Abstract:
To be competitive and meet ever increasing demand of apparel buyers to reduce cost, supply
smaller quantity order at shorter lead time as well as increasing labor cost in the local market has
forced the local manufacturers of Bangladesh to improve labor productivity, quality, to reduce
lead time and produce small order quantity efficiently. Tools and techniques of Lean
manufacturing may play an important role in their quest for meeting ever increasing demand of
customers profitably. Lean manufacturing requires keeping far less than half the needed
inventory on site, results in many fewer defects, and produces a greater and ever growing variety
of products. Lean consists of best practices, tools and techniques from throughout industry with
the aims of reducing waste and maximizing efficiency to achieve the ultimate customer
satisfaction.
The present study focuses on improving line efficiency, throughput time of an assembly line
through identifying wastes using value stream mapping and other analyses, identifying
opportunities for improvement and required tools and techniques of lean manufacturing and
industrial engineering to implement. An assembly line in an apparel factory is considered to
implement this study as well as line efficiency, throughput time, machine utilization, space
utilization, WIP and other performance parameters are compared before and after implementing
the tools and techniques of lean manufacturing and industrial engineering. Though outcomes of
5S and visual management are difficult to quantify, these tools are foundations for lean
implementation.
