Lean manufacturing in air conditioning hoses assembly cell

Abstract

The new “thought leans” introduced by Toyota Company - TPS (Toyota Production System) changed the standard of the American massive production. The innovations are focus in the flexibility of the production and also to eliminate the continuously wasting; swooping the investment in machines to trained operators and the pushing system to pulling system based into the demand of the client. The Lean Manufacturing techniques were implemented in an Automotive Plant in Air Conditioning Hoses assembly cell and the results were excellent. For instance: 42% floor space reduction, 50% pieces in process reduction, improvement the lead timing in 30%, and eliminating the security buffer. Besides it, we could get an improvement in quality about 10%. Aiming to be competitive in the market it is truly necessary to think lean and improve this process to get good results as we can notice with the enormous growth of the Oriental Companies.