A case study in consolidating the loss structure of different manufacturing sectors under lean context

Sammanfattning: In the light of lean methodology, World Class Manufacturing requires continuous improvement in analyzing the losses to eliminate the wasteful resources and to boost the overall productivity. However, the standardized loss structure should be well-balanced to be general enough to cover the whole manufacturing procedure while being specific enough to point out the real issues happening for further improvement. The master thesis attempts to investigate how a typical manufacturing company can build up a loss structure and information system for recording inefficiencies according to the specific need of its daily operations in the lean context. In order to make the most out of the loss analysis, a suggestion for restructuring loss library and consolidating loss deployment systems in different manufacturing sectors was proposed by performing a number of qualitative cause-effect analysis combined with quantitative ABC analysis. Another attempt is to find out the additional parameters that can be implemented in the loss system as a way to reduce misunderstanding, thereby minimizing the inefficiency caused by human error. The proposed loss structure outperforms the critical overall equipment efficiency (OEE) and loss deployment model. It gives the results of a great improvement in reducing duplication and ambiguity as well as increasing the consolidated manner for the loss categories used in different sectors. The approach is expected to perform well in the manufacturing-based company with different final products and working procedures. Since the framework was highly customized, in depth validation is recommended before implementation or application in any other specific scenarios.