated based on cycle time in order to meet
demand quantities. One or a small group of assemblers is responsible for the
entire assembly process for units scheduled at their station.

4.1.2. Serial Assembly

A serial assembly process is more commonly known as an assembly line. The

assembly process is broken into individual steps, and completed by different
assemblers in a specific sequence. Demand quantities are met by increasing the
number of steps in the process, and thereby decreasing the cycle time at each
individual step. As throughput requirements are increased, the amount of work
on an individual unit performed by each assembler decreases.

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NOTE

There are obviously many factors that influence the decision of whether to
structure the assembly process in serial or in parallel. There is no “one size fits all”
answer; individual circumstances will dictate which is more effective for a given
product.

5. MANUFACTURING CONSTRAINTS

After designing the structure of the manufacturing processes, we must determine

the capacity of each of the different processes. The nature of the final assembly
process is such that there is inherent variability in each sub-process. Reducing this
inherent variability is an essential objective in order to avoid bottlenecks during
the manufacturing processes, hence we should design the capacity and buffers
in order to overcome this variability and ensure we can meet our throughput
goals.

6. TOOLS FOR PC ASSEMBLY

Assembling a PC from the scratch involves the use of certain tools, the tools listed
below are the standard tools used for PC assembly.

• Screwdriver
• Tweezers
• Flashlight
• Magnifier
• Canned compressed air
• Multi-meter
• Miscellaneous tools

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7. PC COMPONENTS

There are several components that make up the PC, the main components that
constitute the PC will be discussed in brief.

7.1. PC CASE

One of the first items to buy when building a PC is the casing. There are two
basic styles of casing,
Which ever is used, the process for assembling the PC is the same. they are :

• Desktop
• Tower

Also cases are specific to motherboard types. This is known as the form factor of
the motherboard. Other factors also determine the style of case to choose they
include Size, Looks, features, stability, ease of opening, ease of closing,
expansion possibilities and interior.

7.2. POWER SUPPLY UNITS

Most PC cases come with there own power supply unit (PSU).Factors such as
Power consumption and power output determine if a PSU is appropriate or
good. A good PSU must be able to deliver all the power the PC needs. The
various components of the PC also have various power consumption rating. It
must be ensured that the line voltage of the PSU is the correct rating. E.g The line
voltage rating for Nigeria is 220-240v.

7.3. CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT and MOTHERBOARD

The CPU is the brain of the PC. It is where all the data processing is carried out
and where all the instructions are interpreted. The motherboard is the nervous
system, responsible for carrying data to and from other devices in the PC and
connected to it. The CPU fits into the motherboard via a socket called a ZIF
socket. (ZIF stands for Zero Insertion Force, and the hundreds of pins on the base
of the CPU are designed to slip effortlessly into the socket.). The motherboard

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provides the circuitry that forms the pathways between the CPU and the RAM,
hard drives, optical drives (CD/DVD drives), expansion cards, and other devices
as well as carrying data to and from other components. The motherboard is
responsible for carrying power to these devices.

CPUs are one area that causes people a lot of confusion and frustration.
Basically, there are two major corporations competing in the PC arena. These
are:

o INTEL
o AMD

The major difference between CPUs is determined by the following

o Speed
o Socket Types
o Cache (Built in memory)
o Dual-core/hyper-threading/64-bit processors

Standard Motherboard Features

The standard motherboard contains several components that work together but
are assigned for different purposes. They are:

o CPU sockets
o RAM slots
o Chipsets
o PCI expansion card slots
o AGP/PCI express expansion slots (for video adapter)
o Hard drive/optical drive connectors (IDE/SATA)
o Floppy drive connector
o Power connectors
o Connectors for CPU and case fans
o Keyboard socket
o Mouse port

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 o Serial/parallel port
o USB ports

Other optional motherboard features include:

o On board video adaptor

o On-board modem
o On-board network adapter
o Additional USB ports
o Firewire ports

7.4. RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY

RAM (an acronym for random access memory) is a working memory space
that PCs use to load data and programs that are regularly accessed. The
data stored in RAM can be accessed in any order (hence the word
“random”) as opposed to, say, data stored on magnetic tapes, which has to
be read sequentially (this format is uncommon nowadays other than for
backups). The main reason for loading data into RAM as opposed to
accessing data directly off the hard drive is that it’s much faster to access
data from RAM than it is from a hard drive. There are different types of RAM
but the common modern types are

• DDR RAM
• DDR2 RAM

DDR stands for Double Data Rate, the word “double” because it is twice as fast
as regular SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory).

7.5. HARD DRIVE

The hard drive is a computer’s main storage device and is used to store data
such as the operating system, the applications, and the user’s files and
documents, as well as system settings particular to the user. What goes on inside
a hard drive is not important information when it comes to building a PC.

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8. SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS

In order to maintain high QoS and also produce PCs that would be of world
standard, certain precautions must be implemented during the assembly
process. This will help reduce manufacturing faults and waste of materials during
production.

i. Double-check that the CPU and motherboard are compatible:

ii. The Engineer should check the specification carefully before opening the
items to ensure that the CPU and motherboard are compatible

iii. Keep CPUs in their packaging until required: A modern CPU can have
almost a thousand pins on the base to allow it to connect up to a motherboard.
These are very small, thin, and fragile and very easily damaged. When the time
comes to take the CPU out of the packaging, the Engineer must take great care
not to damage the CPU (or to cut himself—CPUs can be well packaged and
difficult to remove from the plastic bubble packaging).

iv. Store the motherboard in the original packaging:

v. While looking at and examining the motherboard, the Engineer must be

careful not to flex or bend the board (minute cracks and fractures can
wreck a motherboard); take precautions against zapping it with static
electricity and return it to the ESD bag and box for storage. No other
components should be kept in the same compartment used for storing
the motherboards

vi. Store your hard drive in a well protected box and wrapped in an antistatic
bag: This is the way the drive is stored when it was purchased .Keep it
stored like this until it is required.

vii. The hard drive should be protected from falls and sharp knocks because
it’s a sensitive mechanical device.

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viii. The connectors at the end of the drive must be protected from damage.
These connectors consist of small pins that are easily bent or broken off. A
bent pin can be straightened with a pair of tweezers if the Engineer is very
careful (and very lucky), but a broken pin means a dead drive.

ix. Hard drive should be installed at room temperature. If the hard drive has
been stored in a cold, humid environment, the drive should be allowed to
come up to room temperature naturally over a few hours before installing
it. This will dramatically reduce the amount of wear and tear that the drive
will experience when first switched on. It’s also a good idea to do this too
if it’s just been delivered to you after transit in the mail.

x. Never peel any labels off the drive; this can invalidate your warranty.

xi. Stuck power cables and data ribbons: The power cables and data
ribbons are prime candidates for becoming stuck after being fitted. Never
tug on the wires to remove them because this can easily damage the
cables. To safely remove the connector, firmly grasp the connector and
pull on it gently, gradually increasing the force until it gives way.

9. STAFF QUALIFICATION:

Employment of staff is a critical safety issue. The Staff in the assembly plant must
be mentally and educationally sound. It is advised that the engineers have the
proper professional certification and academic qualification.

10. ASSEMBLING THE PC

Before a PC can be assembled, at the very least, the following components must
be available.

• PC case
• Motherboard with on-board video and audio

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 • CPU
• RAM
• Hard drive
• CD/DVD drive
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• Monitor

Below is a summary of the steps involved in assembling the PC from the scratch.
The configuration of each PC could be different but the procedure is the same.

• Each component that will be used in building the PC is tested separately

e.g Testing the PSU with a multi-meter to ensure the line voltage reading is
correct, checking the HDD pins, testing the RAM, reading the
motherboard manual and testing it etc.
• Coupling the various components into the PC casing, ensuring that every
screw is in place.
• Loading the Operating system software and other applications
• General test running and configuration check
• Packaging of the PC
• Storage

11. MARKETING.

Direct sales and demand-driven production

A more fundamental destabilizing force in the industry was the success of the
direct sales, build-to-order (BTO) strategy exemplified by Dell and Gateway.
Under this model, PC makers assemble systems as orders come in, usually
allowing customers to choose from a set of configurations, and ship the product
directly to the customer .Direct sales bypass distributors and retailers, taking out
their profit margin. Meanwhile, business processes were fundamentally altered by
the shift from supply-driven (build-to-forecast) to demand-driven (build-to-order)
production. The direct sales/build-to-order model reduced inventory across the

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supply chain, giving it a significant cost advantage. It also allowed PC makers to
achieve product differentiation through customization, in an industry whose
products were otherwise almost impossible to tell apart (Kraemer et al., 2000;
Dedrick and Kraemer, 2002)

12. CONCLUSION

The main competitors of PC Assembly in Nigeria are Zinox® and Omatek® who
both started recently. As new comers into the PC assembly arena, emulating
Dell’s direct-sales/build-to-order strategy and its competitive pressures can send
our organization straight to the top of the industry.

To be the number one PC Company, there has to be an aggressive supply and

distribution chain to reduce costs and respond more quickly to demand signals.

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REFERENCES

• Thomas M. Furey (1999); Decision elements in the design of a consumer

electronics assembly plant; Unpublished Thesis for MBA, University of
California.

• Adrian Kingsley-Hughes and Kathie Kingsley-Hughes (2006); Build the

ultimate custom PC; Wyley Publishing Inc., USA.

• Jason Dedrick and Kenneth L. Kraemer (2005); The impact of IT on firm

and industry structure; California Management Review; Vol 47. No. 3

• www.nolo.com

• www.entrepreneur.com

• www.thetimes100.co.uk

• www.entrepreneur.about.com

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GLOSSARY

QoS Quality of Service

ESD Electrostatic Discharge
PSU Power Supply Unit
CPU Central Processing Unit
ZIF Zero Insertion Force
RAM Random Access Memory
USB Universal Serial Bus
SATA Serial Advanced Technology Attachment
PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect
AGP Accelerated Graphics Port

CREDITS:
SANYA-ISIJOLA, ADEMUYIWA
08023866188
Simi4ever2001@yahoo.com
Simi4ever2001@hotmail.com

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