Productivity Improvement of the Rolling Mill in the Steel Plant by the Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Tools

Abstract

newline In today s highly competitive industrial manufacturing environment, enhancing productivity newlinewhile minimizing waste and downtime is crucial for operational success. Lean manufacturing newlinetools such as Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), newlineand Value Stream Mapping (VSM) have proven to be highly effective in this regard. This newlineresearch explores the application of these tools in the rolling mill of a steel plant, aiming to newlineimprove productivity through waste elimination, increased equipment availability, and newlineoptimized process flows. The study is structured around four key objectives that guide the newlinemethodology and outcome evaluation. newlineThe first objective is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the rolling mill s existing newlineperformance metrics to identify sources of inefficiencies and productivity losses. A six-month newlinedata collection, spanning from April to September 2022, was undertaken. Critical parameters newlinesuch as section change time, roughing and finishing stand pass/roll change times, guide and newlinetwister changes, as well as equipment breakdown frequency and duration, were analyzed. newlineImportant parameters such as Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), Mean Time to Repair newline(MTTR), and overall equipment availability have been assessed to determine the root causes newlineimpacting operational efficiency. newlineBased on these findings, the second objective focused on implementing specific Lean tools to newlineaddress identified inefficiencies. SMED has been applied to streamline section changeovers, newlineleading to a 55-minute reduction in the single-line rolling mill and a 25-minute reduction in the newlinedouble-line rolling mill. Thereafter, TPM has been introduced to minimize unplanned newlinebreakdowns through proactive maintenance strategies, resulting in a 12.41% increase in newlineequipment availability and a 9.94% increase in productivity in the double-line rolling mill. newlineSimultaneously, VSM has also been employed to map the entire process flow, enabling the newlineidentification and elimination of non-value-added activities. This