Working for the French subsidiary of ElringKlinger AG - German world-leading automotive supplier for gasket solutions -, I was charged with the analysis and re-development of their small series production section. The plant has been designated to centralise a great portion of the production for the global aftermarket. This transfer had more than doubled the revenues of this sector in France.

In order to be able to cope with this increase, I analysed the implemented manufacturing and production planning and proposed several concepts regarding the workshop layout, production planning and monitoring as well as the implementation of lean manufacturing principles as the one-piece-flow with a sample part. To come up with these propositions I applied the following methods :

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- Value Stream Mapping (VSM) -

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- Production Kanban calculation -

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- Machine balancing methods -

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- SMED (Single-Minute Exchange of Die) -

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- 5S & Visual management -

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The final result consisted of the proposition of an improved workshop layout enabling one-piece-flow, a WIP-limited (work in progress) order scheduling concept and a ROI (return on investment) calculation.