Adopting Value Stream Mapping as a Lean Tool to Improve Production Performance

Abstract

The main challenge facing industrial companies is how to stay competitive in a fast changing world. They should adopt an effective supply chain that enables them to deliver products in a short period of time. This forced organization to change their pattern of processing and become lean. Lean manufacturing system is the best philosophy to achieve the objectives of the industrial organizations and to reduce the waste activities. The unnecessary movement, defective, waiting, inadequate processing, unnecessary inventory, excessive transport, overproduction, and the underutilization of people and facilities are the most types of waste found in the industries. Many industries have experienced the benefits of applying the lean concept in their area to improve the production processes, resources utilization, reduce production lead time, and eliminate wastes in the activities which is the goal of lean concept in the manufacturing industry. In this research, the lean concepts are presented in the leather shoes manufacturing industry in the city of Baghdad, it aimed to decrease the lead time of production, minimize the non-value time, and improve the production line. By using the most essential lean tool, value stream mapping, where the current and future map capture the flow of material and information of the production line before and after the implementation of the proposed improvement. The hybrid push/pull strategies and Kanban production were implemented to improve the production line. After adopting the suggested improvement, the production lead time reduced from 130.6 to 14.8 hours and the non-value added reduced from 118 to 10.8 minutes.

Keywords

• lean
• value stream mapping
• lead time
• non-value added time
• push/pull strategies