Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Tools to Improve Performance in Circlips Industry: A Case Study

Lean Manufacturing is a business strategy that was developed in Japan. The main role of lean manufacturing is to determine as well as to eliminate the waste. Companies implement Lean Manufacturing to compete with their competitors by improving the manufacturing system’s productivity and quality enhancement of the product. The main aim of lean manufacturing is to eliminate ‘Muda’. Muda is a Japanese word, which means waste. Wastes are of seven types, which occur in any of the industry. These wastes are transportation, unnecessary inventory, unnecessary movement, waiting time, over production, over processing and defects. Lean manufacturing is the improvement process by minimizing and eliminating the waste, which occurs in industry. In this study, one of the well-known tool of lean manufacturing approach called Value Stream Mapping is used. Value stream mapping records all the operations to transform the raw materials into the finished goods taking into consideration the non-value added activities. The purpose of the study is to develop a Value Stream Map for a Circlips manufacturing company in Gujarat. In this study, a current state map is developed to make a sketch of production flow line and understand the current cycle times, change over time, communication process and competence of machine equipment. This gives the information needed to produce a future state map although the company will do that. The aim is to find and eliminate waste in order to progress the process flow. Based on the data collected, the company will utilize these results as an idea to draw the future state map and implement lean manufacturing. The necessary recommendations are made for the use of lean tools to improve the performance.