Lean Manufacturing Techniques Research Articles

Implementation of Value Stream Mapping for Waste Elimination in Public Sectors: A Case Study at Emam Sajjad Clinic, Rasht, Iran

Introduction: In the competitive world, it is necessary to be aware of all tools and knowledge as well as to learn the correct use of tools and techniques of lean manufacturing. The lean manufacturing concepts are always trying to achieve the lowest loss and highest efficiency in production planning. In this production mode which now operates in manufacturing sectors, the value stream map is currently applied as one of the most efficient tools. Value stream map has also been recently used as a method of planning in the service sectors in particular in the health and emergency. Method: This research work aims to use the value stream map in a public emergency sector in an Iranian hospital. At the beginning, data have been collected through timing followed by drawing the current flow map in emergency conditions. Improving suggestions and removing unnecessary activities have been proposed considering the lean manufacturing concepts. The proposed map, targeting to the future improvement, has also been presented and data analy- sis was done using the well-known software of EASYFIT. Standard normal test has been utilized to check the existing difference between current and future stream maps in terms of waiting and processing times. Results: The current and suggested stream maps have been simulated using ARENA and comparing results revealed that the improvement of 6.336 minutes and 77.76 seconds have been achieved in waiting and processing times, respectively. Using standard normal test also showed that there are significant differences between average waiting and processing times over the current and future stream maps. Discussion: Since, comparing the results shows statistical improvement on average waiting and processing times on the current and future stream maps, it can be concluded that using value stream map technique is capable to improve service quality in medical centers.

Lean practices implementation and their relationships with operational responsiveness and company performance: an Italian study

Although many firms report large benefits from lean implementation, a lot of scepticism still remains regarding attainable results and the possibility to apply Lean approach outside high-volume manufacturing and stable context. In this work, combining field interviews with literature review, theoretical connections have been developed among Lean manufacturing techniques, operational responsiveness and company growth performances. A conceptual model has been proposed for investigating the network of influences among lean practices (supplier management, human resource management, just-in-time and total quality management practices), operational responsiveness (Product mix variety, Product innovation and Time effectiveness) and company growth performances in Italian companies. Using structural equation modelling, a second-order confirmatory factor analysis has been used to test the hypothesised relationships in the structural models. This study highlights that the operational responsiveness is only partially connected to a Lean strategy of a company. Indeed, the lean practices implementations are negatively influenced by product mix variety and innovation, while positively influenced by time effectiveness variables. Moreover, product mix variety and time effectiveness are the main characteristics of the operational responsiveness that positively influences company growth performances. So time effectiveness could be considered as a mediator between Lean best practices and firm growth. Moreover, no direct relationship has been found between lean bundles and firm’s performances. Lack of resources and mainly poor communication and managers’ commitment and support seem to be the main obstacles of lean implementation and success.

Transforming Processes to Achieve Leanness in Manufacturing Setup: Viewpoint on Performance Measurements

This paper presents a structure for the implementation of some of the Lean Manufacturing (LM) tools and techniques. The structure employs analytical approach taking the company through various iterative implementation phases of robustness of operation, responsiveness to customers and proactive growth tactics. The framework incorporates a detailed assessment of the level of business environment turbulence and the impact of this turbulence on the enterprise. The results of this assessment are used to identify and customize an implantation plan as well as select the required tools and those measures of performance necessary to monitor the plans progress. This is being carried out at Jamshedpur India while aligning actions with the company‟s long term vision, mission and corporate strategy. The study revealed a lot of avenues for the improvement of the company. Viewing the situation from an operations management perspective, this paper presents a logical and well-structured framework and clear justification for implementing the LM to improve the product quality and productivity of the organization as a whole by which an organization can transform into a world-class enterprise.

Lean and Industry 4.0—Twins, Partners, or Contenders? A Due Clarification Regarding the Supposed Clash of Two Production Systems

Although Lean manufacturing techniques are not yet in place in every shop floor production, the so-called Smart Factory with the very promising German-coined label “Industry 4.0” is already making its tour. While the Toyota Production System (TPS) has shown to be the most performant manufacturing system, the Industry 4.0 initiative is still in the scoping phase with the demanding goal to become a highly integrated cyber production system. The partial and often limited knowledge about Lean production leads to distorted ideas that the two approaches are incompatible. In order to eradicate wrong statements, this paper tries to explain what Lean really is and how it has to be considered in the context of the Industry 4.0 initiative. Further, it discusses the existing contradiction within the Industry 4.0 goals regarding manufacturing performance and break-even point.

Resource Efficient Configuration of an Aircraft Assembly Line

The design of efficient assembly systems can significantly contribute to the profitability of products and the competitiveness of manufacturing industries. The configuration of a an efficient assembly line can be supported by suitable methodologies and techniques, such as design for manufacture and assembly, assembly sequence planning, assembly line balancing, lean manufacturing and optimization techniques. In this paper, these methods are applied with reference to the industrial case study of the assembly line of a Skycar light aircraft. The assembly process sequence is identified taking into account the analysis of the assembly structure and the required precedence constraints, and diverse techniques are applied to optimize the assembly line performance. Different line configurations are verified through discrete event simulation to assess the potential increase of efficiency and throughput in a digital environment and propose the most suitable configuration of the assembly line.

Evaluating lean execution performance in Indian MSMEs using SEM and TOPSIS models

To meet competitive requirements and reduce costs, many manufacturers are turning to lean manufacturing techniques. Various problems are usually faced in the implementation of lean manufacturing in the Indian micro, small and medium enterprises. This paper investigates the implementation of the lean manufacturing concept in the MSME sector. In particular, it examines the extent to which lean manufacturing can be implemented given the various financial constraints encountered in the current economic environment of India. To this end, lean implementations were conducted and studied in six Indian MSMEs. The study was conducted using structural equation modelling (SEM). The software, LISREL was used for calculating the ranking factors using TOPSIS and FUZZY TOPSIS technologies. The study was conducted with a view to elucidating the methodology of lean manufacturing that was successful, besides supporting the basic hypotheses. The final solution proposed is a systematic method postulated to improve the productivity and performance of the manufacturing industry.

Lean manufacturing system for air cleaner assembly cell

Lean manufacturing system works in every part of the value stream by reducing waste in order to reduce lead time, cost, bring in more sales, and remain competitive in a growing global market. In the present work, the use of lean manufacturing tools in plastic industries are addressed and particularly for air cleaner assembly cells. In order to identify opportunities for implementation of lean methods value stream mapping is used as a tool. The current value stream map (CVSM) is developed by mapping all the information and material flow. All data for CVSM is collected including machine cycle time, change over time, and information flow data such as how often customer place orders. The map is studied and target areas for improvement are identified to reduce the waste. Procedures are developed for adapting the lean manufacturing techniques such as, cellular manufacturing, line balancing helping in reducing the wastes.

HOURLY STABILITY ANALYSIS AS THE KEY PARAMETER OF LEAN MANUFACTURING AND LOGISTICS

Lean manufacturing belongs to the basic philosophies originating in automotive industry. It was originally based on a number of elementary principles and methods. Companies from other industrial areas have also been gradually trying to apply these principles. This leads to the incorporation of other tools from various areas into this concept. The fundamental techniques of lean manufacturing include the hourly stability (output) analysis. This method can be applied in a wide variety of manufacturing fields. The aim is a stable working worker, not a worker working rapidly and with large fluctuations. Speed and sudden changes mean inaccuracy, poor quality and problems to the manufacturing companies. The research has also carried out the hourly stability analysis in a company manufacturing components for a variety of global car manufacturers. The objective of this article is to evaluate the research of hourly stability for the selected workplaces.

Maintenance Management and Lean Manufacturing Practices in a Firm Which Produces Dairy Products

While enterprises are struggling to go on existing in the intensive competitive environment, unexpected breakdowns occur at unexpected times, thereby leading to the emergence of halts in production and to hitches in production plans. As a result, enterprises suffer from the loss of revenue as they fail to hit the production quantity that they have aimed at. The fact that the maintenance plans have been made well is an important issue in the prevention of the losses due to breakdowns within an enterprise. This gains more importance particularly when the production system grows and the production quantity increases. It is necessary to plan the activities to be carried out to ensure that the machines and plants of enterprises are working continuously. All management activities concerning the practices including such issues as the determination of maintenance priorities as well as preparation and supervision of maintenance plans are carried out with maintenance management. This study described the implementation of maintenance management and lean manufacturing techniques at the maintenance workshop in order to eliminate the losses due to breakdowns and to enhance productivity and the motivation of employees at an enterprise which produced dairy products.

An Application of Value Stream Mapping in Ceramic Tile Industry: A Case Study

The purpose of this paper is to increase the productivity of a ceramic tile manufacturing process using lean manufacturing technique. The current system of the ceramic tile manufacturing process has been mapped using Value Stream Mapping (VSM) tool, which is a lean manufacturing tool and the wastages in the current system are identified. Afterwards, future state has been created by using VSM tool, which has enhanced process ration by decreasing maximum possible waste in the manufacturing process. The case study demonstrates how the VSM tool has been used to identify and reduce waste in the manufacturing process by 26%, unnecessary inventory by 8.33% and working time of the color-mixing department by 21.57%. This flexibility enhancement causes 2.67% shorter lead time, 2.70% higher value-added ratio and frequent product delivery leading to more profits.

Development of a Framework for a Lean based Water and Energy Efficiency Assessment Tool

The manufacturing industry of South Africa is the sector consuming the largest portion of the total energy consumption and second largest portion of total water consumption per annum nationally. With a significant increase in electrical energy cost in recent years, together with the reserve energy margin dropping below the minimum level required for sustainable operation of energy utilities, energy efficiency improvement is becoming imperative for organisational success as well as national economical sustainability. This paper explores selected Lean manufacturing principles and its positive effect on energy and water efficiency. Although the implementation of Lean manufacturing techniques naturally leads to the improvement of energy and water intensity, the author believes that there is even greater potential in the development of a Lean based tool which will specifically focus on the improvement of energy and water efficiency. For this purpose the value stream mapping tool was chosen as the foundation. This paper continues to explain the process undergone to develop standardised energy and water specific waste categories to be used in conjunction with the traditional Lean wastes. The study concludes by detailing the development of the tool, together with its framework for implementation and a brief discussion on the forecasting model incorporated.

MAKING FORMWORK CONSTRUCTION LEAN

Formwork material and payroll are among the greatest costs in building reinforced concrete structures. Therefore, formwork engineering is a key factor affecting project success. Traditional formwork construction entails non-value-adding activities resulting in waste. The objective of this study is to adapt lean manufacturing techniques to formwork engineering in a bid to reduce waste, specifically by developing a lean formwork construction model. In the model, andon is used to establish an on-site quality control culture, allowing form workers to obtain assistance immediately whenever a problem occurs. In addition, formwork operations are pulled through the kanban system to reduce mould inventory and achieve continuous construction flow. A case study is used to validate the applicability of the proposed model. Results show that the proposed model can effectively reduce waste in the formwork construction flow and increase the value of operations, thus providing a new approach to improving formwork engineering.

Identifying the key success factors (CSF) for the deployment of lean manufacturing techniques by using fuzzy TOPSIS (FTOPSIS) (Case Study: Iran Khodro Company)

Abstract. The aim of this study was to identify indicators of lean manufacturing techniques by using fuzzy TOPSIS in Iran Khodro Co. The population of the study is 296 managers and experts of Iran Khodro and number of samples by using Cochran formula is 167. The deployment of lean manufacturing with the peer review literature in the form of a conceptual model in the 5 dimensions of leadership, management information systems, human resources, supply chain management and manufacturing process management, identification and screening of indicators 15 were in the index locating in each dimension. Then, using the technique of fuzzy TOPSIS to evaluation and ranking of indicators and techniques of lean manufacturing with Shannon entropy TOPSIS looked fuzzy. The importance of leadership in the rankings after the first and dimension information system management, manufacturing process management, human resources and supply chain management business ranks second to fifth respectively. Using fuzzy TOPSIS techniques and were rated 15 of the index's weight.

Kanban and value stream mapping analysis in lean manufacturing philosophy via simulation: a plastic fabrication (case study)

This article is a practical study focusing on three lean manufacturing techniques, which are Kanban production system, setup time reduction, and total productive maintenance (TPM) in a plastic fabrication industry. Nevertheless the methodology can be simply expanded to other industries as well. Kanban is implemented as the main subject for just–in–time (JIT) production systems, while value stream mapping (VSM) is utilised to focus more on the streams in the production processes. The three main causes for work–in–process (WIP) are selected based on the cause and effect diagram in the company. Based on simulation and the results obtained from ANOVA, Kanban and TPM are recognised as the two most significant techniques in comparison with the setup time reduction technique which has the least significance. Furthermore, the study signifies that the Kanban–TPM system widely stimulates the reduction in both lead time and WIP inventory. Finally, the new VSM of the company signifies the alleviation of information exchange and paper works between various departments engaged in the process in comparison to the prior situation.

A case study: SMED & JIT methodologies to develop continuous flow of stamped parts into AC disconnect assembly line in Schneider Electric Tlaxcala Plant.

The competitiveness in the globalized environment highlights the importance of becoming more efficient in the execution of the company's operative and administrative processes in order to improve the level of customer service, delivery times, quality of products or services, as well as to optimize resources. The great advantage of implementing integrated logistics activities as a strategy to achieve this is undeniable. This paper, therefore, presents the methodology and the benefits obtained, which, with properly forecasted demand, aggregate planning methodology and the synchronization of some lean manufacturing techniques using tools like JIT (Just In Time) and SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die), make the enterprise more competitive in delivery lead time, improve customer service level and reduce inventory. This case study involved some functional areas like Demand Planning, Materials Planning, the Manufacturing and Production Departments and the Warehouse Area. The principal objective of this research is to create a continuous flow of the stamped parts, from the Stamped Area to the final Assembly Line; in order to avoid sending the materials to the warehouse as currently happens.

Production Line Analysis via Value Stream Mapping: A Lean Manufacturing Process of Color Industry

Lean Manufacturing (LM) is a business strategy that was developed in Japan. The main role of lean manufacturing is to determine as well as to eliminate the waste. Companies implement LM to keep their competitiveness over their competitors by improving the manufacturing system's productivity and quality enhancement of the product. The goal of this paper is to apply one of the most significant lean manufacturing techniques called Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to improve the production line of a color industry as a case of study. To achieve this goal, lean fundamental principles was implemented to construct VSM for identification and elimination of wastes by using team formation, product selection, conceptual design, and time-frame formulation through takt time calculation. Based on the future VSM, final results showed that by implementing some lean thinking techniques, Production Lead-time (PLT) decreased from 8.5 days to 6 days, and the value added time decreased from 68 minutes to 37 minutes.

Value Stream Evaluation and Simulation to Improve Material Flow and Productivity

The main objective of this paper is to improve the productivity of a carburetor production processes using lean manufacturing technique. The current system of the carburetor production process has been mapped using electronic Value Stream Mapping (eVSM) tool which is a lean manufacturing tool and the wastages in the current system are identified. Then future state was drawn by using eVSM tool which has an enhanced process ratio by decreasing maximum possible waste in the production process. The current and future state of the carburetor production has been created as model and simulated using Arena software. The simulation shows a significant decrease in Non-Value added time and production lead time, thereby indicating increase in productivity and better work flow in production processes.

Evaluation of Lean Manufacturing Systems Using MADM and Fuzzy TOPSIS

Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy derived from Toyota Production System (TPS) which aims to increase the overall values of the product or service provided to the customer through elimination of non-value added activities. In the era of globalisation, to remain competitive in the global market, many medium and small sized Indian industries adopt lean manufacturing. This paper focuses on implementation of lean manufacturing in Indian MSMEs. To examine the implementation, attributes which influence lean manufacturing are obtained and industries’ performances on these criteria are rated. In this paper, the methodology selected from many of the multi criteria models is the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). In the actual real world situation, because of the unreliable nature of the information gathered, the attributes are often not absolute and are imprecise. These data can be considered as fuzzy and the aim of this paper is to adopt TOPSIS decision making method to problems with fuzzy data. The rating and weights of each data are expressed as triangular fuzzy numbers. These attributes are then normalized and the TOPSIS methodology is carried out to determine the effect of implementing lean manufacturing technique in an industry. The best industry is identified by fuzzy TOPSIS on the basis of performance towards the considered attributes is consistent with results identified by TOPSIS.

Lean machine manufacturing at Munjal Showa limited

Purpose – The global manufacturing industry is becoming more competitive. Munjal Showa, a shock absorber manufacturer in India, is using indigenous development of lean machines by incorporating concepts of lean manufacturing and low-cost automation techniques to increase their competitiveness. This new approach has helped the company to reduce cost of manufacturing and to increase productivity by reducing cycle time and down time. The purpose of this paper is to offer an in depth study of how at Munjal Showa Ltd lean machines are being developed and manufactured. This paper explores how a cumbersome machine was transformed into a lean machine. Design/methodology/approach – This paper explores how a cumbersome machine was transformed into a lean machine. Findings – This new approach has helped the company to reduce cost of manufacturing and to increase productivity by reducing cycle time and down time. Research limitations/implications – The paper discusses the process of converting one cumbersome machine to a lean machine. Practical implications – Creativity before capital. In lean, team brainstorming of ideas and solutions is emphasized instead of spending large sums of money on capital expenditures Social implications – The cockpit model eases pressure of incumbents on the shop floor. Originality/value – The concepts espoused in the paper has increased productivity by 3.45 times and reduced costs.

The Effectiveness of Value Stream Mapping (VSM) as an Improvement Tool for the Manufacturing Operation

This paper presents the application of the Value Stream Mapping (VSM) as improvements tools at selected case study industry. A VSM process is the transformation of raw materials into finished goods and considered interaction of information, operators, machines and materials. The objectives of this project are to study critical wastes in production line and to recommended new design layout based on Lean Manufacturing techniques. Lean is about performance more with minimized the time, inventory, space, labor, and money. The tool of VSM used in this project successfully achieved its objectives to identify waste and proposing the solution for regarding problems. The lead time was reduced by half, the value added ratio was increased drastically and the cycle time was improved by minimize the handling time. VSM was a magical tool that cans reveals of all the data, problem, process, operation and overall flow of processes to make a certain product.