Case Study

Proceedings of the Fifth Asia Pacific Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Conference 2004

LEAN STRATEGIES FOR FURNITURE MANUFACTURING S. Sabri and E. Shayan Industrial Research Institute Swinburne (IRIS) Swinburne University of Technology, Australia [e-mail]

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to explore the various requirements needed for the implementation of lean strategies in a job shop environment, which is a significant sector in the manufacturing industry. In particular we test the methodology in the furniture industry. Application of Lean in the job shop environment stumbles on a variety of obstacles, primarily due to the high product mix, which explains why extensive utilization of lean is not reported in the journals for this industrial sector. Most of the reported applications and documentations are discussing lean in cases where there are a few families of high volume products and processes involved. The reports mainly fail to detail the ways waste is removed. The recommendations are far from applicable when thousands of parts in low quantity and several nonlinear processes are involved. Most papers, which refer to the issues, do not attempt to suggest improved approaches. This paper aims to extend the scope of lean strategies in the job shop environment by improving existing methodologies through employing some Industrial Engineering techniques with more technical detailed issues encountered in implementation stage. A new methodology is introduced and exemplified by the result of a case study conducted at a furniture manufacturing company. Key Words: Lean Manufacturing, Furniture Manufacturing.

1. INTRODUCTION The objective of a lean manufacturing system is to minimize the consumption of resources that added no value to a product. Lean Manufacturing can be defined as: "A systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste (non-value-added activities) through continuous improvement by making the product flow at

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