Title: Productivity improvement through lean initiative in a surgical equipment manufacturing company: a case study

Authors: P.G. Saleeshya; Ajai Bhadran

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita University, Coimbatore, 641112, India ' Amrita University, Coimbatore, 641112, India

Abstract: The paper presents a case study conducted at a surgical equipment manufacturing company, where productivity improvement can be achieved by reducing the lead time required to manufacture their product. Using an important lean tool value stream mapping (VSM) the various wastes that are held up at each stage of manufacturing is identified, from which the most critical waste has been selected using a cost-time profile (CTP). Then a model is developed and solved using regression analysis. Based on the values obtained a cost-time profile is drawn again and compared, which reveals that there is nearly a 50% increase in the overall productivity.

Keywords: lean manufacturing; value stream mapping; VSM; cost-time profile; CTP; regression analysis; productivity improvement; surgical equipment manufacturing; case study; lead time reduction.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2015.072580

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2015 Vol.9 No.4, pp.297 - 314

Received: 29 Jan 2015
Accepted: 17 Jun 2015
Published online: 19 Oct 2015 *

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