Productivity Improvement in Bus Body Manufacturing Using Value Stream Mapping and Line Balancing Technique

Abstract

Bus body manufacturing play a key role in automotive manufacturing, as vehicle manufacturers often sub contract such enterprise to complete bus manufacturing process. In a fiercely competitive global environment, the bus body manufacturing enterprises are constantly looking for ways of meet their customer requirements of delivery on time, cost and quality in order for them to survive. However, bus body manufacturing enterprises barely meet the customer demands in terms of delivering on time due to long cycle times on the production floor due to low labour utilization, material wastage and unorganized work flows. In this research, we critically looked at improving productivity such enterprises by considering a case study of one of the leading bus body manufacturing enterprises in Kenya. Value Stream Mapping was used as the main productivity improvement tool supported by line balancing techniques. The results from the improved value stream map indicated an increase in efficiency of 13.1% and a reduction the cycle time by 7 days, demonstrating the potential of these tools for improving productivity in bus body manufacturing.