How Can Lean Manufacturing Lead the Manufacturing Sector during Health Pandemics Such as COVID 19: A Multi Response Optimization Framework

Lean manufacturing has been used for the last few decades as a process and performance improvement tool. Initially known as Toyota production system (TPS), lean is now used in almost all service and manufacturing sectors to deliver favorable results such as decreased operational cost, increased customer satisfaction, decreased cycle time, and enhanced profits. During the coronavirus disease (COVID 19) pandemic, the manufacturing sector struggled immensely and could not function well even after lockdown was eased in many countries. Many companies found out there are not ready to conform with new regulations made by authorities in many countries. This paper proposes the use of simulation and multi response optimization in addition to other typical lean tools in order to arrive at optimum performance at the end of each project through an established optimization framework. The framework is used in a real case study performed at an aluminum extrusion factory. Lean manufacturing helps organizations to operate with smaller number of resources. It standardizes all processes so that most of the jobs can be done by most of the workers, but this is not enough to create a healthy, sanitized work place. Our framework utilizes the strengths of lean tools and adds pandemic readiness factor to them to ensure improvement in performance and health pandemic readiness. Implementation of the framework in the case company resulted in 50% reduction in labor, $730000 in expected annual cost savings, reduction in inventory levels, improved employee morale and the achievement of pandemic ready status.