Abstract

Keywords

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Literature review

۳٫ Research methodology

۴٫ Case study

۵٫ Results and discussions

۶٫ Conclusions

۷٫ Compliance with ethical standards

Declaration of Competing Interest

References

Abstract

Lean manufacturing is a profound system designed to enhance every manufacturing industry’s efficiency by reducing waste through internationally recognized tools and techniques. Manufacturing industries strive to adopt lean concepts to maximize their resources like staff, facilities, materials, and schedules to be economically effective. However, managers face difficulty selecting the appropriate lean tools out of the many available LM tools for successful lean implementation. This study suggests an innovative approach to choose suitable lean tools to maximize these essential resources. Herein the Value Stream Mapping and plant layout are considered for waste identification. Fuzzy QFD and FMEA prioritize the crucial resources concerning the defined wastes and determine the risk associated with each failure mode’s sub-element for lean application. It saves time by analyzing only the most critical resources for a successful lean implementation since its focus only on the most important resources. The applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated through a case study of an Ethiopian shoe manufacturing firm. With the aid of future state plant layout and value stream map, total cycle time is reduced by 56.3%, lead-time is reduced by 69.7%, materials transportation distance and transportation activities are reduced by more than 75%, and workers required are reduced from 202 to 200.

۱٫ Introduction

Companies adopt lean manufacturing (LM) principles and tools for various reasons, including global competition, an uncertain market environment, and rising customers’ expectations. The concepts of LM can make it possible to use their resources effectively and increase their competitiveness. According to Deif and ElMaraghy (2014) and Goshime, Kitaw, and Jilcha (2018), LM is characterized by doing more with less. It focuses on reducing/eliminating waste in order to increase productivity and maximize customer values (Belekoukias et al., 2014).

With the origin of the Toyota Production System, several LM techniques and tools were developed and used to achieve lean. Some of them are TPM, JIT, TQM, kaizen, kanban, production smoothing, cellular manufacturing, one-piece flow, Value Stream Mapping (VSM), and standardized work. Most of them are adopted in discrete manufacturers (Kumar & Parameshwaran, 2018). LM techniques and tools where effectively implemented in Automotive (Vamsi Krishna Jasti & Sharma, 2014), chemical (Jilcha & Kitaw, 2015), textile industry (Hodge, Goforth Ross, Joines, & Thoney, 2011), construction (Ko, 2010; Aka, Danladi Isah, Eze, & Timileyin, 2020), and healthcare industries (Barberato, Freitas, Godinho, & Francisco, 2016).