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Lean implementation and its

benefits to production industry

Lean
implementation

Bhim Singh
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Galgotias College of Engineering and Technology, Greater Noida, India

157

S.K. Garg
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering,
Delhi Technological University, Delhi, India

S.K. Sharma
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology,
Kurukshetra, India, and

Chandandeep Grewal
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering,
Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the lean implementation process and its quantified
benefits for the production industry with the help of value stream mapping (VSM). Both current and
future state maps of the organizations shop floor scenarios are discussed using VSM techniques in order
to highlight improvement areas and to bridge the gap between the existing state and the proposed state
of shop floor of the selected industry.
Design/methodology/approach VSM process symbols are used to discuss lean implementation
process in the production industry. The existing status of the selected manufacturing industry is
prepared with the help of VSM symbols and improvement areas are identified. Some modifications in
current state map are suggested and with these modifications a future state map is prepared.
Findings After comparison of the current and future state of shop floor of the selected industry it is
found that reduction in lead time was 83.14 percent, reduction in processing time was 12.62 percent,
reduction in work-in-process inventory was 89.47 percent, and reduction in manpower requirement was
30 percent. The rise in productivity per operator was 42.86 percent.
Research limitations/implications The findings are limited due to the focused nature of the
case study and further cost-benefit analysis can be carried out.
Practical implications This paper will be very useful for the researchers and practitioners for
understanding lean implementations and its derived benefits.
Originality/value The paper is a real case study showing lean implementation and its benefits for
the production industry.
Keywords Lean production, Production processes
Paper type Case study

1. Introduction
Value stream mapping (VSM) is an enterprise improvement tool to assist in visualizing the
entire production process, representing both material and information flow. The goal is
to identify all types of waste in the value stream and to take steps to eliminate them
(Rother and Shook, 1999). Taking the value stream viewpoint means working on the big

International Journal of Lean Six

Sigma
Vol. 1 No. 2, 2010
pp. 157-168
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2040-4166
DOI 10.1108/20401461011049520

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picture and not individual processes, and improving the whole flow and not just
optimizing the pieces. It creates a common language for production process, thus
facilitating more thoughtful decisions to improve the value stream (McDonald et.al., 2002)
While researchers and practitioners have developed a number of tools to investigate
individual firms and supply chains, most of these tools fall short in linking and visualizing
the nature of the material and information flow in an individual company. At the level
of the individual firm, many organizations have moved toward becoming lean by adapting
different lean tools such as Just in time, set up reduction, 5S, TPM, etc. In many such cases,
firms have reported some benefits; however, it is apparent that there is a need to
understand the entire system in order to gain maximum benefits. In this paper, an attempt
has been made to discuss lean implementation process using VSM in XYZ production
industry. Both current and future state maps of the organizations shop floor scenarios
are discussed using VSM techniques. Analysis includes calculation of TAKT time
followed by findings of other gap areas. Gain in production output, reduction of work
in process (WIP) and finished goods inventory, reduction in lead time and real value
addition time, affecting productivity are also reported.
2. Literature review
Lean manufacturing has been the buzzword in the area of manufacturing for past few
years. The concept originated in Japan after the Second World War when Japanese
realized they could not afford the massive investment required to build facilities similar
to those in the USA. The goal of lean manufacturing is to reduce waste in human effort,
inventory, time to market and manufacturing space to become highly responsive to
customer demand while producing quality products in the most efficient and economical
manner. Nicholas (1998) found that waste takes many forms and can be found at any time
and in any place. Waste consumes resources but does not add any value to the product.
Russell and Taylor (1999) define waste as anything other than the minimum amount
of equipment, effort, materials, parts, space, and time that are essential to add value to the
product. Lean manufacturing combines the best features of both mass and craft
production: the ability to reduce costs per unit and dramatically improve quality while at
the same time providing an ever wider range of products and more challenging work
(Womack et al., 1990). Value stream refers to those specifics of the firms that add value
to the product or service under consideration. It is a far more focused and contingent view
of the value adding (VA) process. Lean manufacturing uses tools like one-piece flow, visual
control, Kaizen, cellular manufacturing, inventory management, Poka yoke, standardized
work, workplace organization, and scrap reduction to reduce manufacturing waste
(Russell and Taylor, 1999; Monden, 1993) suggested a new scheme of classifying
operations into three generic categories as non-VA, necessary but non-VA and VA. This
scheme proved to be more generic and was extended to different areas. Over the years,
many lean manufacturing tools to support value stream have been developed and many
more are being proposed every day (Womack et al., 1990; Barker, 1994; Cusumano and
Nobeoka, 1998; Childerhouse et al., 2000; Taylor and Brunt, 2001). VSM tools were
popularized by Rother and Shook (1999). These developments are primarily for two
requirements: one to understand the interdependence of one function, department or even
whole unit over another, and to capture a holistic view about a situation where the
conventional industrial engineering recording tools do not help much. As the complexity
of manufacturing and business is growing newer, value stream tools are emerging.

Recently, there exists a plethora of different tools and techniques developed for different
purposes and waste reduction or elimination. To understand different value streams and
their overlapping nature, several researchers like Forza et al. (1993), Beesley (1994)
and Jessop and Jones (1995) have developed individual tools. The classification scheme
suggested by Hines and Rich (1997) about seven new mapping tools (namely, process
activity mapping, supply-chain response matrix, production variety funnel, quality.
Filter mapping, demand amplification mapping, decision point analysis and physical
structure mapping) regarding their major application areas is very useful. Another
scheme of classification for lean manufacturing tools and allied detailing proposed by
Pavnaskar et al. (2003) are also quite exhaustive. Chitturi et al. (2007) explored practical
issues in job shop using a standard VSM and also explained how improved VSM can
eliminate some limitations of old VSM. Al-Sudairi (2007) built a simulation model to study
the impact of certain lean principles for enhancing the flow of construction material and
found that lesser the time spend in the value stream, leaner is a process. Lian and
Van Landeghem (2007) discussed on the application of VSM-based simulation generator
in a manufacturer of poultry and pig-raising equipments for feeding, drinking, feed
storage and feed transportation systems. Domingo et al. (2007) identified data with VSM
from assembly line of a Spanish Bosch factory and used lean metrics, such as dock-to-dock
time and lean rate, milk run to improve materials flow. Gopakumar et al. (2008) used
discrete event simulation quantified through a detailed VSM exercise to model the current
systems functioning and to identify operational inefficiencies in warehouse receiving
process at a large food distribution center, which comprises of trucks with goods reaching
the destination warehouse, unloading and finally putting away the contents to the specific
aisles. Zheng et al. (2008) introduced a new cycle time performance tracking matrix derived
from the factory physics queuing model to explore a systematic way to structure the
hierarchical cycle time key performance indicators framework and also to define the right
owner to improve those measurements. Further, VSM was used to reduce factory
variability. Grewal (2008) used VSM techniques as lean implementation initiatives in
small manufacturing firm and claimed 33.18 percent reduction in cycle time, 81.5 percent
reduction in changeover time, 81.4 percent reduction in lead time and 1.41 percent
reduction in value-added time. Melvin and Baglee (2008) studied how VSM can be applied
to the food and drink industry to identify areas of waste and how these can be reduced
and/or eliminated from the value stream. Serrano et al. (2008) used multiple case study
approach and concluded that VSM can be used as redesign tool for manufacturing apart
from enumerating the differences between theoretical concepts proposed by VSM and real
world applications. Seth et al. (2008) addressed various wastes in the processing side of the
supply chain of the Indian cottonseed oil industry, using VSM and individually attacked
all wastes to reduce or eliminate them from the system. Lasa et al. (2008) showed that the
VSM is a valuable tool for redesigning the productive systems according to the lean
system and found that there are some key points for the establishing teams that have to
take into account, as follows: the time and training resources spent, the use of suitable
information systems and a suitable management of the application phases. Sahoo et al.
(2008) discussed application of VSM in forging industry for identification and elimination
of waste and its sources. A noticeable reduction in set up time and WIP inventory level is
substantiated. Singh et al. (2009) suggested industries to apply VSM techniques to find
money drain points in their balance sheets and also apply these techniques to cut down
operational cost to save business during recessionary times. Singh and Sharma (2009)

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showed that VSM is a versatile tool for lean implementation by a case study of an Indian
manufacturing industry and witnessed 92.58 percent, reduction in lead time, 2.17 percent
reduction in processing time, 97.1 percent reduction in WIP and 26.08 percent reduction in
manpower requirement. Singh et al. (2010a) developed an index for measuring leanness
of any manufacturing firm based on the scores awarded by leanness measurement team
members. Various types of manufacturing wastes addressed by lean are taken as one
parameter for measuring leanness index. Singh et al. (2010b) discussed the scope of lean
implementation in Indian industries and identified many lean implementation issues in
consultation to Indian managers. They also grouped these issues by using principal
component analysis. Hines et al. (1998), Hines (1999), Grewal and Sareen (2006) and Grewal
and Singh (2006), used VSM for identification and elimination of muda (waste) in
production industry and Brunt (2000) and Abdulmalek and Rajgopal (2007) used VSM for
productivity improvement of process industry. McManus and Millard (2002) applied VSM
for product development and Emiliani and Stec (2004) for leadership development.
In spite of all the benefits offered by VSM, many researchers have pointed out the
limitations of VSM. Chitturi et al. (2007) explored practical issues like how to calculate
TAKT time, where to place supermarket, where can we use continuous flow processing,
what process improvements can be done and how to handle different product families
while mapping job shop operations using a standard VSM and also explained while
drawing a standard VSM in job shop operations, all pertinent informations should be
collected from the last to the first operation in contrast to other production system where
all informations are collected from the first to the last operation, lastly as in job shop
operation the future demand is not certain, so the average demand in the previous years
should be considered for mapping a particular product family. Braglia et al. (2006) pointed
out in his article that VSM is basically a paper-and-pencil-based technique, so, the
accuracy level is limited, and the number of versions that can be handled is low; in real
situations, many companies are of a high varietylow volume type, this requires many
value streams and cannot be addressed by simple VSM. They proposed an alternative and
innovative framework for a structured application of VSM to products requiring
non-linear value streams, based on the preliminary analysis to identify the longer critical
production path using the Temporized Bill of Material. After identification of the critical
path, possible improvements were searched and then considered all sharing with
secondary paths as further constraints. Finally, when the main value stream got improved,
a new path became the critical one. Thus, the analysis proceeded iteratively until the
optimum is reached or the WIP level has decreased under the desired level. McDonald et al.
(2002) noted that VSM may not serve the purpose, when it is used to map a production line
which produces different types of product families that are having different processing
times and set up times for each processing step apart from different number of shifts.
3. Present work
The present study is carried out in XYZ Ltd production industry located in Patiala, Punjab
(India). It deals with manufacturing of components to meet the maintenance need of diesel
traction fleet, Indian railways. Present study proceeds with the mapping of current state of
shop floor of equalizer beam manufacturing line of XYZ Ltd This mapping is done with a
pencil and paper using various process symbols of VSM to visualize the flow of material
and information as the product takes its way in manufacturing line. Mapping is carried out
keeping in view of the lean manufacturing principles as discussed by Rother and Shook

(1999) and Seth and Gupta (2005). These principles are: define value from your customers
perspective; identify the value stream; eliminate the seven deadly wastes; make the work
flow; pull the work rather than push it; and pursue to perfection level. The major steps
involved in mapping are as follows (Figures 1 and 2):
(1) VSM process symbols are used to represent customer, supplier, and production
control.
(2) All important data related to current state of shop floor of manufacturing such as
lead time, process time, change over time and number of shifts are shown by data
boxes below the VSM symbols.
(3) The monthly/daily requirements of product along with the number of containers
and Kanbans required are obtained.
(4) Movement of product is indicated with arrows including shipment and receiving
data.
(5) In between two workstations, WIP is shown with proper inventory icons.
(6) Major improvement areas are identified from the current state map.
(7) Some modifications in current state map are proposed and with the application
of lean tools various gap areas are bridged in order to prepare future state map.
(8) Future state map is prepared and improvements achieved are highlighted.

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4. Current state map

VSM is a pencil and paper tool, which is created using a predefined set of icons. There are a
lot of benefits to drawing value stream maps by hand with paper and pencil. With manual
mapping, let us see what is actually happening in a shop floor value stream, rather than
being restrained to a computer. Also, the process of quickly drawing and redrawing a map
acts as a plan-do-check-act cycle that deepens our understanding of the overall flow
of value or lack thereof. The first step in VSM is to choose a product family as the target
Customers

Suppliers
Annual forecast
Monthly schedule
Planning deptt
of XYZ

Weekly requirement

Monthly schedule
Daily requirement

Daily schedule
Finished
items

Daily schedule
15-days
inventory

Flame cutting

18
Prod. lead
time 22.44
days
Processing
time 252
min

19
CT = 42 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%
0.783 days
42 min

Benching
manual

Profile
milling

Drilling

16
CT = 30 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%
0.826 days
30 min

28

Hand
grinding

30

Quality
No.
check up punching

32

46

28

CT = 34 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%
0.696 days

CT = 32 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%
1.22 days

CT = 50 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%
1.3 days

CT = 36 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%
1.39 days

34 min

32 min

50 min

36 min

CT = 28 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%
1.22 days
28 min

Figure 1.
Current state map

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Customers

Suppliers
Annual forecast
Monthly schedule
Planning deptt
of XYZ

Monthly schedule

Weekly requirement
Daily requirement
W

Milk run

162

W
W

3-days

Benching
manual

Flame cutting

Quality
check up

Profile
milling

Drilling

Finished
items
No
23
punching

18

Production
lead time
3.783 days

Figure 2.
Future state map

Processing
time 196
min

CT = 36 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%
0.783 days
36 min

CT = 30 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%

0 days

CT = 34 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%

0 days
30 min

CT = 32 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%

0 days
34 min

CT = 36 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%

0 days
32 min

CT = 36 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%

0 days
36 min

CT = 28 min
2-shifts
uptime
100%
0 days

36 min

28 min

for improvement. Customers care only about their products and not all products so that it
is unrealistic to map everything that passes through the shop floor. Drawing all the
product flow in one company would be too complex. Identifying a product family can be
done either by using the product and process matrix to classify similar process steps for
different products or by choosing products that use the highest volume after choosing a
product family. The next step is to draw a current state map to take a snapshot of how
things are being done now. This is done while walking along the actual pathways from the
actual production process. Drawing material flow on the current state map should always
start with the process that is most linked to the customers, which in most cases is the
shipping department, and then working ones way up to the upstream processes. The
material flow is drawn at the lower portion of the map. At each process, all the critical
information including lead-time, cycle time, changeover time, inventory levels, etc. are
documented. The inventory levels on the map should correspond to levels at the time of the
actual mapping and not the average because it is important to use actual figures rather
than historical averages provided by the company. The second aspect of the current state
map is the information flow that indicates how much each process will be going to add
value to final product. The information flow is drawn on the upper portion of the map. The
information flow is drawn from right to left on the map and is connected to the material
flow previously drawn. After the completion of the map, a timeline is drawn below the
process boxes to indicate the production lead-time, which is the time that a particular
product spends on the shop floor from its arrival until its completion. A second time called
the value-added time is then added. This time represents the sum of the processing times
for each process. Lead time is calculated by the way each component will wait on every
machine and then total waiting time over the entire process will make the lead time.
Current state map of the present shop is shown in Figure 1.

5. Evaluation of current state map

From the evaluation of current state map, a few assumptions are made. It is assumed that
maximum demand may reach up to 560 items per month based on the past data of the
organization under study. The current state map captures information at a particular
instance, which may vary from shift to shift. For the sake of evaluation, the shift
and labor-wise variation is not considered. Effective numbers of working days are
24 per month, Number of shifts per day is two and working hours per shift are seven.
Available working time per day in minutes 840. TAKT time refers to the rate at which
customers are buying products from the production line, i.e. the unit production rate that
must be met to match customers requirements. It is calculated as follows:
TAKT time

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Available work time per day minutes

Customer demand per day units

TAKT time comes out to be 36 minutes. Table I represents various details regarding the
current state of the shop floor of manufacturing line and data shown in Table I is taken from
Figure 1. Existing process requires manpower of ten per day with a production output of
3.6 products per worker. The real VA time for the current process is 252 minutes, whereas
production lead-time is 22.44 days. High-WIP inventory of 32 products is observed at station
inspection and quality check up and finished goods inventory of 46 products is there due to
poor ordering policy and the play-safe tendency of the organization.
6. Proposed changes in existing state of manufacturing
Based on the data of current state map and the wastage identified in the analysis, changes
were proposed in existing state as shown in Figure 2. The suppliers of the organization
were asked to fulfill hourly demand instead of daily demand. The fulfillment of hourly
demand requires high degree of information flow and coordination through the
organization and with its suppliers. For this purpose, a Kanban system was introduced
between the organization and its suppliers. It was suggested that withdrawal Kanban
should flow from planning department to dispatch. Similarly, the production Kanban was
suggested flowing from dispatch to raw material store, as shown in Figure 2. The Kanban
system brought the necessary schedule and delivery discipline. This system also reduced
the manpower requirement to track the demand and inventory at the organization and
communicating the same at the supplier end. Inventory was also very high at many
stations in the current state; presently the organization is holding 15 days of inventory due

Machine/process
Store
Flame cutting
Benching manual
Drilling
Profile milling
Hand grinding
Quality check up
No. punching
Total

Processing time
(minutes)
42
30
34
32
50
36
28
252

Production lead time

(days)
15.000
0.783
0.826
0.696
1.220
1.300
1.390
1.220
22.440

In-processes inventory
(units)
00
18
19
16
28
30
32
28
171

Table I.
Current state data

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to poor communication and stock outs. Electronic information, Kanban system and super
market help to reduce inventory. These changes reduced inventory levels in raw material
store from 22.44 to 3.783 days, as shown in Figure 2, which was quite significant. This also
helped in making whole supply chain lean and flexible. To ensure station cycle time lies in
the range of TAKT time, i.e. 36 minutes in present case and to reduce manpower
requirement from ten to seven per day, the continuous flow of materials and information
were maintained across the whole process. To synchronize station cycle time with TAKT
time at flame cutting station, oxy acetylene gas cutting should be replaced with plasma
gas cutting, it will not only synchronize the station cycle time but also improve the surface
finish at the cutting surface of equalizer beam and it will eliminate the requirement of hand
grinding operation at latter stage. Comparison of TAKT time with cycle time of current
state and future state map is shown in Figure 3.
The data from Figure 2 along with benefits achieved are given in Tables II and III.
These are clear indications that production output per worker has improved to 3.20 from
2.24 products. Production lead-time is reduced drastically from 22.44 to 3.783 days and VA
time is also reduced from 4.2 to 3.67 hours. Current demand at the organization is easily
achievable with reduction in both WIP and finished goods inventory in the supply chain.
All these proposed changes will help the organization to become cost competitive in
todays global market, and hence it will also help in freezing overall costs in the supply
chain. In the present situation, the supplier will be in a position to deliver at required rate,
and high-quality products at lower cost, which was also the requirement of a lean and
responsive environment. In this study, the cost of proposed changes is not given but all the
changes were suggested after consultation with lean implementation experts and shop
floor instructors. Initially, these changes may appear costly and against the lean principles
but as per the volume of the production in the given industry, cost will be recovered in very
short spell of time and afterwards the industry can enjoy the full benefits of lean principles.
7. Conclusions
Lean implementation is carried out in a production industry with the help of VSM
technique and many benefits are reported such as reduction in WIP inventory by
89.47 percent, finished goods inventory by 17.85 percent, product lead time by
83.14 percent, processing time by 12.62 percent, manpower required by 30 percent and
output per operator is increased by 42.86 percent. Rother and Shook (1999) rightly argued
that whenever there is a product for a customer, there is a value stream. The challenge lies
60

Current state

50

Cycle time (min)

50

Figure 3.
Talk time comparison
with cycle time of current
state and future state map

Talk time = 36 minutes

42
40

Future state

36

34 34
30 30

30

36 36

32 32

28 28

20
10
0
0
Flame
cutting

Benching
manual

Drilling

Profile
milling

Hand
grinding

Quality
No.
check up punching

Machine/process
Store
Flame cutting
Benching manual
Drilling
Profile milling
Hand grinding
Quality check up
No. punching
Total
Total relevant units

Processing time
(minutes)
0
36
30
34
32
00
36
28
196
3 hours 16 minutes

Measure

Units

Output per man

Total manpower
In-process inventory
Finished goods inventory
Production lead time
Processing leads time

Products/man
Numbers/day
Products
Products
Days
Hours

Production lead time

(days)

In-processes inventory
(no.)

03.000
0.783
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
3.783
3.783 days

00
18
0
0
0
00
0
0
18
18 products

Current state

Future state

Improvement (%)

2.24
10
171
28
22.44
4.2

3.20
7
18
23
3.783
3.67

42.86
30.00
89.47
17.86
83.14
12.62

in working and implementing it. VSM can be done in the same way for practically any
business activity and expanded upstream or downstream. This study provided following
lessons for the researchers and practitioners:
.
VSM is a very powerful tool to identify gap areas and facilitate lean
implementation for production industry.
.
The improvements carried out in this study are significant enough for the
practitioners to further explore lean implementation and take its full benefit.
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About the authors
Bhim Singh is presently associated with Galgotias College of Engineering and Technology,
Greater Noida, UP, India, as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering Department.
He holds BTech degree from REC, Kurukshetra, and MTech degree from GNDEC, Ludhiana. He is
presently pursuing PhD from National Institute of Technology (NIT), Kurukshetra, on lean
manufacturing. He has more than ten years of teaching experience in Undergraduate and
Post Graduate classes. He has published paper in international journals and in several national and
international conferences. He has guided many projects to undergraduate students. His area of
interest statistical quality control, operations research, supply chain management, value
engineering and lean manufacturing. Bhim Singh is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: bhimsingh_ncce@rediffmail.com
S.K. Garg did his PhD from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, India. He is presently
associated with Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department of Delhi Technological
University, Delhi, as a Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. He has
published more than 50 papers in international journals and conferences. He also authored three
books in his area of interest. His area of interest includes lean manufacturing, supply chain
management, just-in-time manufacturing, total quality management, operation research. He is
also guiding many research scholars for their PhD degree in his field.
S.K. Sharma, eminent scholar and leader in the field of industrial engineering and
entrepreneurship development is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical
Engineering at NIT, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India. He did extensive research in the field of
industrial engineering and has guided 16 candidates in their dissertation for MTech degree. He is
guiding ten students for their PhD degree in the field of production and industrial engineering. He
has published many papers in national and international journals of repute.
Chandandeep Grewal is currently doing his PhD at University of Calgary. Before joining PhD, He
was a Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering at Guru Nanak Dev
Engineering College, Ludhiana, India. He holds the Master of Technology in Industrial Engineering
from the IIT, Delhi. His areas of interest are supply chain management, lean manufacturing,
operations research and simulation and modeling. He has number of research papers in international
and national journals and conferences.

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