Title: Development of a leanness monitoring system via RFID: an industrial case study

Authors: Joseph C. Chen; Ye Li; Brett D. Shady

Addresses: Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and Technology, Bradley University, 110 Morgan Hall, 1501 W. Bradley Ave., Peoria, IL 61625, USA ' Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and Technology, Bradley University, 110 Morgan Hall, 1501 W. Bradley Ave., Peoria, IL 61625, USA ' Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, 50011, USA

Abstract: A leanness monitoring system (LMS) is presented in this paper to evaluate, in real time, the leanness of a manufacturing facility. This LMS has two major components, an online RFID-based lead-time monitoring system (ORLMS) and a leanness assessment system (LAS). The ORLMS determines how much time a product spends in the system's inventory, and the LAS uses this information to determine the company's leanness score. Following laboratory testing, this LMS was successfully implemented in a local manufacturing facility to demonstrate its effectiveness for real-world manufacturers. This local manufacturer received a low leanness score upon the initial implementation of this system, causing the managers of the company to review their current system. Their review identified substantial sources of waste in the current system that had to be eliminated or minimised in order to improve the overall efficiency. A series of Kaizen events were then initiated to minimise those sources of waste. After successfully implementing those Kaizen events, the LMS was used to generate a new leanness score showing significant improvements in their manufacturing process.

Keywords: leanness monitoring; radio frequency identification; RFID; case study; online monitoring; lean manufacturing; lead time monitoring; kaizen; continuous improvement.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMTM.2012.051439

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2012 Vol.26 No.1/2/3/4, pp.1 - 20

Received: 29 Sep 2011
Accepted: 24 Sep 2012
Published online: 26 Nov 2014 *

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