Execution of lean and industrial techniques for productivity enhancement in a manufacturing industry

Abstract

In current global manufacturing scenario, every organization wants to fulfill their customer needs to retain their position in the market. Lead time plays a vital role to improve them in the global competitive market. The aim of this research work is to minimize the overall lead time of the product by finding out bottlenecks and to eliminate them. The important processes in the production line are work in progress, layout optimization and line balancing. The existing manufacturing techniques and the process of the product were studied thoroughly and then time study was followed. Based on the time study results TAKT time was calculated for the demand followed with current state VSM was drawn and the bottleneck stations were identified. After developing current state VSM, assembly line was balanced using flexible line balancing software. Further improvements were made with the lean techniques of fish bone diagram, Pareto chart and layout optimization. After the execution of the above lean techniques the future state VSM was drawn and observed that the lead time and value added time were reduced by about 15 and 16 min respectively.