lean manufacturing implementation problems in beverage production systems

7/29/2019 Lean Manufacturing Implementation Problems in Beverage Production Systems

1/6

InternationalJournal of Industrial Engineering and Management (IJIEM), Vol. 2 No 1, 2011, pp. 21-26Available online at http://www.ftn.uns.ac.rs/ijiem/

ISSN 2217-2661

IJIEM

Lean Manufactur ing Implementation Problems in BeverageProduction Systems

Ivica VeaUniversity of Split, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture,

Ruera Bokovia 32, 21000 Split, Croatia, [email protected]

Nikola GjeldumUniversity of Split, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture,


Luka CelentUniversity of Split, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture,


Received (01 February 2011); Revised (05 March 2011); Accepted (27 March 2011)

Abst ract

For production companies, it is very important to keep their production processes efficient. Hugecompetition and continuously changing market demands require constant improvements of companysbusiness. Lean manufacturing is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources forany goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target forelimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, "value"is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. Lean manufacturing isa generic process management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System. Thispaper presents the results of case study about implementation of lean concept in bottler beverageproduction system in the Croatian enterprises and the main problems of implementation.

Key words: Lean Production, Line Output Improvement, 5S, Line Time Study

1. INTRODUCTION

One of the possible conceptions for the survival in aturbulent world market is the introduction of newtechnologies and organisational structures (for examplefractal factory [1], network enterprises [2], leanproduction [3], six sigma [4], business processreengineering [5] etc.). The term Lean manufacturing isin opposite to principles of mass production which for along time has been dominating in western industry. Asoppose to Lean principles, mass production means bigproduction systems, with huge inventories, greatexpenses, big batch production, downtimes, and waitingin production process [6].Methods and tools used in lean concept modelling canbe described as important elements in manufacturingsystem construction (Figure 1.). As shown in Figure 1that symbolically represents a house, the base ofeverything are: work teams, highly-motivated workersand the principle 5x why - 1x how which warns aboutthe seriousness of every decision that lead to a goal. Asall tools are important, they are arranged at random.Beside these tools there can be produced and shapedothers which in certain conditions give better results.Lean production is an applied methodology of scientific,objective techniques that cause work tasks in a processto be performed with a minimum of non-value addingactivities resulting in greatly reduced wait time, queue

time, move time, administrative time, and other delays.A critical point in the lean thinking is the focus on value.Often however, value creation is seen as equal to costreduction. This represents a common yet criticalshortcoming of the understanding of lean [7].

Figure 1. Lean concept principles, tools and methods

Companies are taking more and more notice of theimportance of organizational innovations such as leanproduction or total quality management [8].

Principles, methods and tools inbuilding lean concept procedures

Work teams, high motivated workers,customer orientation

Pull/Kanban JIT Flow continue TPM

SMED Batch Reduction 7 wasteTQM

Layout Visual systems 5 why5S

Value Stream Mapping


2/6

22 Vea et al.

IJIEM

Lean is one of the popular concepts which have beenpracticed in most company. However, there are a lot ofcompanies who implement lean and are not realizedwhether lean level of company is improve or relegate.Thus, it is important to inspect the lean result afterimplementation of lean. So, this paper presents resultsof Lean production tools implementation in bottlerbeverage production system.The results have shown the improvement on leanbehavior with the help of people development systemimplementation which enhance the people capabilitiesin eliminating wastages. These are supported bycomparing the survey results on lean behavior forbeginning and end of the period of thre months with themonitoring of real life data on the case study

2. LINE OUTPUT IMPROVEMENT (LOI) INBEVERAGE PRODUCTION SYSTEM

Successful Lean application is conditioned by anevolutionary problem-solving ability of the rank and file.Such ability is in itself contingent on employeeinvolvement in improvement programs and theimplementation of appropriate practices. At thebeginning, the study found that employees do not feelvalued when they contribute to the improvementprocesses and that 100 per cent of the hourly maleemployees disagreed that The Company considers theemployees as the most important asset and will dowhatever they can to keep their people.After a period of production observation at first sightwas obvious that there was a high level of manualintervention, the speed of which was heavily dependenton the skill set of the operator. The overall effect wasbottlenecks within the system and a subsequentreduction in output. With operations running in twoshifts in winter period of the year, the additional outputcould not be achieved by the inclusion of extra shifts.Instead, attention to improving the speed of theproduction line and the cycle output, throughimplementation of some methods of lean concept isadopted.Continuous improvement is a core element in everyproduction system and can be summarized as acompany-wide focus to improve process performance;using gradual step by step improvement andorganizational activities with the involvement of allpeople in the company, while creating a learning andgrowing environment [9].Excellence today may not equal excellence tomorrow,excellence requires continual change. Based on thatconclusion, case study was performed as line outputimprovement (Figure 2.).LOI was carried out through observing, measuring andfinal analyzing the results of work in order to:

achieve allocation of production time presentedwith waterfall charts,

establish the time required for completion of thework by a qualified worker when working at a

defined level of performance, find area of concern and possible opportunity

for improvement.

Figure 2. Steps of line output improvement

For successful implementation of line outputimprovement, support of whole organization isnecessary, starting from head management down toline operators. It is of most importance to:

Explain the importance of improving line output.

Equip each operator with the knowledge, skilland tools to improve production line output.

Describe the elements of measuring lineefficiency.

Achieve understanding of Waterfall Diagrams,their role and usage.

Convince people in the organization about theoncoming results.

This is very important because lean manufacturinginvolve in many rapid changes, and people are lessresistant to the change when they see the results.Successful Lean application is conditioned by anevolutionary problem-solving ability of the rank and file.Such ability is in itself contingent on employeeinvolvement in improvement programs and theimplementation of appropriate practices [9]. Fourimprovement steps are presented, line design, 5S, linetime study and action planning.

3. LINE DESIGN

First of all it is important to identify: equipment, layout,production process, space and workers.Inside the bottling plant are four production lines, whichproduce different brands in different formats, andespecially in smaller series charging there are frequentchanges of formats and flavours of filling which requiresfollowing operations:

1. Shut Down preparing for production stop2. Clean On Place (COP) / Clean In Place (CIP) -

external/internal cleaning3. Change Over (CHO) change of format parts4. Start Up preparing for start of new production

Understanding how line logic affects line efficiency isrelevant. For example, in terms of line efficiency thefiller represents the core machine as Lead speed


3/6

Vea et al. 23

IJIEM

reference of all equipment, so everything else is aconstraint. If all the equipment would run at the samespeed as the filler any stoppage on the line before thefiller would mean a permanent gap in the line becausethe line would never catch up. Also, any stoppage on

the line after the filler would mean a bottle jam becausethe line becomes full. Therefore, to ensure continuousflow the filler must be the slowest machine on the lineand all other production steps on line have to run fasterthan the filler (Figure 3.).

Figure 3. Bottling production line layout

4. 5S METHOD

Most Lean manufacturing implementation begins with5S implementation, especially on fields where benefitcan be achieved in shortest possible time.5S represents procedure for workshops and work cellsdesign enabling achievement of full functionality ongiven space. The main purpose of 5S implementation ismostly orientated on micro level in manner of efficiencyincrease by maintenance of working space clear,

properly arranged and accessible to operators. The 5Simplementation gives employee a chance to enjoy inimproved working environment, by their commitmentand problem solving. 5S contains five elements derivedfrom Japanese words beginning with S (Table 1).

Table 1. Elements of 5S

1. SortSorting and putting in followinggroups: waste, rarely usable objects,and necessary objects

2. Set in OrderSetting the location, the border-linesand signs to insure the return of theobjects to the correct place

3. ShineCleaning, painting, and regularcleaning

4. StandardizeDefining and standardization 5Sworking process, activities and tasks.

5. SustainMake 5S the way of living,institutional and organized

Sorting, as a first column of visual working place, actrequiring only necessary items on working place forproduction in one process step on given time. In case ofbeverage production there are large amount ofaccumulated material and shop floor becomes moreburied, full cabinets represents wall for workers insearch for specific format part and tool effort, inventory

level in warehouse shows uncompleted amount ofpurchases material, and workshop becomes lessflexible. Strategy of red marking, by labels or flags, was

used for implementation (Figure 4.). Red color markedmaterials require disposal in warehouse for this items,for additional checking for possibility of usage. Yellowcolor defines possibility of usage in next period, so labelhas to include date of marking. Green flag definesnecessarily of material in next four weeks, and thereforethey cannot be removed from working place. All markedmaterials are afterwards included in inventory list.

Figure 4. Application of marking method on shop floor

Set represents allocation of materials and tools on inadvance dedicated place, to avoid unnecessary

movements and searching during production process(Figure 5.).

Figure 5. Achievement of full functionality on given space


4/6

24 Vea et al.

IJIEM

Shine is related to cleaning and painting procedures,which enables light working place, without dust, andimpurity. After tasks were dedicated to employees,visible posters were placed, with names, machines andspaces, for continuous cleaning process.Improvements, like transparent bags instead of paperboxes, for disposal of defective bottles for betterhandling, shown on Figure 6 are implemented.

Figure 6. Replacement of box with transparent bag for easyhandling of scrap bottles

Standardization is often used to maintain first threepresented steps, and can be defined as a result ofsuccessful 5S implementation. Standardization withvisual 5S makes employee habits to maintain workplaceclean, by returning of all unnecessary items back ondedicated space, without supervisor order.Sustain step presents a hard to reach goal foremployees because of previous habits which were notin 5S direction. In many cases the problems occur:

Unnecessary items starting to accumulate

immediately after finishing sort step. Tools and materials are not being returned on

visually dedicated space due to falseconclusion of repetitive need in next period.

Cleaning tasks are abandoned immediately.

Parts get all over the workshop and transportways, so they represent threat to safety.

Because of dark and dirty working place,starting euphoria evaporating, and workermoral is rapidly decreasing.

4.1 The results of implementing the 5S method

The implementation itself in the first two steps showedvery good results. The measurable values of the resultswere increasing of finances (extra income) throughaccumulation of financial resources provided by sellingthe technically out of date, uneconomical and no longerin use means of work, and also increase of usableworkplace by removing unnecessary materials. Apartfrom these economy results, during the realization ofthe first step of line output improvement other positivemoves were made. As the increase of the employeemotivation, the process of managing was easier, safetyat work was also increased, etc. It should be pointedout that the above results were achieved without any

additional costs, as they were the result of moreefficient organization and coordination on the level oforganizational units in which the case study was done.

Increased safety, productivity, space and resourcesutilization, and reduced transport distances andexcessive movements gain the benefit.

5. LINE TIME STUDY

Time studies are the foundation of any leanmanufacturing process Knowing how to use time is

invaluable to an organization and it is a good first stepin creating a lean application. Time study has finallyfound a home in the modern plant by helpingemployees to understand the nature and the true costsof work, assist management in reducing unnecessarycosts, and balance work cells to make work flowsmoother [10]. It is important to understand that notonly the work, but also the way and the time in whichthe work is carried out is important in leanmanufacturing context.Time study is a structured process of directly observingand measuring, using a timing device:

a) human work in order to establish the time

required to complete the work by a qualifiedworker when working at a defined level ofperformance,

b) machine work in order to record number ofstops and the total stoppage time (downtime).

To run a successful line time study the ideal number inthe group would be three, positioned at theloading/depalletizing or blowing end of the line,palletizing end and the filling machine. The study timeshould be a minimum of eight hours, or a full shift.Much more information would be gathered by completeone shift study, especially if there is a start up,shutdown, change over and shift handover on the shiftend. The data are analyzed after the study. Eachstoppage 'reason' is categorized, the total number ofstops from that cause recorded and the total stoppagetime calculated. The number of stops is importantbecause despite the total time shows a loss of fiveminutes, the number of stops could be as many as 10to 15, due to, for example, caps jamming in the chute.The actual stoppage time is reduced because the filleroperator is on-hand to rectify the fault quickly. Thenumber of stops would define an area of concern andpossible opportunity for improvement. In addition it isnecessary to record distances, lead time, delays, qualityproblems, and number of operators, rework and otheroccurrences during production process.

6. ACTION PLANING

Time Study Methodology shows a round picture ofwhole process and forms waterfall chart of studiedproduction period, e.g. week 5 of 2009 (Figure 7.). Thisstudy indicates where to look for areas forimprovement. Rather than reacting to problems as theyoccur, avoiding problems in advance saves thecompany both more time and more money.The purpose of the summary of the study in form ofwaterfall diagram is to:

ensure clear and consistent allocation ofproduction crew time,

determine overall equipment effectiveness.


5/6

Vea et al. 25

IJIEM

The principles used in the study are a provenmethodology to identify sources of lost time orenefficiency and focus on their elimination. Speaking oflost time during production the most of it refers toequipment performance loss (EPL) which means thatthe production line stops due to electrical or mechanical

failure, and operational performance loss (OPL) whereproduction line stops for operational reasons usualymaterial or personnel related. Speed loss present theallocation of time for the period that the production lineis not run at the design speed.

Figure 7. Production line performance shown as Waterfall Chart

It is necessary to identify the overall performance ofeach line over time and to compare the relativeperformance of all lines to understand which lines areimprovement priorities. System line efficiency (SLE)measures the effectiveness of a line to operate andproduce saleable product.First step is to calculate the theoretical number of hours

that it would have taken to produce the actual numberof saleable cases produced in the period based on therated filler speed. It can be expressed as:

(1)

Second step is to compare machine standard timeresults with accumulated total number of hours in theproduction shifts (paid time) to get SLE:

(2)

SLE of 56,3% is an call alert for improvement, in termsof creating a action plan (Table 2.) that we will be ableto execute.

Table 2. Corrective action plan for key improvement areas

Keyarea

Delays Action plan

1.

StartUp,Shut

Down,CIP,COP

Identify the actions that need to be takenprior, maintenance of 5s standards, workstandardization on each production step,state the checklists

2. CHO

Maintenance of 5s standards, formatparts shelves construction,standardization on each step, identifyingappropriate dynamics of the people

3. EPL,OPL

Identification of frequently breakdowns,

employees training, preventivemaintenance

56,3%

100,0% 28,6%

31,2%

40,2%

100,0%

1,4% 2,7%3,4%

4,4%

4,6%

7,1%

2,4%5,9%

0,7% 0,3%

0,0%

10,0%

20,0%

30,0%

40,0%

50,0%

60,0%

70,0%

80,0%

90,0%

100,0%

Capacity

Non-Sch

eduledTime

LostTime

Output

PaidTime

Maintenance

Startup

Shutdown

CleanInPlace

Cle

anOnPlace

C

hangeOver

EPL

OPL

S

peedlosses

Mino

rStoppages

SLE

%T

im

eAvailable

EfficiencyAsset Uti l isation Key Improovementareas

1

23


6/6

26 Vea et al.

IJIEM

Results of Lean manufacturing implementation throughaccomplishing corrective action plan can be visible invery short period. For example, comparing the time ofCHO for different filling formats (bottle types) beforeand after the application of action plan a significant timesaving can be seen (Figure 8.).

Figure 8. Change over improvement by identifyingappropriate dynamics of the operators

CHO with one main operator and the help of another inspecific previously planed moments (1+1 operator)bring savings of 15 minutes. Furthermore, CHO in ateam of two operators working strictly by the correctiveaction plan bring saving of 45 minutes. Considering thespeed of filling, for example 11000 bottles/hour savingscan reach an extra time to fill 7750 bottles more.Of extreme importance is that the workers are informedabout the results of the lean manufacturing aplicationsfor improving line output because when results becomevisible, workers resistant to the changes attenuate.

7. CONCLUSION

In this paper, results of the case study of Leanproduction implementation in Croatian enterprises arepresented. The implementation of lean concept wasmade through line output improvement. The first stepwas applying the 5S method to increase the efficiencyon the micro-level, and rest of study was performing lineoutput improvements through observing, measuring andfinal analyzing the results of work in order to establishthe time required for completion of the work by aqualified worker when working at a defined level ofperformance. Allocation of time was presented with

waterfall charts which indicate where to look forimprovements.The main problems that came across during casestudies were:

a) The absence of clearly defined processes andinterrupted directory chains.

b) The Lean Production concept is developed inToyota and it seems difficult to implement it inEast Europe production systems, because ofdifferent organizational and social culture ofenterprises and labor,

c) The concepts related to Lean Production havebeen frequently misunderstood in those

enterprises because of poor employees trainingand educational program.

d) The absence of knowledge about modernmanagement (project and innovatingmanagement)

These obstacles are not insuperable, but they require

long-term education about the importance of managing the

resources of which the organization disposes.

The results case studies were reflected in drasticincrease of safety, space utilization, production, prideand Kaizen thinking, and or the other hand, drasticreduce of waste, defects, errors, and unnecessaryaction. More important results can be expected in long-terms. At the end of the study, when results becomevisible, workers resistant to the changes attenuate.Future research on this work could be to build asimulation model of the whole production line. Not onlywould simulation allow to exactly replicate productionprocess in a controlled computerized environment, butalso more importantly, allow the organization to quicklyexperiment with "what-if?" scenarios until the bestsolution was found.

8. REFERENCES

[1] Warnecke, H.J. (1992),Die Fraktale Fabrik, Springer Verlag,Berlin Heidelberg New York

[2] Davidov, W. H., Malone, M. S. (1992), Das virtuelleUnternehmen, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt

[3] Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T. and Roos, D. (1990), The Machinethat Changed the World, Rawson, New York

[4] Yang, K. and El-Haik, B. (2003), Design for Six Sigma,McGraw-Hill, New York

[5] Hummer, M. and Champey, J. (1992), BusinessReengineering, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt

[6] Stefanic, N., Tosanovic, N. and Cala, I. (2010), Applying theLean System in the Process Industry, Strojarstvo: Journal for

Theory and Application in Mechanical Engineering, Vol 52, No.1, pp. 59-67.

[7] Hines, P., Holweg, M. and Rich, N. (2004), Learning to evolve,International Journal of Operations & Production Management,Vol. 24 No.10, pp. 994-1011.

[8] Kohl, H. and Depner, H. (2010), The implementation of anorganizational innovation: examples of mass customizing firmsof the capital goods industry, International Journal of IndustrialEngineering and Management, Vol. 1, No 3, pp. 85-95

[9] Angelis, J. J. and Femandes, B. (2007), Advances inProduction Management Systems, IFIP International Federationfor Information Processing, Volume 246, Olhager, J. and

Persson, F. (eds.), Boston: Springer, pp. 347-354.

[10] Meyers, F.E. and Stewart J.R. (2002), Motion and Time StudyFor Lean Manufacturing, 3rd Edition, Prentice Hall

lean manufacturing implementation problems in beverage production systems

Documents