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Lean manufacturing tool and techniques in process industry

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 Sharma Neha et al. IJSRR 2013, 2(1), 54-63

Review article Available online www.ijsrr.org ISSN: 2279-0543

International Journal of Scientific Research and Reviews

Lean Manufacturing Tool and Techniques in Process Industry
Sharma Neha1*, Matharou Gurpreet Singh2, Kaur Simran3, Gupta Pramod4
1
Research Scholar Sunrise University, Alwar, Rajasthan,India
2
HOD Dept. of ME Institute of Engineering & Technology, Alwar, Rajasthan,India
3
Associate Professor Institute of Engineering & Technology, Alwar, Rajasthan,India
4
Professor Institute of Engineering & Technology, Alwar, Rajasthan,India

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the lean principles, tools and benefits of lean concepts in
industries. Lean manufacturing is plethora of principles that focus on cost reduction by identifying and
eliminating non value added activities. The fiercely globalised and competitive markets of 21st century
demand for increasing high variety of products at reducing cost, lesser lead time and perfect quality.
This changing scenario calls for a new manufacturing that would enable them to compete in this
competitive globalization market. This research addresses the application of lean manufacturing
concepts to the continuous production/process sector with a focus on the steel industry. The ideas are
tested on large manufacturing company.

KEYWORDS: Lean manufacturing, waste, lean principles & tools.

*Corresponding Author
Neha Sharma, Research Scholar
Sunrise University
Alwar, Rajasthan, India
E Mail: sharma.neha011@gmail.com

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INTRODUCTION:
Lean is defined as a strategy for achieving significant continuous improvement in performance
throught the elimination of all wastes of resources and time in the total business process.. It evolved
from Toyota after world war 2nd as a business strategy due to the limited resources available in Japan,
incontrast to the vast resources available to manufactures in the US. Its principles apply to nearly all
business operations, from administration and product design to hardware productions. Lean
manufacturing is about eliminating waste and non value added tasks. Examples of waste in
manufacturing include overproduction, over processing, waiting, unnecessary part movement, excess
inventory and defects, As applied to hardware production lean manufacturing focuses on eliminating
all sources of waste by applying the following strategies 1. One piece workflow 2. Take time 3. Pull
system Lean identifies the bottlenecks in design and development processes that add unnecessary
delays and cost. It can help create a more efficient system that reduces time to market without
compromising on quality.
Lean has a key role to play in new product development and the improvement of existing products and
the improvement of existing products, including idea creation, design for manufacture, assembly and
test, rapid prototyping, product portfolio management, market and competitor analysis, risk
management, sales forecasting, setting key performance indicators and value analysis to reduce the cost
of existing products.
The concept of Lean manufacturing is derived from the methods developed at the shop floor of Toyota,
which are described in detail by the authors like Taiichi Ohno and Shiego Shingo. But these concepts
in the form of lean manufacturing system (LMS) got an international recognition, as a result of the
book, the machine that changed the world” written by the researches Womack et al. According to
Womack Jones, and Roos, LM uses less of everything compared to mass production-half the human
efforts in the factory, half the manufacturing space, half the investment in tools and half the
engineering hours to develop a new product. In addition, it requires keeping far less than half of the
needed inventory on site, results in many fewer defects and produces a greater and ever growing
variety of products. In short, it is called lean manufacturing because it uses less or the minimum of
everything required to produce a product or perform a service.

LEAN THINKING:
Lean thinking is the dynamic knowledge driven and customer focused process by which all people in a
defined enterprise continuously eliminate waste with the goal of creating value. Womack and Jones
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 Sharma Neha et al. IJSRR 2013, 2(1), 54-63
describe lean thinking as “the antinodes “ to muda. Muda is the Japanese world for waste and
specifically “any human activity that absorbs resources but creates no value”. The essence of lean
thinking is the elimination of muda whenever it exists –within the individual firm but also along the
whole supply chain.
There are several typical categories of waste (muda in Japanese) as follows
1. Defective units (scrap) or rework
The existence of defective units in a process is typically the result of a poor preventive quality
system. When an error or defect is passed onto the next operation or even worse to the
customer, a loss is inevitably occurred. As a result, something has to be manufactured,
assembled or serviced twice, whereas the customer will rightfully only pay once for the goods
or service. Thus doing everything right the first time is the most efficient, least wasteful way.
2. Over-processing
Over processing is adding unnecessary features that are not value adding in the eye of the
customer. Poor process design can lead to producing better products or services than a customer
needs or is willing to pay for.
3. Motions
Unnecessary movement of people , products or equipment does not add value to a product. For
example workers walking back and forth from the work area to the supply area, moving around
unneeded equipment or performing redundant motions can be completely eliminated ot
automated to speed up the process.
4. Overproduction
5. Overproduction consists of making either unneeded excess goods or making needed goods too
early or in excessive quantity. It is also described as making goods just in case rather that Just
in Time (JIT). Traditionally, manufacturers have used the concept of Economic Order Quantity
(EOQ) which is also known as economic lot size or minimum cost order quantity to determine
their optimal manufacturing batches and lot sizes.
6. Waiting
Waiting inclues delays coming from peoples, processes, or Work in Progress (WIP) inventory
sitting inactive while waiting for instructions, information, raw materials or any other resources.
Wasteful waiting ties up capital, increases the risk of obsolescence or damage, and other
requires additional handling and movement of goods
7. Excessive inventory

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Stock that is sitting without providing value to a product accumulates cost. This is usually a
costly way to cover up quality problems such as rework and defects manpower or production
scheduling problems excessive lead time and supplier problems.
Principles behind the lean thinking:
 Customer focus: make sure that all the activities of the organization are driven by the customer
needs and expectations
 Eliminate waste with the goal of creating value: elimination of waste throughout the value chain.
I.e. those activities which does not add any value to goods or services in the eye of customers or
any for which the customer is not willing to pay.
 Pursue knowledge driven enterprise transformation: utilize the ideas and skills of everyone in
the organization to implement systematic changes
 Foster a dynamic process of change and capability building: pursue a proactive , relentless
process of ongoing change and capability building to ensure the sustains competitive advantage.

THE FIVE STEPS INVOLVED IN THE THINKING:

Step 1: Specifying Value
Womack and Jones states that value can only be defined by the ultimate consumer and is only
meaningful when expressed in terms of a specific product with specific capabilities which meets the
customer’s needs at a specific price at a specific time. The problem is that while value is defined by the
customer, it is created by the producer and many things get in the way when producers try to express
how they provide value.
Step 2: Identifying the value stream
Value stream is defined as: all the specific actions required to bring a specific product(whether a good,
a service) Identify all the steps across the whole value stream, tracking the sequence of processes from
raw materials to finished goods that deliver customer value.
Step 3: Creating flow
Make sure those steps flow better ensures actions, which create value flow properly and eliminate
delays and interruption to create a smooth process.
Step 4: The concept of pull
Pull in simplest term means that no one upstream should produce a good or service until the customer
downstream asks for it.”Because of its responsiveness, this form of small lot, even single item,
production means that the plant only makes what is ordered when it is ordered.

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Step 5: The hunt for perfection
Strive for perfection by continually removing successive layers of waste, which is defined as anything
that does not add value to a product or service.

To implement lean manufacturing five primary elements need to be worked upon

Manufacturing flow concerns with the uninterrupted flow of material from the store through to value
addition processed to the shipping
Organization deals with peoples roles and responsibility and to train them in new ways of thinking
working and communication
Process controls concerns with all that is required to monitor, control and improve discrete
manufacturing process steps.
Metrics it is the criteria to judge the success of lean manufacturing implementation, it established
visible, results based performance measures, determining targets for improvement and recognizing
work teams for process improvements
Logistics it is the backbone of lean manufacturing. In case of working with minimum level of raw
materials inventory, it becomes very important to ensure on time, correct, flexible and good quality
supplies. The relations between supplier and customer take a very leading role, So, logistics concerns
with the systems and mechanisms to ensure good supplies. It defines operating rules and mechanisms
for the flow of material.

LEAN MANUFACTURING PRINCIPLES INCLUDE:

 Pull processing products are pulled from the consumer end (demand) not pushed from the
production end (supply)
 Perfect first time quality- quest for zero defects revealing & solving problems at the source.
 Waste minimization- eliminating all activities that do not add value & safety nets, maximize use of
scarce resources(capital, people and land).
 Continuous improvement- reducing costs, improving quality, increasing productivity and
information sharing.
 Flexibility- producing different mixes or greater diversity of products quickly, without sacrificing
efficiency at lower volumes of production.
 Building and maintaining a long term relationship with suppliers through collaborative risk sharing
, cost sharing and information sharing arrangements.

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TABLE 1: Summary of the Data

Company 1 Company 2 Company 3 Company 4 Company 5

Quality Control and Corp. Strg & Supt.Qual &
Title of system Business Development Internal Process
Interviewee coordinator Service Mgr. Consultant Tech
Log M/S
downtime ,
customer
push us to
implement
lean, reduce Become Cost Economiccs,
Driving Force cost competitive Liquidity Losing money save money
JIT, TPM,
Setup
JIT TQM, JIT, TPM, TPM, TQM, reduction,
Lean tools used JIT, TPM TPM TQM 5S, Cell Mnfg TQM
How far along
implementation 0-25% 51-75% 26-50% 26-50% 0-25%
Better Clean & safer
customer workplace
service,lower better Lower Cost,
Expectation Improve cost, higher Cost planning reduce
from lean cost cash flow competitive procedures inventory
Made profit
for entire year
since
Process implementing
Results Reduced See improvement, lean, clean &
obtained from M/C improvement cut cost safer Save some
lean downtime in cost significantly workplace money
Challenges
faced when Changing Union issues,
implementing historical Automation Internal Inflexibility
lean N/A rules issues Consultant of union
Support of top Very Very Very
management Neutral supportive supportive supportive Neutral

LEAN TOOLS AND TECHNIQUE:

Various techniques such as Kaizen, Minute exchange of dies(SMED),Six Sigma, Kanban, Value
Stream Mapping(VSM), 5S, Total Quality Management (TQM), Theory of constraints(TOC), Total
Productive Maintenance (TPM), Business Process Management (BPM), Visual Management, etc

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supports the lean transformation in order to remove waste, variability and overburden and deliver
improvements in specific areas.
Every tool has its own way of eliminating waste, SMED reduces waiting and overproduction by
creating shorter machine setup times. Value Stream Mapping draws the actual product flow through the
manufacturing resources and can uncover important areas for improvement . Kanban reduces inventory
by introducing a consumer pulled production system.
 Poka Yoke (Error Proofing) Error proofing is a structured approach to ensure quality and error free
manufacturing environment. Error Proofing assures that defect will never be passed to next
operation. Poka Yoke means fool proofing, it is all about ensuring that the mistake doesn’t happen.
Error proofing is a manufacturing technique of preventing errors by designing the manufacturing
process, equipment and tools so that an operation literally cannot be performed incorrectly. The
basic concept of this is avoiding the problems by correcting the process.
 JIT: A philosophy of manufacturing based on planned elimination of all waste and continuous
improvement of productivity. It encompasses the successful execution of all manufacturing
activities required to produce a final product.
 Kanban: A method for maintaining an orderly flow of material. Kanban cards are used to indicate
material order points, how much material is needed, it should be delivered. Production Kanban are
also used to control production.
 Kaizen: The Japanese term for improvement continuing improvement involving everyone managers
and workers. In manufacturing, kaizen relates to finding and eliminating waste in machinery,
labour or production methods. Kaizen is a simple parts-movement system that depends on cards
and boxes/containers to take parts from one workstation to another on a production line. The
essence of the kanban concepts is that a supplier or the warehouse should only deliver components
to the production line as and when they are needed, so that there is no storage in the production
area.
 Lean Metric: Lean metric allow companies to measure ,evaluate and respond to their performance
in a balanced way, without sacrificing the quality to meet quantity objectives or increasing
inventory levels to achieve machine efficiencies. The type of lean metric depends on the
organizations and can be of following categories; Financial performance, behavioral performance
and core process performance.
 One piece Flow: One piece flow or continous flow processing is a concept means that items are
processed and moved directly from one processing step to the next, one piece at a time. One piece

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flow helps to maximum utilization of resources, shorten lead times, and identify problems and
communication between operations.

 Tact Time: The time required between completions of successive units of end product. Tact time is
used to pace lines in the production environments.
 Overall equipment effectiveness: To calculate OEE for the constrained operations. Measures the
availability, performance efficiency and quality rate of equipment- it is especially important.
 Perquisite Tree: Is a logical structure designed to identify all obstacles and responses needed to
overcome them in realizing and objective.
 Process Route Table: Shows what machines and equipment are needed for processing a component
or assembly. These tables aid in creating ordinary lines and grouping work pieces and work cells.
 Quick Change Over: Quick change over is a technique to analyze and reduce resources needed for
equipment step up, including exchange of tools and dies.
 Standard Rate or Work :The length of time that should be required to set up a given machine or
operation and run one part ,assembly ,batch or end product through that operation .
 Total Productive Maintenance: Total productive maintenance is a maintenance program concept,
which brings maintenance into focus in order to minimize equipment usage .The goal of TPM is to
avoid emergency repairs and keep unscheduled maintenance to a minimum.
 Transition Tree : Is a cause and effect logic tree designed to provide step by step progress from
initiation to Completion of a course of action or change. It is an implementation tool.
 Value Stream Mapping: Value stream mapping is a graphic tool that helps you to see and
understand the flow of material and information as a product makes its way through the value
stream.
 Value Stream Costing: Value stream costing methodology simplifies the accounting process to give
everyone real information in a basic understandable format.
 Visual Management: Is a set of techniques that makes operation standards visible so that workers
can follow them more easily.
 Work flow diagram: Shows the movement of material, identifying areas of waste. Aids team to
plan future improvements.

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CONCLUSION:
The current level of lean implementation in industries is examined. It also showed that certain
techniques could work universally. It has been concluded that major manufacturing industries have
been trying to adopt manufacturing initiatives in order to stay alive in the new competitive market
place .Lean manufacturing is one of these initiatives that focus on cost reduction by identifying and
eliminating on value added activities .In Indian industry a lot of scope is their to improve inventory
control, reduce lead time, set-up timer which will lead to competitiveness of Indian industry.

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