Assignment Help on Streamlining an Automotive Production Line Using Lean Manufacturing Tools

INTRODUCTION

Lean manufacturing can be looked at as an overall philosophy for business improvement as well as a collection of lean manufacturing tools.  These tools will be effective as a planned implementation of lean only when applied with the overall framework for improvement. For the overall benefit of lean manufacturing the lean principle must be considered along with the lean tools. There are many tools of lean manufacturing, many of them are not new and many have been developed and improved as part of the Toyota production system (TPS). The lean tools that are mainly used in streamlining the production line are Value Stream Map and Kanban.

A value stream is all the action (both value added and non-value added) currently required to bring a product through the main flows essential to every product: the production flow from raw material into the arms of customer, and the design flow from concept to launch. Value stream mapping is a tool that helps to see and understand the flow of material and information as a product makes its way through the value stream. It is nothing but to follow a production path from customer to supplier, and carefully drawing a visual representation of every process in material and information flow.

Value stream map for the current system is drawn after collecting information about the material and information flow. This helps to see the source of waste in value stream, provides common language for talking about manufacturing processes, and make decision about the flow apparent, so that it can be discussed.  This helps to design door-to-door flow and acts as a blue print for lean implementation. This helps company see where the production process is being slowed down and allows teams to come up with the goals to eliminate the cause of slow down. All these new ideas will be incorporated in the value stream map which will be the future state of value stream map.

The concept behind this lean manufacturing tool is to reduce costs in high volume production lines. One-way to do this is to smooth and balance material flows by means of controlled inventories. Kanban is a lean tool that is used for this purpose. A Kanban System consists of a set of these cards, with one being allocated for each part being manufactured, that travel between preceding and subsequent processes. A Kan-ban is a card containing all the information required to be done on a product at each stage along its path to completion and which parts are needed at subsequent processes. Translated as signal this allows an organization to reduce production lead-time, which in turn reduces the amount of inventory required. These systems are most commonly used to implement the pull-type control in production systems with aims at reducing costs by minimizing the W.I.P. inventory. A pull-type production line is a sequence of production stages performing various process steps on parts where each stage consists of several workstations in tandem. The flow of parts through the overall facility is controlled by a combined push/pull control policy, which is established by the Kan-bans.

The main aim of lean manufacturing as said before is to control inventory in between the processes. Simulation is one of the techniques that can be used in this effort to reduce inventory. The simulation is imitation of real world processes over time. A model is developed based in the current state of the process flow. And then the input data is fed to the computer. Then the simulation model is run over a period of time. The results obtained after running the model are compared with the real world system to see whether the model is accurate. Once the model is approved right, then the alternate input data can be fed to the system and its effect on the system can be tested. Using this technique the WIP inventory can be considerably reduced with respect to applicable conditions. A Kanban system designed using simulation reduces inventory held up in the shop floor and also balances the line thus making it flow smoothly. Simulation result also helps in reducing various parameters such as manpower utilization.

The project was carried out at Sansera Engineering Pvt. Ltd. It is one of the leading companies in India that manufactures auto components. It is also the second largest company in Asia to manufacture rocker arms. It has 7 plants in all over India. The company manufactures precision forged and machined components for the automobile industries.

The main aim of our project is to streamline the production line using lean manufacturing tools. The objectives are 

1) Reduce the work in process inventory.

 2) Reduce the manpower.

3) Improve the value added ratio.

The methodology involves the following steps:

• Study the system.
• Selection of production line.
• Analysis of the selected production line.
• Drawing the current value stream map.
• Identifying the areas for improvement.
• Suggest the improvement.
• Determine the expected improvement by using techniques like simulation, statistics and by applying concepts like Kanban.

Chapter 1 deals with the introduction of lean tools used in this project. Chapter 2 introduces to the company, its policies, products and services. Chapter 3 deals with the concept of lean tools in detail such as history, steps to be followed, benefits and limitations, goals and strategies, applications and symbols used. Chapter 4 explains the system and the process flow within along with the tools and techniques used for analysis and the measures of performance of the system. Chapter 5 involves data collection, its analysis, comparison of present and proposed methods, and improvement of the process, current and future state mapping. Finally conclusion is drawn in chapter 6.