Title: Productivity improvement of an electrical appliance industry by implementing lean manufacturing tools and a low-cost intervention (a case study)

Authors: Anil Chaudhary; Ashish Kumar Singh; M.L. Meena

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Global Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India ' Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India

Abstract: The focus of lean manufacturing tools is the cost reduction by eliminating non-value added activities (waste, i.e., Muda), thus, enables continuous improvement. The purpose of this paper is to address the importance of value stream mapping (VSM) in a lean manufacturing environment in an Indian electrical appliance industry. This research aims to highlight how lean tools can be utilised to reduce the bottleneck, meet customer demand and increase productivity. A current state mapping study was conducted to find the areas of improvement. Several lean tools were implemented to determine the production pace. The study reveals that the wiring and connection workstation had maximum bottleneck value; hence, the customer demand was not met. Furthermore, wireless connection as an intervention was introduced in the production process to reduce the bottleneck in the cycle time. The improvement can be visualised through future state VSM. Lean tools along with some small interventions could play a significant role in improving the productivity of the company.

Keywords: lean manufacturing; value stream mapping; VSM; takt time; bottleneck process; productivity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2020.110942

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2020 Vol.31 No.3, pp.390 - 411

Received: 22 Oct 2018
Accepted: 07 Jun 2019

Published online: 02 Nov 2020 *

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