AN ANALYSIS OF THE APPLICATION OF AGILE MANUFACTURING IN MEDIUM SCALE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

To compete effectively in the global marketplace of the twenty-first century, manufacturing companies are trying to maintain a high level of flexibility and responsiveness to achieve agility and to remain competitive. Manufacturers are under tremendous pressure to improve productivity and quality while reducing costs. The new competition is in terms of reduced cost, improved quality products with higher performance, a wider range of products and better services all delivered simultaneously to enhance value to customers. In such environment providing good quality product at low cost for a medium scale industry has become very tough. To provide good quality product at low cost, small industries need a formulation of some manufacturing approaches like agile manufacturing to manufacture defect free products within their materials cost limit. Medium scale steel manufacturing industries like Magnum steel limited (MSL), banmore are facing problems of higher rejections in form of wastes so as to increase their cost. This paper aims to analyze the application of agile manufacturing in magnum steel limited in order to reduce wastages through implementing lean tools and techniques. An agility audit questionnaire is used for assessing the agility level of the company to identify the current level of performance within the company with respect to the key elements of agility. MSL’s agile experience is reported including a list of recommendation for improving its competitiveness to offer solution alternatives not only to the current problems but also to the ones that may be encountered in the future.


Introduction
In the past, economies of scale ruled the manufacturing world and everybody knew that mass production and full utilization of plant capacity was the way to make money. This style of manufacturing resulted in inflexible plants that could not be easily reconfigured, and were associated with swollen raw materials, work-in-process and finished goods inventories. Since the early 1980s, in pursuit of greater flexibility, elimination of excess in inventory, shortened lead- times, and advanced levels of quality in both products and customer service, industry analysts have popularized the terms `world-class manufacturing' and lean production'. The aim is to generate a framework that will reduce wastes and subsequently increase the flexibility in production. Customer Demand Uncertainty including lean and agile paradigms has been widely investigated so far and there are available research studies regarding this area. Gunasekaran (2002) et.al [1] presents a case study conducted on agile manufacturing in the GEC Marconi Aerospace (GECMAe) company. The study provides the reader with an insight into the company and its agility level. An agility audit questionnaire is used for assessing the agility level of the company. Nitin Upadhye, S. G. Deshmukh and Suresh Garg (2010) et.al [2] discusses the issues of MSMEs and presents a case to demonstrate the improvements achieved in an Indian mid size auto component's manufacturing unit after the implementation of LMS. Fawaz Abdullah (2003) et.al [3] addresses the application of lean manufacturing concepts to the continous production/ process sector with a focus on steel industry. Debra A. Elkins, Ningjian Huang and Jeffrey M. Alden (2004) et.al [6] discuss two simple decision models that provide initial insights and industry perspective into the business case for investment in agile manufacturing systems. The models are applied to study the hypothetical decision of whether to invest in a dedicated, agile, or flexible manufacturing system for engine and transmission parts machining. Kalpakjian

Research Methodology
Once companies pinpoint the major sources of waste, tools such as continuous improvement, autonomous maintenance, just in time, fishbone diagram and others will guide companies through corrective actions so as to eliminate waste. Continuous Improvement is another fundamental principle of lean manufacturing. One of the effective tools for continuous improvement is 5S, which is the basis for an effective lean company. Japanese name of Autonomous maintenance is JISHU HOZEN. This pillar is geared towards developing operators to be able to take care of small maintenance tasks, thus freeing up the skilled maintenance people to spend time on more value-added activity and technical repairs. Cellular manufacturing is one of the cornerstones when one wants to become lean. The Fishbone Diagram is an easy to use and effective cause and effect technique developed by Kauoru Ishikawa (1982).

Case Study
This research work is carried out in Magnum steel limited (MSL) located at banmore industrial area near Gwalior. The purpose is to perform an agility audit on the company using the questionnaire to identify the current level of performance. So first of all lean philosophy is implemented in MSL in order to minimize the wastages. As seen in industry, during production the maximum rejection occurs near about 14 % per month of total production in these rolling mills. The data has been analyzed for year 2013 so as to find out the areas of rejection. After analyzing the data, there are 10 areas are identified which contributes the maximum rejections during the whole processes.

Data Analysis
Data collected for the past three months. The operation is based on one shift per day. Every shift is for eight hours. The planned down time is 10 minutes per hour during shift for cooling and tiding up the work area. The collected data is shown in given tables:  The focus is on individual areas of rejections, finding causes and suggests solutions and implements lean techniques in order to minimize wastages. After applying the adopted methodologies, providing the necessary training to the workers, supervise them and strictly follow the work instructions, the defects are reduced

Result & Discussions
So after implementing lean tools and techniques on selected rolling mill (16"/10"), there is a reduction in rejected pieces from 13.94 % to 11.26 % in the month of January and February 2014. This results in saving of Rs. 891000 (per piece cost Rs 2700 at that time) due to reduction of defects in February month (368 more pieces were produced in February 2014). The detailed result is shown in tabulated form.     Calibration of instrument should be done regularly.

Agilty Audit Questionnaire
After approaching towards lean mindset, the current level of agility is to be investigated with the help of a standard audit questionnaire administered within the company studied, Magnum steel limited (MSL) with respect to the five key elements of agility are Enriching the customer, Cooperating to enhance competitiveness, Mastering change and uncertainty, Leveraging people and information and Manufacturing advancement and Safety aspect.

Recommendations
After analyzing the questionnaire, the some recommendations made for improving the agility level of the company. One of the most important suggestion is to apply a cellular manufacturing approach to shop floor for established products to reduces wastages, throughput time and hence unit cost. Consequently, cellular manufacturing would go a long way towards improving the turn/around delivery times as well. A short attempt is made to suggest the layout which is shown in given figure.

Results and Discussions
The data collected from the questionnaire have led to the conclusion that cost is a key parameter for both production (the company) and more importantly, the customer. As cost is the primary issue, one should be in the mode of 'thinking lean'. To reduce costs, along with cellular manufacturing, adoption of other valuable concepts and technologies should also be considered.
The market for Magnum steel limited (MSL) is by no means as turbulent, e.g. the mobile phone industry where there is a definite requirement to be agile and to remain so. This is not to say that agility is only applicable to new products and the leanness should be purely applied to older products. Quite the opposite, various enablers of agile manufacturing such as Lean manufacturing, Maintenance management, Supply chain management, Integrated production, Information systems and concurrent engineering are quite useful to employ in a company like MSL. Changes are being made in light of overall business perspective and market, not necessarily to become more agile, but simply because it make sense to change.