The Application of Sequenced Lean Production Methodologies to Facility Design

The successful application of Lean production systems in the manufacturing industry can have many positive results such as increased productivity, quality and safety, all while using fewer resources to create a product or service. Lean refers to the elimination of waste and the development of systems in which non-value adding activities are minimised and value adding activities prioritised. Eliminating sources of waste is a key objective in lean systems. One of the primary means by which this lean characteristic is achieved is through the design of optimised facility layouts. Facility layout methodologies have been developed with the intention of approximating machines to reduce the distances travelled by workers and parts. There are many barriers to the adoption of Lean principles and facility layout methodologies in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) due to a range of issues including resource constraints, scale factors and increasing complexity. This research presents an Excel-based tool that can be used to guide SMEs in the application of lean production concepts to draft more efficient facility layouts. This tool is innovative in the sense that there is no single planned and structured path to implementing lean methods in an SME context, dealing specifically with the particularities of small and medium sized enterprises. The concepts proposed by this research are validated using examples from peer reviewed literature.