Title: The impact of productivity improvement approach using lean tools in an automotive industry

Abstract

In today’s competitive environment, as manufacturing industries face additional pressure to meet the dynamic nature of customer demand, lean manufacturing is an essential tool to reduce this burden to a great extent. Various lean methodologies exist like value stream mapping, 5S, Kaizen, line balancing, just-in-time, poka-yoke, Kanban, total preventive maintenance, and single-minute exchange of die, which are currently being implemented in industries for the improvement of productivity and reduction of overall cycle time. The study discusses the importance of combining value stream mapping and line balancing techniques using existing literature and is validated by a case study on an automotive component manufacturing industry’s assembly line. In the past, lean tools have been criticized for being static tools due to a lack of measurable output due to the implementation of the techniques. In this study, the real-world performance of value stream mapping allows for clear understanding and accurate prediction in terms of cost and time savings achieved using lean tools. Value stream mapping is a highly beneficial lean tool for industries with constrained resources to assess the considerable gain lean tools would provide and how the long-term investment would be beneficial to offset non-value adding activities. The empirical validation shows a reduction of the overall time cycle by 20.28% and a gain in the number of units produced by 46.16%. The results also demonstrate that an increase in productivity by eliminating waste (through value stream mapping) and modifications in the layout and assigning an appropriate number of workers (through line balancing) is possible after careful assessment.