Title: Design of leagile manufacturing system in a traditional pump manufacturing company

Authors: K. Balakrishnan; S.R. Devadasan; R. Murugesh

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government Engineering College, Thrissur, 680 009, Kerala, India ' Department Production Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, 641 004, India ' Darshan Institute of Engineering and Technology, Rajkot, Gujarat 363650, India

Abstract: During the recent years, a section of researchers have been addressing the implementation of leagile manufacturing paradigm in traditional companies for facing the intensified competition. As the title implies, leagile manufacturing paradigm is incorporated with lean and agile manufacturing principles. Although leagile manufacturing paradigm was evolved about three decades back, it is yet to find application in many traditional industries. One among them is pump industry. In order to fill this gap, the research reported in this paper was carried out. While pursuing this research, the sales trend of pumps over the past five years were gathered by visiting a traditional pump manufacturing company. By referring to this trend, leagile manufacturing system was designed. Subsequently, the steps to be followed to implement this leagile manufacturing system was evolved. After presenting these details, the challenges and benefits of implementing this leagile manufacturing system are described in this paper. While concluding, it is claimed that this research has opened an avenue for exploring the steps for successfully implementing leagile manufacturing paradigm in traditional industries.

Keywords: lean; agile; leagile; pump industry; plant layout; organisational structure.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIR.2018.096367

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 2018 Vol.17 No.4, pp.437 - 455

Received: 24 Mar 2017
Accepted: 12 Aug 2017

Published online: 27 Nov 2018 *

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