The Process Improvement Studies to Increase the Productivity in a Printed Fabric Production Facility

Abstract

Textile sector which helps arising and developing many sectors serves as a locomotive of export nowadays. Therefore, the competition in textile market is considerably high. Many firms have started the lean production system in order to achieve success in this competition. The aim of the present study is to overcome the bottlenecks which are seen in the packing, planning and quality control departments in a printed fabric production plant which operates in the Turkish textile industry. In the process improvement studies made through Kaizen technique among the lean production techniques, the processes are firstly observed and the wastes and the waste resources are tried to be determined. Then, the methods to be practiced are presented and some studies are conducted for these methods. As a result of these studies, before-after Kaizens are practiced. Almost 8,245 TL was gained with Kaizen in the planning and quality control department in a month and almost 5,100 TL was gained in the packing department. The personnel satisfaction was also provided beside the profit gained with Kaizen. At that time, the serious increase is observed in the productivity by enabling to distribute proportionally the workload. The failure rates fairly decreased and therefore, the customer satisfaction as well as the quality increased.