Improving the Productivity of Sheet Metal Stamping Subassembly Area Using the Application of Lean Manufacturing Principles

Companies frequently find techniques and tools to enhance productivity and quality for success in the long-term in order to maximize competitive advantage. To date, lean manufacturing principle is one of the successful improvement concepts that have been applied to eliminate waste and non-value added activities that occur in many companies. This paper explores a real work case study of the manufacturing sheet metal stamping process to demonstrate how lean manufacturing can help improve work efficiency. This study was conducted within 10 months, started from July 2013 till April 2014. Lean and other improvement tools and techniques such as visual control, Poka-Yoke, and 5s were applied to help companies identify areas of opportunity for waste reduction and improve the efficiency of production processes. Studies of the company processes showed that the deburring and polishing processes tend to create the most non-value added activities and should be addressed as quickly as possible. The improvement results have shown a positive impact on the company productivity improvements. The significant results indicate that the processing time of a polishing stage, after applying lean manufacturing principle, was reduced from 6,582 seconds to 2,468 seconds or by 62.5%. Also non-value added activities were reduced from 1,086 activities to 261 activities, or by 66.53%. Furthermore, overtime cost was reduced by 1,764 Dollar per year.