Lean Manufacturing Analysis of a Heater Industry Based on Value Stream Mapping and Computer Simulation

Manufacturing companies implement lean manufacturing (LM) tools to keep their competitiveness over their competitors by improving the manufacturing system’s productivity. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a critical tool for implementing the lean approach, and it can be used to many sectors in industry. The paper aims to implement the VSM approach along with computer simulation for identification and elimination of wastes in a small-scale Heater industry by using lean principles and time-frame formulation through takt time calculation. Based on the future VSM improvements, results showed that production lead time (PLT) reduced from 17.5 days to 11 days, and the value-added time decreased from 3412 seconds to 2415 seconds. Takt time also was decreased from 250 seconds to 192 seconds. Our results are a valuable resource for managers and industrial engineers to improve the productivity of manufacturing in a cost-effective and timely manner.