Enhancing Process Cycle Efficiency with Lean
Enhancing Process Cycle Efficiency with Lean
3,
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING March 2015.
ISSN (ONLINE): 2321-3051 Pgs: 38-51
pursuing Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from G.E.S.R.H. Sapat’s College of Engineering, Nashik-
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„Lean‟ is an established industrial paradigm with proven track record in various sectors of the industry (Womack and
Jones, 1996). World-Class multinational companies such as Toyota (second biggest global car manufacturer), Porsche‟s
(most profitable Global OEM), Boeing (largest global aerospace business) and Tesco (third largest global retailer) have
adopted Lean at the Corporate level. It is an applied methodology and step by step technique that results work tasks in a
process to be performed with the least involvement of non-value adding activities greatly resulting in reduced process
time, wait time, queue time, operation time, move time, administrative time and other delays. This paper addresses the
implementation of Lean Manufacturing in a small scale production industry. The main objective of this practice was to
minimize the waste on the shop floor. This paper shows the application of Value Stream Mapping (VSM) in detail. By
identifying the waste and its sources the present and future states of value stream maps are developed to improve the
production. This improvement technique focuses the benefits of Lean production techniques in various stages of V.M.
Auto Parts Pvt. Ltd. and results 6-7% potential cost saving reduction in cycle time and increase in cycle efficiency is
guaranteed. The flow process or cycle time was enhanced thus minimizing various non value added actions and times
such as bottle necking time, waiting time, material handling time, etc. More generic approach to design lean environment
can be developed by this case study.
Keywords: Lean Manufacturing, Value Stream Mapping, cycle time, Takt time Cycle efficiency.
1. Introduction
Lean Manufacturing is based on the Toyota Production system developed by Toyota which focuses on
eliminating waste, reducing inventory, improving throughput and encouraging employees to bring attention to
problems and suggest improvements to fix them(Womack et. al.1991). The basic definition of Lean Manufacturing
can be stated as a formal approach to manufacturing that seeks to reduce the cycle time to processes, increase the
flexibility and improve quality. The basic concept of Lean manufacturing is maximizing customer value while
minimizing waste, thereby achieving manufacturing excellence through the creation of more value with fewer
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resources. The core idea of lean is to eliminate waste from the manufacturing process. The collection of tips, tools
and techniques is the other way to look at Lean Manufacturing that have proven effective for driving waste out of
the manufacturing process. Many manufacturers are implementing lean principles rather than depending on
processes and procedures used in past for eliminating the waste and increase the efficiency.
The foundation for the successful implementation of Lean in a facility is guided by five continuous cycle
improvement steps of Lean.
Value
Value Sream
Flow
Pull
Perfection
+
1. Specify Value - Identify the value of a specific product from the customers perspective. Value can only be
designed by the ultimate customer, although it must be created by the producer.
2. Identify the value stream – Identifying the entire value stream for each product will almost always reveal time
three types of actions along the value stream including steps that create value, steps that create no value but are
unavoidable with the current technologies and production assets and non value-adding steps that can be eliminated.
3. Create flow – Once value has been precisely specified and the value stream for a specific product fully mapped,
making work elements flow continuously with minimal queues and no rework or stoppages in the next step in a
Lean transformation.
4. Establish Pull – After wasteful steps have been removed, and flow has been established the ability to deliver only
what is wanted by your customer and only when they want it, is the fourth principle of lean thinking: pull. Allowing
customers to pull a product through the process is indicative of the organization‟s ability to be responsive to a
customer‟s needs.
5. Seek Perfection – As organizations bring their processes through the initial four principles-accurately specifying
value, identifying the value stream and removing wasteful steps, creating flow, and letting customers pull value from
the enterprise-the fifth principle, perfection, becomes attainable.
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Whether it is small scale or a large scale industry, due to recent manufacturing trends it is easy to form a
assembly line. When the takt times are calculated for every part manufactured in the industry through different part
movements, then the problem of locating machines on the shop floor occurs when it is a job type production unit. To
eliminate these problems, a proper method is required to achieve a rhythm in manufacturing lean assembly line by
identifying value adding, non value adding and non value adding activities through an optimum feasible takt time.
This paper presents a case study of hub manufacturing unit and the problem as stated above. This paper
addresses the implementation of Lean manufacturing in the industry, with a highlights on the activities of
manufacturing line which should have a proper rhythm of assembly line, minimizing wastages like bottleneck time,
waiting time, material handling time, etc. The lean tool value stream mapping (VSM) applied as a method to load
the activities.
2. Literature Review
Currently, assembly lines are still fundamentals to get the smoothing of production system (Mienburg,2001) and
they are studied under several operative perspective seeking its flexibility (El-Maraghy,2005;Calvo et.al.2007). The
TPS founder Ohno (1988) and Shingo (1989) concentrated on the Production Engineering point of view and both
described in depth the tools and techniques. According to Womack and Jones (2003) the most important tool is the
value stream map (VSM) which they call the second principle Lean.
A VSM is a simple diagram showing every step involved in the material and information flows needed to bring
a product from order to delivery and is therewith indispensable as a technique for visually managing process
improvements. Mapping a process gives a clean picture of waste that inhabit flow (Tapping, Luyster, Shuker, 2002).
Due to high level of icon standardization a VSM provides a common language for all personnel as the
bottlenecks and inventory are located and problem areas as well as wastes are identified (red kaizen focuses in
figure). As all relevant process data (number of machines and operators, machine cycle time, changeover time, scrap
and rework and machine availability etc.) are additionally presented in data boxes, a Kaizen team gains inside into
how the operation is truly running that day.
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Afterwards mapping the current state, a future state, which identifies the opportunities to design a more efficient
and waste free value stream is created.
This paper minimizes several gaps and it shows how value stream transformation actions can achieve high
levels of performance in a short time and in industry, inside a context of an assembly line with a small space and that
it requires flexibility.
The problem deals with the end to end perspective of reducing cycle time and lead time at a production line of a
hub production unit.
Cycle time can be defined as total elapsed time to move a unit of work from the beginning to the end of the
physical process. In simple word cycle time is nothing but the time required to complete an entire operation on one
part from entering in the machine to exit of machine.
3. Lean Implementation
A tasks group of different faculties of the organization all having rich knowledge and information pertaining to
process, production planning is formed for implementing the lean principles. The adopted methodology is given in
figure.
Define Measure Analyse Improve Control
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• Problem Definition
• Process Study
Prework • Time Study
• Conducting brainstorming
• Conducting rapid improvement workshops
Fix It • Continous improvements
• Monitoring Performance
• Reduction of work area risks
Sustain It• Maintain the improvements
on the hub production unit. As a pre work, process and time study was performed at the production line with their
processing time. Data relevant to the customer such as a quality to be delivered, delivery time were observed and
information related to assembly line, such as processing time, inventory storage, inspection, rework loops, number
of workers and operational hours per day were collected and documented properly. To complete the value map, a
timeline is added at the bottom of the map recording the lead time and value added time, eventually the value stream
map for the current state is constructed as shown in the fig.
As observed from the value stream map, various value added activities present in the flow line, bottlenecks are
identified and quantified in time.
Current state hub production line process and processing time:
st
3. 1 Side Turning 4.8 11.1%
nd
4. 2 Side Turning 3.36 7.77%
Inspection &
8. 3.36 7.77%
Identification
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Identification
Rough Turning
12
12 1st Side Turning
8 6 Holes Drilling
2 Inpection
0 Loading
A. Takt time
It can be defined as the ratio of effective time to the customer demand. It is the time required for producing one
unit of daily salable quantity. Cycle time should generally be less than takt time. It is calculated based on machine
available time and the required number of units. Mathematically ,
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T=Ta/D
Where,
T= takt time
Ta= Net time available to work
D= demand(customer demand)
The procedure followed to determine takt time for the current production(taken as running production during
study) is as follow-
It is concluded that one unit of product must come out during every 3.15 min.
The future state map is obtained thinking about only producing what the next process needs and only when it needs
it with the goal of moving product faster through the production system by eliminating wastes. These wastes are
A. Overproduction
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The reasons for the overproduction is making more or earlier or faster than is required by the next process.
B. Inventory
The following can be reasons/causes for the excess inventory
(i) Protects the company from inefficiencies and unexpected problems
(ii) Poor market forecast
(iii) Unbalanced workload
(iv) Unreliable shipments by suppliers.
C. Defects
Weak process control, poor quality, product design, customer needs and understood, and inadequate
education/training/work instructions are the cause of defects.
D. Over processing
Causes of processing wastes are as follows,
(i) Product change without process change
(ii) Just in case logic
(iii) Lack of communication
(iv) Over processing to accommodate downtime
(v) Redundant approvals.
E. Waiting
Unbalanced work load, unbalanced maintenance, Long process set up times, misuse of automation, no
structured routines and unleveled scheduling are the reasons for waiting waste.
F. Underutilized People
The old guard thinking, Politics, business culture, poor hiring practices, Low or no investment in training, Low
pay, high turn over strategy are the causes of people waste.
G. Motion
Any movement of people or machines that does not add value to the product or service, Poor people/machine
effectiveness and inconsistent work methods are possible reasons for motion waste.
H. Transportation
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Poor plant layout, poor understanding of the process flow for production, Large batch sizes, long lead times and
large storage areas give rise to the transportation waste.
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Finally, the future state value stream map is constructed as shown in fig. which reported a considerable
depletion in non value added time. A drastic reduction in time for 2 nd side turning is observed. Furthermore, the
process lead time is reduced to 25.92 days from 43.2 days as illustrated in figure.
6 Hole Chamfering 75 45 15 60
Identification
Table outlines the value stream analysis report for the future state. It is found that about 525 sec or 83.3% out
of 630 sec, were value added activities compared to 105 seconds or 16.66% of non value added activities.
Comparing the value maps it can be concluded that a 100 sec reduction in non value added activities and 17.28 days
reduction in Lead time is achieved. Figure depicts the various benefits made after the implementation of lean.
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Future State
Present State
0 20 40 60
4. Conclusion
This present work provides a case study of the improvement of a hub manufacturing process by eliminating
the non value added activities by means of lean tools. It focuses the revamp of operations by eliminating the non
value added time and improving cycle efficiency through VSM. It can be concluded that VSM is an effective tool
for identifying the process.
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