Value Stream Mapping as a Tool to Identify the Opportunities for Various Lean Techniques: An Auto Industry Case Study

Growth of business world these days created tighter market competition, because the existing industrial market become more global and have penetrated the inter-states boundary. The goal of every company is to satisfy the customer with the exact product, quality, quantity, and price in the shortest amount of time. Those conditions forced manufacturing operations to continually striving to reduce lead time of their operations. It can only be achieved if the company is able to create and to implement effective and efficient processes in each of its line of their business. For this purpose lean tools are used because lean focus on the continuous improvement of a company towards the ideal through the relentless reduction of waste. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a Special tool of lean that uses symbols known as "the language of Lean" to depict and improve the flow of material and information. Value Stream Mapping Purpose is to provide optimum value to the customer through a complete value creation process with minimum lead time. This paper presents a case study on Value Steam Mapping (VSM) approach in an Indian auto industry. The research begins with collection of the process information through which the current value-stream map is created and it reflects the current scenario of the operation site. Considering the problems in the current state of production, a future value-stream map was suggested to bridge the gap and to serve as a guide for future lean operations. The future state results in 22 % reduction in processing time, 33.7 % reduction in lead time and 17.6 % addition in value added ratio and 50% reduction in inventory.