Developing a Plug&Lean-CiMo a Modelfor Improving Manufacturing Operations

Abstract

Manufacturers continue facing the never ending challenge of finding the best way to increase productivity levels in order to remain competitive. Significant level of productivity are given by the efficient utilization of production equipment, thus manufacturing companies use the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) rateas an indicator to control equipment utilization related to the maintenance activity; however they do not take into account other valuable OEE-information to improve their entire manufacturing operations. This paper presents a continuous improvement model Plug&Lean-CiMo, whose aims are the accurate calculation of the OEE indicators, the appropriate classification of losses, and the systematic integration of lean manufacturing philosophy tools in an improvement methodology.The model has the advantage of using a portable wireless system to support the automated collection, of data to make the ontinuous improvement process easier.A case study is presented to illustrate the validation of the model.