The lean implementation focused on a furniture company's solid wood furniture section. Initial efforts targeted the machine shop, assembly, and painting areas. Baseline studies found throughput times of 10-15 days and high WIP levels. Improvement projects established flow between operations, implemented load leveling for scheduling, and used single-piece flow with one trolley per component. This reduced throughput times to 2 days, cut floor space by 80%, and decreased WIP by 90%. The lean transformation helped the company be more responsive to customers' needs.

1. CASE STUDY OF LEAN IMPLEMENTATION IN FURNITURE INDUSTRY
Background:
Client is a leading furniture company in the city of Chennai and part of a leading business house
in Southern India. They have set up a world-class manufacturing facility and are in continuous
pursuit of improvement to be the best in class. The company has grown significantly in the past
few years and has clear vision to grow in both domestic and international arena. To enable this,
the company had initiated the Lean Movement to achieve significant improvements in Quality,
Cost and Delivery in addition to Employee Involvement.
Objective:
1. Improve the throughput by improving Flow, Pull and Synchronization.
2. Improve the work-stations and working methods to reduce physical strain, reduce cycle
time and improve productivity.
3. Reduce the Work-in-Process significantly.
4. Improve delivery performance by implementing HEIJUUNKA (Load leveling).
5. Improve the processes and Work on the lay out to significantly reduce the space and
other resources required to deliver.
6. Improve the morale of the employees involving them in the improvement process.
The scope of lean implementation was the solid wood furniture section of the company.
Diagnostic Study
The lean journey commenced with a current state assessment and road map setting exercise for
solid wood furniture which was being produced by the company for inventory as well as based
on specific orders received from the customers. Presently all the furniture products manufactured
by the company can be classified into four product families – sofas, dining tables, chairs and
beds. All these products are manufactured using the same line with multiple orders being taken
up for manufacturing concurrently.
For the first level implementation since the complications involved in manufacturing was more
in the machine shop, assembly and painting sections, it was decided to focus the initial efforts in
these areas. The raw wood processing section was considered as the supplier to the machine shop
for the purpose of lean implementation.
The demand of products are as follows:
Product family Avg. no. of subassemblies /
components
Weekly
Demand
Total no. of subassemblies
/ components
Sofa (3 seater +
2 x 1 seater)
17 80 1360
Dining table 5 14 70
Chairs 5 250 1250
Beds 12 20 240
Even though the basic operations in manufacturing the different components are similar across
product families, every product has a different sequence of operations, which lead to
complications in scheduling the various products in each workstation. Batch production was
followed across the shop floor with the objective of maximizing the capacity utilization of each
of the machines.

2. Keeping in mind the objectives, the current state of the manufacturing process was defined in a
value stream map (VSM) that was made using the actual cycle times measured for each activity
involved in the manufacturing process. The inventories, number of operators involved were also
physically verified on the shop floor. The summary of the VSM exercise is as follows
Operation Workstation Manpower Cycle time WIP
Sanding – Making
the four sides of a
cuboid of wood at
perfect right angles
Sanding
machine
4 15 secs for every pass. Every
piece of wood needs a minimum
of 4 passes depending on size
2 days
End cutting –
cutting of both ends
Cutting
machine
1 5 secs per piece -
Profile marking –
Marking of profile
on wood manually
Manual 1 10 secs per component 1 day
Band Saw – Rough
cutting the wooden
pieces based on
profile
Bandsaw
machine
1 3 - 5 min. depending on
complication of profile
1 day
Smoothening –
Front and back
sides of piece
Mechanised
sand paper
1 30 secs per piece -
Tenoning Tenon
machine
1 12 secs per piece 1 day
Mortising Mortise
machine
1 12 secs per piece 1 day
Chamfering Chamfering
machine
1 5 secs per piece -
Sub assembly Manual
workstation
1 20-30 min per subassembly 3 days
Sanding Manual
sanding
1 20-30 min depending on surface
area
1 day
Painting Spray
painting (3
coats)
2 2-3 min per subassembly per
coat
2 days
Packing Manual 1 10-15 min for one subassembly 7 days
Baseline study: The existing throughput time for a work order of any product would vary from
10-15 days depending on the size of the work order and the availability of components at various
stages of processing. The production rate per week was varying from 2000 to 3000 sub
assemblies. The plant runs in a single shift with additional overtime of 2-4 hours depending on
load on any given day.
Due to inventory at almost every workstation, it was observed that there were various instances
of many of the WIP becoming obsolete. There was no structured data available on the quality of
output at various workstations. Sporadic data available indicated the quality at machine shop to
be varying from 7000 - 15000 ppm.

3. System Potential: Based on the current state map and our observations, the future state map was
drawn out. It was decided that the throughput time of a work order can be brought down to 2
days. The improvement themes identified were as follows
Improvement themes:
 Reduce the throughput time of solid wood furniture
 Provide the flexibility on the lines in order to be able to take up different product mix as
per customer requirement
 Reduce the changeover time of various workstations
Roadmap for Lean implementation:
S.No. Current State
Observation
Action Plan Expected
results
Action Mth
1
Mth
2
Mth
3
Mth
4
Mth
5
Mth
6
Mth
7
Mth
8
1 Throughput
time – Every
component
goes through
10-12
workstations.
The total
throughput
time for a
batch to be
delivered to the
client was 10-
15 days
Redesigning of
layout of
machines to be
done. This will
facilitate
implementation of
flow from sanding
operation till
subassembly is
completed and
ready for painting.
This will ensure
each workstation
pulls from its
upstream
workstation
The
throughput
time was
expected to be
brought down
to 1day in this
segment
2 Throughput
time – Each
subassembly
undergoes
sanding and
painting in
batch mode
Redesign the
painting section so
that sanding is
carried out
manually at a
workstation
followed by
painting being
done online in a
moving conveyor,
followed by
drying and
packing
The
throughput
time was
expected to be
brought down
to 1 day till
packing.
3 Scheduling of
work orders
were carried
out randomly
depending on
priority on any
given day with
the only
objective of
loading the
Scheduling to be
done in such a
manner that every
component of a
work order is
completed at a
particular
workstation
before next work
order is taken up.
Improve the
throughput
time without
compromising
on the loading
of machines.
Minimum
loading to be
achieved is
70% for every

4. machines machine
4 The
changeover
time in tenon
and mortiser
machines were
in range of 60-
75 min. The
changeover
time to total
time is in range
of 50% for
most of
machines
Using SMED
techniques
improve the
changeover time
Expected to
reduce the
changeover
time to less
than 10
minutes and
improve the
ratio of
changeover
time to total
time as 10-
15%
5 WIP is stored
between
subassembly
section and
painting
section.
Link the
subassembly
section and
painting section
by a single flow
from sanding till
packing.
Expected to
reduce the
throughput
time further
by around 0.5
day
6 Quality at
various
workstations
was varying
from 7000 –
15000 ppm
Root cause
analysis to be
done and FTR
(first time right)
% to be improved
FTR % is
expected to
improve from
7000 ppm to
less than 1000
ppm
7 Standardize the
complete
process of
scheduling for
different
product mix
based on client
requirements
Establish SOPs,
visual
management,
monitoring
systems etc.
Consistently
achieve OTIF
(On time In
Full) of
99.9%
Implementation Methodology
KIAP has a unique intensive workshop methodology to improvement and problem solving in strategic
areas. 2-3 day workshops were conducted in each stage taking up projects in accordance with the lean
roadmap. During these workshops, process improvement and problem solving are accelerated thereby
giving significant improvement.
In each workshop, cross-functional teams were formed, each team working on improvement of one
strategically important area. Over a one-year period, participation was ensured from all functions
including finance, stores, marketing and HR. The participants in the workshop simultaneously learn the
relevant lean tools and techniques by actually implementing them. Top Management (owner)
commitment is the pre-requisite for the success of any such initiative and this was obtained by their
physical presence during the presentation/ experience sharing sessions at the start and end of each day of
the workshop.
Standardization of the improvements made was reviewed within 3-4 weeks after each workshop.
Improvement Projects
Project 1 – Implementation of flow in machine shop and sub assembly

5. The sub assembly section was identified as the process which had the highest cycle time. Hence
it became the pacemaker process for the implementation of flow in machine shop and sub
assembly section.
Further the process mapping of various products was studied and the general sequence of
operations which are followed for majority of the products was decided based on Pareto
principle. Accordingly, all the machines were arranged in a linear layout in such a manner that
there is no possibility of any component going back in the flow for processing.
Flow was established from the sanding operation (raw wood duly processed was taken as the
input to the machine shop) till the completion of sub assembly. This ensured that a particular
work order taken for processing in machine shop was completed till sub assembly within a
period of 8-10 hours depending on the size of the work order.
Project 2 – Implementation of flow in painting
The painting section in which painting was carried out at different workstations was modified by
installation of an overhead conveyor with hooks which was capable of carrying 140 sub
assemblies at any point of time. The speed of this conveyor was adjusted in such a manner that a
painting of sub assembly within a booth of length 10 m was completed as the sub assembly was
being transported by the conveyor. This enabled the painting and drying of the sub assembly
simultaneously.
All the sub assemblies of a particular work order were completed within 4 hours.
Both the above projects resulted in the total throughput time of a work order coming down to 2
days including the packing operations after painting.
The total shop floor space occupied in the new layout was 80% less than the earlier layout.
Project 3 – Load levelling
The present practice of scheduling of work orders was done with the objective of ensuring
continuous loading of the workstations. With the implementation of flow, this method of
scheduling needed to be modified. A new method of scheduling of work orders was evolved
based on the following rules
 Components should be scheduled in such a manner that there is continuous load being
provided to the downstream sections
 Every machine should complete all its processes pertaining to all the components of the
work order before taking up the components of next work order
 Sequencing of components in a machine is to be decided based on overall improvement
in utilization of machines and not by considering only the machine in question
 Work orders of different product families should be scheduled one after the other in
order to smoothen and level the load on various machines
Such sequencing of work orders resulted in not only improved utilization of machines (minimum
utilization was 70%) but also the throughput times of the work orders was reduced drastically.
Project 4 – One trolley one component
In order to ensure physical implementation of flow in the machine shop, one trolley was allowed
to carry only one component of a particular work order. This ensured that the trolley acts as a
single piece which is pulled by the downstream workstations.

6. The above improvements were implemented during the first workshop carried out by us. Further
improvements are still in process and the lean journey is continuing in the organization.
Summary of Results obtained
Parameter Before After Improvement
Throughput time 10 – 15 days 2 days > 80% reduction
Floor space occupied 20000 sq.ft. 3000 sq.ft. > 80% reduction
No. of persons 40 persons 30 persons 25% reduction
WIP > 10 days 1 days 90% reduction
The benefits obtained have resulted in the company being able to service the customer with
shorter lead times, take orders of different products and thus be in tune with the market
requirements without compromising on the productivity and quality.