Need help with lean manufacturing

[Wolverine]

I recently joined a manufacturing organization as an Industrial Engineer. I see that the place is disorganized and there are lot of improvement opportunities. My question is: How and where should I start? I want to be effective in process improvement and cost savings for my company.

[Rohit Trivedi]

This is an excellent question. It sounds like your organization is in a clutter. In this situation, it would be best to begin with a Value Stream Map (VSM). A VSM will help to identify the bottleneck (constraint on the system) operation and much of the associated wastes. Once the bottleneck has been identified it can be examined in detail and improved upon using basic IE tools such as 5S. This will likely reveal a new bottleneck for which this process can be repeated. This approach of constantly focusing efforts on the bottleneck is known as the Theory of Constraints (TOC). This should give you an effective starting point, but remember a journey of thousands of miles begins with a single step.

[hoangdung]

VSM is a usefull tool. But, you should implement improvement projects which can bring profit to your company. Improment oppurtunities base on Business Balance Scorecard of your factory!

[jclark]

hoangdung,
You are correct in saying that improvement projects are the place to start but I believe you may have missed the main point Rohit made. That is to say that improvement projects should be centered around the bottleneck; as this is the only way to improve throughput. To implement improvements on stations that are not constraints will do little on the system as a whole. VSM can help to identify where the bottleneck is and will provide direction on where to implement the first process improvement. Hope this helps...

[abhijit]

i strongly agree with jclark. VSM will help to identify the bottleneck without taking much time and Theory of Constraints will help to focuss on bottleneck and together with Six Sigma one can improve the bottlnecks for longer run by giving profits.

Regards
Abhijit