PRODUCTIVITY ENHANCEMENT BY IMPLEMENTING LEAN TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES IN AN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

Nowadays, automotive industries are adopting new tools and techniques to increase productivity, operational availability and better overall efficiency of the production line. This paper describes the productivity enhancement by set-up time reduction in a fagor press involved in the machining of evaporator plates. The wellknown Single Minute Exchange of Die technique (SMED) was applied. SMED is one of the many lean production methods for reducing waste in a manufacturing process. It provides a rapid and efficient way of converting a manufacturing process from running the current product to running the next product. It is also often referred to as Quick Changeover (QCO). Using SMED technique, the result shows that tool change over time was reduced from 40 minutes to 12 minutes i.e. 28 minutes reduced and production rate has been increased from 92200 pieces to 98080 pieces i.e. 5800 pieces increased. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]