Development of a leanness monitoring system via RFID: an industrial case study

摘要

A leanness monitoring system (LMS) is presented in this paper to evaluate, in real time, the leanness of a manufacturing facility. This LMS has two major components, an online RFID-based lead-time monitoring system (ORLMS) and a leanness assessment system (LAS). The ORLMS determines how much time a product spends in the system's inventory, and the LAS uses this information to determine the company's leanness score. Following laboratory testing, this LMS was successfully implemented in a local manufacturing facility to demonstrate its effectiveness for real-world manufacturers. This local manufacturer received a low leanness score upon the initial implementation of this system, causing the managers of the company to review their current system. Their review identified substantial sources of waste in the current system that had to be eliminated or minimised in order to improve the overall efficiency. A series of Kaizen events were then initiated to minimise those sources of waste. After successfully implementing those Kaizen events, the LMS was used to generate a new leanness score showing significant improvements in their manufacturing process.