Implementing Lean manufacturing in our Organization – Part 2

This is the part 2 of this series. If you have not read the part 1, please read by clicking this link

2) Level Production or Heijunka
Prior to kaizen, production schedule was based on big lot size or batch of a particular model. This is because of the long changeover time; hence loss time is incurred whenever there is a model change.

After kaizen, production schedule issued to manufacturing is leveled (see Figure 2) Daily and fixed for a period of 4 weeks to optimize the 3M resources, namely Man, machine and materials. Daily scheduled plan will run every part every day, in small lot size. Any volume fluctuation from customer is managed by Finished Good Buffer which is adjusted regularly.

Daily monitoring of schedule attainment to prevent overproduction and at the same time ensure all losses are catch up within the same day. By incorporating real time visual management . Control (see Figure 3), we are able to quickly surface and resolve any abnormality.





4) Increase output to Meet Customer Takt time
To reach the desired output, we need to develop the waterfall chart (see Figure5), which indicates all the processes not meeting the customer takt time. Once identified, there is a need to improve process cycle time starting with all those processes not meeting customer takt time, in this case about 10 out of the 23 processes
The team started exploring all opportunities to improve machine cycle time through Motion kaizen concept (see Figure 6.1 to 6.3) This refers to the elimination of muda motions through proper part presentation, shorten travel distance, optimize speed, elimination of duplicate test/processing/inspection etc. For machine processes, separate value and non value added motions, eliminate non value added movements. This can only be achieved by going to the Gemba and acquiring the ability of “Eye for Waste”.

Read Part 3 of this series