Performance enhancement of a manufacturing industry by using continuous improvement strategies - a case study

In today's highly competitive environment, manufacturing scenario has undergone a rapid change in the last two decades, more so in the last few years. The advent of new materials, products and the changing needs of the customers have brought a lot of pressure on the organisations in developing countries especially in India to perform better in the coming days. The purpose of this study is to identify improvement related critical areas for ascertaining and to improve the manufacturing performance of an auto part manufacturing plant using continuous improvement strategies. This paper highlights the contributions of continuous improvement function to ensure enhanced equipment improvement related issues, thereby affecting improvements in the manufacturing system performance. Results indicated the average improvement in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) of about 4.15%, reduction of 88.22% in rejections, decrease in down time of 7.125 hours/week and the net cost savings of $2,420.