Lean Thinking Based Investment Planning at Design Stage of Cellular/Hybrid Manufacturing Systems

This chapter focuses on providing a methodology for lean thinking based investment planning from the perspective of cellular or hybrid manufacturing systems. The chapter has been divided into three parts. First part provides a general explanation of why lean thinking is so beneficial for managing manufacturing processes and obtaining sustained improvement. This part then moves to the aim of cell formation, and then uses value stream mapping to map current state for visualizing material-information flow and to design a desired future state for examining economic aspects of new machine investment decisions aligned with lean manufacturing principles. The purpose of second part is to explore axiomatic design approach; it provides an overall view of what to do. The third part presents the actual use of the methodology with implementation of hybrid system at a furniture factory; it helps to see application results of this methodology as part of a lean manufacturing program.