APPLICATION OF LEAN MANUFACTURING IN DEVELOPING BEST PRACTICES FOR PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT IN AN AUTOASSEMBLY PLANT

Abstract

Principles of lean manufacturing and total productive management have been applied to increase the plant's output in order identify bottlenecks in the plant that limits the output and lean manufacturing helped to identify waste (muda) in the constrained production areas[1]. A very useful best practice for the productivity improvement that is easy to use by plants' management to help them identify and manage bottlenecks, and to eliminate waste from the production system. Lean manufacturing is one of the best suited total productive maintenance practices for quick responsiveness through integrating various processes like, high machine utilization, best utilization of man power, elimination of waste, mistake proofing. The main objective of this process is to control cost through focus on Zero breakdown, Zero accident, Zero defect. To meet the changing requirements & expectations from our customers, we need to be more agile, which leads to improved responsiveness, More Cost competitive to address cost reduction expectation or minimizing where it is not possible to eliminate. The Exercise of identifying the wastes starts with application of value stream map techniques throughout the scope of the supply chain.