Production Lead Time Reduction in a Battery Manufacturing Unit using Lean Manufacturing Hemadri Chadalavada 1 1 Assistant Professor, R.M.K College of Engineering & Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Puduvoyal, Chennai,Tamilnadu,India Samuel Raj D 2 2 Assistant Professor, College of Engineering guindy, Anna university, Department of Mechanical Engineering, , Chennai,Tamilnadu,India Ashok Kumar R 3 3 Assistant Professor, R.M.K College of Engineering & Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Puduvoyal, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India Sankar K 4 4 Engineer, Industrial Battery Division, Amararaja batteries Limited, Thirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India Abstract - Lean Manufacturing is an effective management philosophy for improving businesses in a competitive market by eliminating waste and improving operations. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is the preferred way to support and implement lean. VSM is a visual illustration of the entire value stream (from customer order entry through purchasing, manufacturing and deliver the finished product to customer). This paper describes the reduction of production lead time in a battery manufacturing unit, and to deliver the products on time to customers. This involved mapping the activities of the firm, and identifying opportunities for improvement. Current State Map is prepared to describe the existing position of firm. The current state is analysed to identify sources of waste which are then eliminated. Future state map is prepared to show the improvement areas. The achievements of valve stream mapping are reduction in production lead time and inventory levels. Key words: Lean manufacturing; valve stream mapping; lead time 1. INTRODUCTION Manufacturing companies have been faced with increasing amounts of pressure from customers and competitors in the past couple of decades. Customers have higher expectations from their purchases, and manufacturers can meet these expectations by increasing a product’s quality, reducing delivery time, and mi nimizing product costs. This has forced the manufacturing industry to implement new production strategies to enhance their competitiveness in the global market place. Lean manufacturing was first implemented by Toyota Corporation in response to the mass-production model. Lean is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, "value" is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. Basically, lean is centered around creating more value with less work. Lean manufacturing is a generic process management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) and identified as "Lean" only in the 1990s. It is renowned for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes in order to improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. In this paper, an attempt is made to decrease the production lead time in a battery manufacturing unit by using value stream mapping as a tool. The production lead time is more for manufacturing one battery, which results in customer requirement not being met. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW Taho Yang, Yiyo Kuo (2015) Value stream mapping (VSM) is a useful tool for describing the manufacturing state, especially for distinguishing between those activities that add value and those that do not. It can help in eliminating non-value activities and reducing the work in process (WIP) and thereby increase the service level. This research follows the guidelines for designing future state VSM. These guidelines consist of five factors which can be changed simply, without any investment. These five factors are (1) production unit; (2) pacemaker process; (3) number of batches; (4) production sequence; and (5) supermarket size. The results show that the future state maps can increase service level and reduce WIP by at least 29.41% and 33.92% respectively. Lluis Cuatrecasas-Arbos (2011) et al, developed a spreadsheet model for manufacturing system by means of the Operations-Time Chart (a graphical tool). The OT- chart permits a visual tracking of the parameters (productivity, lead-time, inventories, downtimes and wait times) throughout each process and displays the effects of changing input parameters. It also provides tracking of different types of waste and supports inventory supermarkets and pull scheduling. They have concluded with the case study of plant redesign from a conventional batch and-queue production system into a lean manufacturing system. International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT) ISSN: 2278-0181 www.ijert.org IJERTV4IS040986 (This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.) Vol. 4 Issue 04, April-2015 842