Abstract

Lean Process Management Implementation in Ceramic Industry

Author(s): K. ANUJ BABU, A. THIRUGNANAM and S. P. SUNDAR SINGH SIVAM

Lean manufacturing is one of the most powerful systems in the world. The idea of lean manufacturing has continued to get use and visibility on a figure of fronts. Lean is frequently heralded as manufacturers’ best hope for critical cost and retrieval their original edge. Implementation a lean manufacturing works is vital in the ceramic industry manufacturing tiles. Most would agree with the Lean manufacturing is the core idea of “maximizing customer price while minimizing waste” and “creating more value for clients with fewer assets. Several plants around the world have attempt to execute lean manufacturing to abolish Non value added processes and wastes. When it comes to a ceramic industry manufacturing tiles, by the very nature of its process manufacturing, the material flow is both continuous and non continuous. Continuous and non continuous processes mixed in a ceramic industry has their own set of major wastes caused by downtime, miscommunication and mishandling .To eliminate such wastes this study implementation of lean tools such as Root cause analysis, visual factory and multi functional employee to eliminate downtime, miscommunication and mishandling for three unit such as Hydraulic press, Bearing failure in drier and kiln Owen. This study was conducted in a ceramic tile industry manufacturing polished glaze vitrified tile (PGVT) for a time-span of six months. This study concludes that by using lean tool Root Cause Analysis can keep the downtime at minimum by eliminating the source of the problem in Bearing failure in drier, Hydraulic press and Owen resulting in non repetition of the same problem, using visual factory miscommunications are kept at minimum and by using multi functional employee mishandlings errors can be reduced. After performance of lean tools reduced the discards and breakdown by an average of 40% and also cost. This also reduces the dissipate disposal problem and energy expenditure thereby falling ecological, collective and cost-effective burden. Multi functional remuneration have also been experiential in term of skill up-gradation, team service, multi talents and improved confidence of the workers.