Application of Value Stream Mapping for Lean Operation: An Indian Case Study of a Dairy Firm

Abstract

In recent times, there has been greater awareness of safety issues, emerging risks and challenges in food supply chain. To this effect, transparency, traceability and information flow have become mandatory to minimize waste in the farm to fork supply chain. Furthermore, value stream mapping is well known for detecting and reducing waste in manufacturing by streamlining value-added (VA) activities, minimizing the non-value-added but essential (NVAE) activity, and removing non-value-added (NVA) activities. The processing time of milk collection, processing, storing and supplying dairy products is obtained from the dairy firm located at Rewari, Haryana (North India). With the help of the processing time of each step, we calculated the lead time for the dairy supply chain. A diagram depicting the process is created to represent the operation’s current status known as current stream map. VA, NVAE and NVA activities are identified inside and between each process, depending on its time and resource consumption. The process is evaluated for the possibility of significantly reducing and simplifying it to the minimum possible steps. By decreasing waste, the process throughput speed increases, and the lead time for the dairy supply chain decreases. Implementing the lean tool reduces lead time by approximately 34.79%.