Manufacturing Process Continuous Flow Implementation with Quality Control Inspection and Bill of Material Standardization in a Medical Devices Company

Abstract

The Manufacturing Area was composed of seventeen (17) product families around 191 Stock Keeping Units. Most of these families were manufactured in batch mode, while others in continuous flow. This project improved the value stream mapping, standardized product inspections and simplified the Bill of Material (BOM)/Routing structures. The Quality Control (QC) Inspection Rack, accumulated inventory, the delay caused by QC Inspections, damages and exposure to particle matter due to high manipulation were reduced. The subassemblies were standardized by size and shape in order to simplify the Inventory and the BOMs routings. A Kanban System was implemented to facilitate their deliver to the production area. The actual layouts and the process flows were analyzed using the spaghetti diagrams in order to observe and reduce the waste due to distance between operations and redundancies. Based on all the benefits that will be obtained was highly recommended the three phases implementation. Key Terms -Bill of Materials (BOM), Continuous Flow, Inspection Standardization, Kanban Inventory System.