Productivity Improvement of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises using Lean Concept: Case Study of a Bread Factory

Abstract

The immediate impact of the economic downturn and challenging market condition on small and medium scale enterprises (SME) is an urgent demand to implement the effective resource utilization and processing system that will improve productivity. Effective adaptation to the highly competitive environment entails integrating different thought concepts and inventive ideas into the SME processes to reduce manufacturing costs, wastes and improve quality. This paper explores the use of lean concept in SME to improve productivity by reducing operator motion distances, processing time and cost of energy supply. The project reviewed productivity improvement opportunities in Campus bread factory Nsukka using lean concept. The problems in the existing layout were carefully delineated through direct observation of production processes and detailed work study. The resulting data were analyzed to enable the proposal of pertinent modifications in the process. When compared with the existing methods, the new developed method revealed at least 15.62% reduction opportunity in the distance travelled by the operator and decreased the process time by 13.09%. The results also showed that 35.99% reduction of cost of power generation is achievable. A new layout is proposed based on the research realities.

Keywords: Resource utilisation, Waste reduction, Lean concept, Productivity improvement