Formulation of a process to improve PCE & reduce waste of a lead acid battery industry by using lean six sigma model.

Abstract

This study is a case analysis of lean tools and Six Sigma methodology implementation in N70 Battery & NS60L Battery processing lines of Rangs Power Battery industry in Bangladesh. This work addresses the implementation of lean tools and Six Sigma methodology in the observed N70 Battery & NS60L Battery processing lines in order to evaluate present Process Cycle Efficiency (PCE), Takt time, Value Added (VD) and Non Value Added (NVD) activities and lead time and finally to develop an improved strategy to bring the improved PCE, Takt time and to reduce the lead time and NVD activities. Value Stream Map (VSM) and Pareto analysis are applied to evaluate the present and future state PCE and to find out the NVD activities. By this study the present state PCE of N70 Battery processing line-1 and NS60L processing line-2 are found consequently as 20.18% and 13.74% that would be 29.62% and 25.24% after the implementation of lean tools and Six Sigma methodology. It would be expected that after the proper implementation of lean tools the existing lead time of N70 Battery processing line-1 and NS60L Battery processing line-2 could be reduced consequently, by 31.85%, and 45.57%. By this study an economic benefit is also evaluated where it would be expected that after the proper implementation of lean tools and Six Sigma methodology the total economic benefit would be 69,418,080 TK. or 8,35,255.44 USD per year. After all the production flow to be optimized by minimizing several NVD times such as bottlenecking time, waiting time, material handling time, etc. towards a lean environment establishment in management system of the studied “Rangs Power Battery” industry in Bangladesh.