Lean Manufacturing Implementation in a Gear Shaft Manufacturing Company Using Value Stream Mapping

Abstract

Nowadays, Lean manufacturing application is reported for manufacturers in global level.Those reports have exposed that this application has enabled the companies to become competitivethrough the elimination of wastes while producing products and offering services. Various tools like5S, Poka Yoke, Kaizen, Kanban, JIT, etc have been used while implementing lean manufacturingmodel in various types of organization. Recently, both researchers and practitioners have found thatValue Stream Mapping (VSM) technique serves as a powerful vehicle in enabling organizations toimplement lean manufacturing model. Meanwhile, it is found that lean manufacturing model is yet tobe applied in the case of certain manufacturing products. One among those products is gear shaft. Inthis background the theoretical proposition of implementing lean manufacturing model in the case ofmanufacturing a gear shaft has been investigated in this article.