Lean Manufacturing

 

”A systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste (non-value added activities) through continuous improvement by flowing the product at pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection.”

The main benefits of lean manufacturing are lower production costs; increased output and shorter production lead times, higher flexibility.

 


 

Lean Initiatives taken by Viyellatex:

 

"Never Surrender to Never-Ending Waste"

1. 5s (Sort-Set in Order-Shine-Standardize-Sustain):

Success of Lean Implementation requires 80% culture change & 20% technical change. As a part of culture change, we are trying to practice it through out the industry. 5S has been successfully implemented at sewing & cutting area of garments business unit. 5S implemented areas are now more organized & work friendly environment. An auditing system has been developed & on the basis of score a sewing line is awarded as “5S Champion”. 5S will be implemented at rest of the areas of the industry.

 		 

 

2. Visual Management:

Visual Management systems enable factory management or workers or anyone interested to be well informed about production procedures, status and other important information for them to do their jobs more effectively & efficiently. It helps the problem or waste to be more visible.

 a) Traffic Light Management System: 3 different colors flags (Green, Yellow & Red) used for quality control by assisting the supervisor and management to manage effectively what is happening in the individual teams regarding sewing quality. Green, Yellow & Red colored flag indicates respectively good quality, caution & quality problem. Implementing this system, we were able to achieve reduce rework & reject percentage.

 

 

b) Visual Status Board: Visual status board for sewing line enables floor management & top management to be informed about the efficiency, production status, rework & reject status, no of machines used, no of members working in the line, 5S score & safety cross etc.

c) Others: Lots of visual charts (say fabric defect charts), visual process indicators, visual display & visual posters are placed at different places of the industry.

 All of these visual tools helps us to achieve “8-Zero” (zero waste, zero defects, zero downtime, zero injuries, zero customer complains, zero changeover time, zero loss & zero delays)

 

3. Awareness Program:

To build a lean culture everyone of the industry has to think in the same way. We arrange training programs on Lean thinking philosophy on regular basis for the management staffs as well as the workers.

 

 

 

4.  Cellular Manufacturing System:

Waste due to line imbalance is the main type of man-hour loss in the garments sewing section, approximate 40 to 30 % man-hour losses due to line imbalances. With the aim of reducing this huge amount of man-hour losses, Cellular Manufacturing System based on team works, has been introduced at Viyellatex. We initiated one U-shaped cellular line as a pilot project & after getting huge benefits, we are now approaching to roll out this concept through out the factory 

The benefits associated with cellular Manufacturing includes; WIP reduced by 75%, Throughput time reduced by 29%, Rework (Alter) reduced by 24%, Rejection reduced by 23% & most importantly Labor Productivity or efficiency increased by more than 35%. The company awarded the worker & related staffs with various recognition & cash incentive. 

But this is not the end, just started to the ultimate goal, 100% balanced sewing line. And for this, we are going to design incentive system. Insha’Allah, we will be able to achieve our ultimate goal.  

 

5. Incentive Scheme Plan:

Viyellatex is dedicated to improve the life standard of its worker. Besides regular salary, an incentive scheme plan has been offered to the workers as well as floor management to motivate them to improve their performance as a team as well as improve their life standards through higher earning.

 

6. KAIZEN Suggestions Program:

We believe that the lots of useful ideas for eliminating non value-added activities typically originate with workers involved in those processes. We campaign continuously to workers to give suggestions & they are awarded with attractive prizes based on their suggestions.