Track: Lean and Six Sigma

Abstract

Lean Manufacturing is a century old concept, initially developed by the Toyota Company. The word lean is ubiquitous but it can be diversely explained. The most common definition of lean is to be highly responsive to customer demand by reducing waste. The word Lean Manufacturing is synonymous with Agile Manufacturing, Just-In-Time or the Toyota Production System. The primary aim of Lean is to reduce waste from the Value Stream of an organization and according to the pioneer of Lean, Taiichi Ohno, waste can be categorized into seven categories. Through the elimination of waste, lean manufacturing helps in increasing productivity, improving quality, as well as reduction of cycle time, all of which contribute to improved profitability of the institution. The aims of this study are to use Lean methodologies to improve productivity through multi-skilling of operations, reduce waste from the value stream and decrease the dynamic cycle time, improve quality and reduce defects, as well as optimize head count utilization. Through the survey questionnaire, the value stream of the company was analyzed for non-value-added activities, and these wastes were subsequently reduced from the process. The main gains of this study were to help the Mauritian Textile companies gain competitive advantage and survive in this tough market.

Keywords

Lean, Lean Manufacturing, Waste, Productivity, Value Stream.