Abstract

Lean manufacturing, or simply lean, is a production process used to eliminate the waste from all phases of an organization’s operations and in improving the long term maximization of company resources. Finding a problem is the first step and essential part of a research process that can be investigated in the production process of a factory. For example, the major problems found in the warehouse area of a food factory were related to products’ space allocation, loading and uploading. This study deals with the application of a computerized lean manufacturing technique to reduce waste by decreasing lead time in the warehouse area of the food factories. The created software, named survivor tool, is tested on the warehouse area of a food factory and the percentage of the lead time reduction was 33.3%. The achieved value for the lead time was calculated based on the 80% reduction on products waiting time for space allocation, the 12% reduction on products’ handling and the 85% reduction on products’ uploading process.

Key words: Lean manufacturing, food factory, warehouse area.