Implementation of Lean Manufacturing to Improve Air Handling Unit Coil Manufacturing in Saudi Air Conditioning Manufacturing Company (SAMCO)

Abstract

This report aims to improve the production operations of the coils shop of air handling units (AHU) at Saudi Air Conditioning Manufacturing Company (SAMCO) by applying lean manufacturing strategy. The coils shop of AHU experienced several issues which impact negatively on its performance and increase the non-added values. For instance, it suffers from significant amount of scrap, low machines utilization, extra manpower, long machine set up time, and the absence of process safety system. In this report, the required data were collected by three ways; observation, recording and conducting the interviews with the related people. These data were analyzed by a wide range of tools, which are used to apply lean manufacturing such as, value stream mapping, 5S, work standardized, manual handling assessment chart, snook table, one-dimensional cutting optimizer, and mistake proofing. As a result, a significant reduction in the overall cost of coils shops production processes were obtained. For instance, the average machines set up time was reduced by 18 %, number of set up per shift was reduced by 20.8 %, the number of operators was reduced by 26.3 %, the quality of the product was increased and the safety of the processes was enhanced. It is worthy to note the amount of the scrap was dropped by approximately 71 %.