Implementing Lean Manufacturing in High-mix Production Environment

Abstract

Abstract. Lean Manufacturing concept is well described in the literature in the context of low-mix high-volume production. There are numerous case studies proving outstanding benefits of implementation Lean principles. Nowadays enterprises have to face the problem of high variety of products and dynamically changing demand. Lean tools and methods known from repetitive production do not always fit to high-mix environment. It causes problems with proper design of one-piece-flow production cells and material flow based on pull system.

The link between Industry 4.0 and lean manufacturing: mapping current research and establishing a research agenda

“…However, the extent to which lean principles are suitable for non-repetitive environments has been questioned (Cooney 2002). The lean practices and methods developed for mass production do not usually fit these environments (Horbal, Kagan, and Koch 2008;Matt 2014), which tend to experience major difficulties when seeking to implement lean practices (Portioli-Staudacher and Tantardini 2012). Similarly, for Industry 4.0, it is argued that environmental factors will have a significant impact on the applicability of Industry 4.0.…”

A Framework for Lean Flow in Turbulent High-Variety Low-Volume Manufacturing Environments

“…Due to high variety and low volumes and constantly changing projects, the traditional definition of product families may not be applicable [14,15]. Moreover, the production of a high mix of custom and standard products, that require a lot of different parts and materials, may impose major challenges for synchronizing flows [13,16]. Also, in situations where customer influences products that are in production, there is limited applicability of Kanban and supermarkets [15].…”

“…Synchronisation between critical path and other branches through supermarkets and pull [17] Medium Customised and standard products are produced in the same value stream [10,11,13] Customised products are only released for production when all material and engineering information is available [13] Connect resources that are shared by several families into the flow through sequenced FIFO [11] High Flow runners parts in focused cells with processes that are temporarily dedicated for a given duration, produce repeaters and strangers in less frequent batches within cells, in flexible job shops, or contract out to suppliers [2] Assemble runners in lots and intersperse them with repeaters and strangers [2] Pull system Medium Customised products are produced by customer order (directly to shipping) and standard products are produced to a finished goods super market [13] CONWIP is applied on the production unit as a whole [13,19] Runners and medium volume repeaters are pulled by Kanban, low volume repeaters and strangers are controlled by sequential FIFO [16] High…”

An in-plant milk-run design method for improving surface occupation and optimizing mizusumashi work time

“…During this period, the material handler (mizusumashi) picks up containers at the storage areas; follows a predetermined standard route using multi-coach trains; delivers them to various POUs; and on the return trip bring empty containers back to the source [3]. The milk run has been reported to be suitable for handling materials in repetitive pull-flow production for high product mix [4,5].…”