Lean Production Based Automotive Seat Production Line Improvement

The company A is a world famous automotive seat provider. The business covers car seat, interior and carpet. In China, the company A already has set up 14 manufacturing plants to provide automotive seats to China automotive carmakers. This dissertation introduces how to implement Lean activities on a seat assembly line based on a new car seat building project.Most of the Lean actions and actities have the different styles, but the philosophy is the same. Since every company and every industry have their specific products and situations, there are a lot of implementation ways. Normally, Lean activities implementation in a company will be in line with the latest company business plan.This dissertation introduces how to carry on the Lean activities based on the seat building project, describes how to implement lean actions in a existing production area with Lean tools and project management skills.In the beginning of this dissertation, the detailed product, production, operation performance, customer requirements are dwelled and measured through the on-site observation and data collection. By using the value stream mapping systematically, we get a whole overview of current product value stream map. The current value stream map shows the weak area of manufacturing system.The improvement ideas are worked out according to lean rules, customer's demand and company development roadmap. Base on those improvement ideas, a future value stream map is created with the Lean improvement goals.The future value stream map is broken down to detailed improvement solutions and tasks. Before implementation, a implementation plan is drafted and the progress schedule is optimized by combining, sequencing, relocating those proposed tasks.This dissertation stands on the Lean concepts and principles in theoretical viewpoints and consolidates Lean activities with the knowledges of Project Management, Industry Engineering, Ergonomics.The future value stream map describes the sustainable lean goals for a long run.After implementation of these Lean activities, plant operation performance was improved greatly. The production capacity is improved to 5 jobs per hour from 3.3, production space is reduced 35 square meters, finish goods inventory is reduced to 4~12 sets from 240, raw material inventory is reduced to 5.5 days from 15 days, average manufacturing lead time is decreased to 5.8 days from 17.13 days.