Implementation of Lean Manufacturing

The Toyota Production System (TPS) is recognized by many to be the paragon for manufacturing system design. As such, it has been imitated by several companies inside their production plants in an effort to reap the manufacturing performance of Toyota. While imitation typically consists of "retrofitting" existing traditional plants with TPS, this thesis focuses on the actions required to design a greenfield plant to be a TPS plant. This thesis focuses on a specific phase of the Product Development cycle of a new engine program. This phase occurs between the initial engine prototype builds and the release of product and process drawings to the machine tool vendor in order to begin tool build. During this six-month period several activities need to occur in order to assure a lean product and processes are developed. This thesis first describes the design driver that guides the design of each of these activities, and then describes each activity in detail. These activities are viewed from the perspective of a Simultaneous Engineering (SE) team responsible for designing the engine's cylinder head. While some of the issues are specific to a cylinder head, many are shared by all engine SE teams. In this context, each issue will be explained, the trade-offs will be noted, a description of the team's decisions will be expressed, and the final decisions will be evaluated. The last sections of the thesis describe the ex. post. results of the cylinder head team, and focus on the entire engine team's culture. Culture is presented as a topic that is often ignored by companies attempting to mimic TPS. Ignoring the culture of TPS is to ignore the foundation of TPS and will result in failure. This thesis describes the culture of the engine team and explains how this culture affects the design of a lean engine plant. Successes and struggles with this engine team's culture are good lessons for other teams attempting to design lean plants. There are two main goals of this thesis. The first is to provide an analysis of a product development process and identify recommendations for improvement. The second goal, similar to the first, is to provide a step-by-step guide for the design of future lean engine programs. Thesis Advisors: Jan Klein, Senior Lecturer, Sloan School of Management David Cochran, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering