Value Stream Mapping: A Case Study of an Assembly Line in an Automotive Industry

Abstract

A value stream is the sequence of processes of creating, producing, and delivering a good or service to the market. A value stream may be internal to a company, or it may include external suppliers in addition to internal processes. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is the one of the lean manufacturing tool. It captures the information at individual stations about station cycle time, up time or utilization of resources, set- up time or change over time, work in process inventory, man power requirement and the information flow from raw material to finish goods. It covers both value adding as well as non- value- adding activities. However, VSM method is used to explore the wastes, inefficiencies, non- value added steps in a single, definable process. This paper addresses the implementation of value stream mapping in automotive industry (assembly line). The main focus of this paper is to map the current state to give details about the existing position and identify various problem areas, followed by the future scope. VSM of automotive assembly line identifies value-added time (76.24 sec) and non-value-added time (350.8 sec). TAKT time 51.92sec for current demand. Bottleneck operations identified for improvement. The aim of this paper was to develop a value stream map for an automotive assembly line to determine wastes that did not add value to the product. We have recognized the important value added and non- value added activities in the assembly line. The value added time was found to be 76.24 sec and non- value added time was found to be 350.8sec. TAKT time was 51.92sec (present demand).