Application of Value Stream Mapping Tool to Reduce Wastes in Bearing Industry

Abstract

In today’s highly competitive business environment, companies require improvement in Production Lead Times, costs and customer service levels to survive. Because of this, companies have become more customers focused. The result is that companies have been putting in significant effort to improve their efficiency. This paper present the practical application of Value Stream Mapping (VSM) tool implement in a bearing industry. A value stream is an assortment of all actions (value added as well as non-value added) that are required to bring a product through the essential flows, starting with raw material and ending with the customer. For drawing current state value stream mapping, all relevant data has been collected and analyzed. Then analysis of current state map has been done for identifying non-value adding activities, in other words waste and suggestions on how to remove or reduce different wastes. From the results achieved by current VSM, it was observable that the two processes Annealing and CNC Machining have higher cycle time and WIP. In order to increase their capacity, their cycle should be reduced. By implementing some lean principles and changes in the production line, the future state map was created and the reduction the different types of wastes reduced. The total processing time was reduced from 409 seconds to 344 seconds.