Improving the productivity and sustainability of a conglomerate process in a manufacturing industry - a case study

Lean manufacturing has always been used as a method to improve efficiency in production by reducing operations costs, but recently the focus on the three pillars of sustainability (economic, environmental and social metrics) has brought new concepts to be discussed. This paper is an outcome of a case study that is carried out in silicon carbide manufacturing industry in south India. This case study mainly focuses on improving the productivity and sustainability of the industry by analysing and enhancing the sustainability metrics in three dimensions - economical, environmental and social aspects, thereby increasing the productivity of the manufacturing industry. The sustainable value stream mapping was applied to identify the sustainability metrics in the silicon carbide manufacturing company. The define-measure-analyse-improve-control (DMAIC) method was done to eliminate the material loss in the manufacturing industry. Risk assessment technique is applied using FMEA method to quantitatively assess environmental and economical impacts associated with all the three plants of the company and various techniques of improvement are suggested to the company. The modification of the existing 5S of the industry was done to prioritise various environmental and social metrics that can have a greater impact on productivity and sustainability.