Energy conservation through lean initiative in a manufacturing company: a case study

Energy conservation is a significant concept due to global concern on climate change. Manufacturing sector is the major consumer of energy from overall electricity generation. The concept of lean manufacturing having its prime motive to eliminate non-value added wastes has a wide window of opportunity to save the energy. This paper is an outcome of a case study conducted in a solar water heater manufacturing industry in South India. This study combines the lean manufacturing and energy auditing techniques to assess the efficiency of the manufacturer. We implemented the concept of 5S and value stream mapping which reveal several non-value added activities present in the production system. Then the concept of Takt time is introduced to keep the company efficient to meet their demand. The backorders present in the system is addressed by introducing forecasting models. We have generated an optimum production mix through 'Heijunka' concept to obtain a levelled production schedule. The concept of leanness was also introduced in auditing the energy consumption of machineries present in the system, which was a novel attempt of applying lean concepts in electrical energy conservation.