Minimizing Waste Using Lean Manufacturing: A Case in Cement Production

Cement is one of the strategic commodities that supporting acceleration of infrastructure development and economic growth. It forces the cement companies to improve the production process to be more effective and efficient. Therefore, the cement companies are required to understand which of activities can increase the value added to the product. This study aims to minimize wastes in the cement production process using lean manufacturing approach. Waste Relationship Matrix (WRM), Waste Assessment Questionnaire (WAQ), and Value Stream Analysis Tools (VALSAT) are applied to identify and minimize the wastes. Cause and Effect Diagram and Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) are then used to determine the root cause of problems and the action plans. The results of WRM and WAQ indicated the three highest wastes in the cement production consist of defects, over production, and inventory. Based on the analysis using Process Activity Mapping (PAM) tool, it obtained the activities in the cement production are mostly categorized into non value added but necessary activities. The most failure mode is founded in the raw mill process. Low quality of material is suggested as the highest potential risk that needs high attention from the production manager. Then, improvements suggested to reduce the production cycle time and maintain the quality of material. It hoped the cement companies can improve their production process performance as well as increasing the company's competitiveness.