Application of the Design of Experiments to Evaluate Production Efficiency in Lean Systems

摘要

Lean Manufacturing Systems strive to achieve customer value through the elimination of waste by synchronising production output to the pull of customer demand within a culture of continuous improvement. The challenge for manufacturers that utilise resources that produce batches of products is to maximise the productive efficiency of the resource. Maximising the productive efficiency of the resource enables minimised production batch sizes that do not jeopardise customer supply, optimise the use of factory and storage space and packaging requirements. Manufacturing processes are subject to variation, both in respect to the inputs to the process and to the process output itself. Consequently, there are inherent difficulties in determining how to maximise production efficiency due to the nature of the variation within the system not being fully understood. This paper examines the application of the Design of Experiments methodology to understand how inputs into a manufacturing process both singularly and through interaction influence the performance metric of the process. The paper considers a case study application in a car body panel pressing facility where the factors that determine the performance metric of a production press are analysed through the creation of the appropriate factorial design. The analysis contributes to an evolving body of knowledge with respect to the panel production process and to aid the identification of lean batch sizes that do not compromise performance.