Investigations in low volume and high variety product manufacturing using lean methodology for improved delivery performance

Abstract

The global competition and expectation have made customers to pick and choose the application specific customized products or services. This situation often demands Low Volume And High Variety (LVHV) products by customers. One of the main challenges that a LVHV product manufacturing firm faces is On Time Delivery (OTD) to their customers. Lean Manufacturing (LM) techniques, implementation in various industries is growing in parallel in this era, as LM proved to eliminate waste and strengthens firm s competitiveness specifically in achieving OTD. LM is proven methodology and sustained in mass production and batch production firm s but when applied to LVHV, the results were often not sustained due to various challenges. When the product volumes are very low with high variety then the product delivery performance was one of the repeat challenges in LVHV firm s. The purpose of this research was to understand the LVHV delivery related issues, find the true root cause using systematic analysis and develop an order processing model for LVHV products manufacturing firm s to improve the delivery performance through suitable lean strategies. The LVHV firms either follow Engineer-To-Order (ETO) or Make-To-Order (MTO) strategy according to the customer s requirements. Lean mandates elimination of waste like inventory, waiting, defects, overproduction, motion, and transport and over processing. Among these lists of waste and#8213;waitingand#8214; is classified as one of the largest waste that affects the OTD performance. LVHV product manufacturing firm in most occasions and#8213;waitingand#8214; for material to produce and deliver the final product. Therefore, the Material planning, Production planning and the supply chain integration with LVHV firms order processing model is focused. newline