Enhancing the production capacity of 300 ton press by applying lean principles

In the presents scenario competition in the current business world is marked by intense agitation and fierce contention. This feverish situation has made organisations to rejuvenate themselves by marching in different routes like Agile, Lean, TPM, TQM etc to keep them competitive as well to attain their objectives positively. But most of the organisations have taken the established route-Lean to crush the competition. This situation has enhanced the Lean management strategies such as improving the value stream, levelling the production based on demand; creating flow in manufacturing, reducing capital investment etc. Also this has provided them a major source of competitive advantage. The source is mainly due to the ability of the organisation to change and manage the change.

In this paper, a press shop which is used for a new product was taken for capacity enhancement. The main objective is to enhance the production capacity of 300 Ton presses from 600 to 800 sets/day. The objective needs to be achieved with no investment or with very minimum investment because investment plays a decisive role at the growth stage of the product life cycle. The scope covers the entire press shop for the proposed implementation of waste elimination ideas, cycle time reduction as well the proposal for creating the flow for the pressed parts. A seven step methodology for set up time reduction and a unique methodology for cycle time reduction were used to attain the objectives of the study.

The main results of this studies are that the production capacity of the press has been increased from 600 to 825 sets/day with a reduced tool change time of less than 10 mins from 36 mins per setup. In a nutshell modifying the existing practices has resulted in NVA elimination and cycle time reduction thereby finally enhancing the production capacity of presses.