Multi Criteria Approach to Measure Leanness of a Manufacturing Organization

Abstract

Worldwide manufacturing and or service organizations aim for continuous elimination of waste of all types. But, these organizations lack in waste management and its evaluation. The paper addresses a case study of medium scale manufacturing organization in Saudi Arabia, which emphasizes the implementation of lean principles to improvise waste in the manufacturing plant. A multi criteria lean performance score (MCLPS) approach is proposed. The MCLPS approach analyses effectiveness of the manufacturing strategies, and identifies the potential opportunities for future improvement. It is observed that implementation of lean strategies improve plant utilization from 62.72% to 67%; inventory turnover ratio from 22.2 to 25.78 times per six months; wastage of material dropped by 536 bottles of material per startup activity; and non-value added time reduced by 5.84%. Similarly with help of MCLPS approach the management measures leanness of a manufacturing organization, which helps to track and monitor step by step desired improvements in the present manufacturing systems. For the improved manufacturing system it is evident that multi-criteria lean performance score is improved by 34%.

Keywords

• Decision making
• lean production
• manufacturing
• multi-criteria analysis
• assessment
• measuring functions