The master thesis concerns a project to streamline the production process by designing an assembly line to produce glass doors. The aim of the project is to increase the productivity due to the increasing demand of customers for products. The production process is analysed by mapping the value stream and finding a suitable solution using industrial engineering and lean manufacturing methods. In order to ensure successful project implementation project management tools and methods are used. The project also includes economic evaluation of the investment.

Aim of diploma thesis “Lean production of electronics” is to apply lean production on workplaces in concrete company. Object of thesis is to orientate in lean production and apply its individual methods on workplace. First part of thesis is dealing with theoretical preparation, understanding lean production and methods of lean production. Second part is dealing with analyzing production processes, application of methods of lean production and designing workplaces.

The aim of this semestral thesis is to use the Value Stream Mapping (VSM) as visual aids to describe streamlining the production process of vibration welding machines in Emerson Industrial Automation, in Nove Mesto nad Vahom. In this thesis is contained description and comparison of the software support for the VSM. Theoretical part describes the causes of lean production and discusses the purpose of mapping of the value stream and variables associated with it.

The thesis discusses the possibility of production process optimization within the company Česká zbrojovka, a.s. In the introduction part I have introduced the company, the subsidiaries, the manufacturing portfolio and economic indicators. The theoretical part deals with basis necessary for the practical part. In the latter, I have suggested solutions based on the initial analysis, mapping and current state analysis in order to optimize and improve the monitored production process. In the final part of the thesis I have focused on the evaluation of the benefits and conditions of the bare implementation.

Traditional value stream mapping (VSM) is used to identify non-value-added (NVA) activities in lean production systems. However, VSM lacks flexibility and responsiveness due to its static nature, which limits its usage in complex and flexible production environments. Furthermore, in a production system, the internal logistics and production value streams are interconnected to each other. Therefore, they face the challenges of same nature such as poor material handling, lack of flexibility and lack of responsiveness. These challenges are disseminated from poor integration of internal logistics and production value streams. The lack of flexibility in VSM is discussed in previous research works to some extent but its lack of responsiveness has not received much attention. Similarly, poor material handling and lack of flexibility of internal logistics system are discussed extensively in previous research works; however, the lack of responsiveness of internal logistics has received very little attention. Furthermore, poor integration of internal logistics and production value streams has not received any attention in the previous research works. To overcome aforementioned challenges, this thesis emphasizes on combining digital technologies (e.g., RFIDs, sensors, barcodes, simulation and intelligent interfaces) with VSM and internal logistics system. However, there is very limited research that addresses improvement potentials in VSM and internal logistics system through digitalization. Therefore, this thesis aims to fill this gap by investigating the improvement potentials of digitalization for both value stream mapping and the internal logistics. In this regard, firstly the core challenges in value stream mapping and internal logistics system are identified. As a second step, possible improvement opportunities are identified in these two areas to increase the productivity of the production system through the adoption of digitalization. A qualitative research approach is performed in data collection methods such as observations and interviews. Furthermore, an empirical study is performed to provide an overview of the current production value streams and internal logistics system at a case company. The study concludes that the combination of VSM with simulation and real time data collection is vital to increase the flexibility and responsiveness of VSM. The improved flexibility and responsiveness of VSM will make it efficient to identify non-value-added activities. It is also discussed and demonstrated that the integration of internal logistics and production value streams can be improved through implementation of digital technologies such as AGVs, RFIDs/barcodes, IoT, data analytics and intelligent algorithms in the context of Industry 4.0. The improved integration of internal logistics and production value streams can improve the productivity of the production system to a large extent.

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Due to a changing competitive environment, SMEs have to improve their production performance. A commonly applied philosophy to improve production performance is called lean thinking. This method, derived from the Toyota Production System, banishes wasteful activities while increasing the competitive strength and responsiveness of a company.Many companies fail in their attempt to become lean and therefore techniques are needed to guide the implementation. This thesis proposes to use Value Stream Mapping as an implementation technique for SMEs. This technique is tested in a company as a case study. By applying the Value Stream Mapping tool to a specific process within this company, substantial improvement potential is revealed. Work content can be decreased by 30,3 percent, and delivery time and in-factory lead time can be decreased by at least 38,6 percent and 68 percent respectively.The thesis concludes that lean thinking is applicable to SMEs, at least under certain circumstances. Furthermore, Value Stream Mapping can be a valuable tool in revealing improvement potential.

Värdeflödesanalys är ett ofta använt verktyg inom förbättringskonceptet Lean och syftar till att eliminera slöserier i processer och erhålla en högre resurseffektivitet. Värdeflödesanalys har sitt ursprung i produktionssektorn men har utvecklats till att användas också inom tjänstesektorn även om det fortfarande inte tillämpas i lika stor utsträckning där. Reklamationsprocessen är just en sådan tjänsteprocess som detta examensarbete syftar till att undersöka. Målsättningen är att framlägga resultat som bidrar till att ABB Control Products kan lämna svar till kund inom 10 arbetsdagar från mottagande av returnerad produkt. För detta ändamål kartläggs ett antal avslutade reklamationsärenden bestående av produktfamiljerna kontaktorer, mjukstartare och tryckknappar. Dessutom följs ett mjukstartarfall i realtid genom reklamationsprocessen för att direkt kunna observera hur arbetet går till. Det kan konstateras att den främsta anledningen till att ledtiden för reklamationsärenden idag är för lång är att det samlas stora lager vid varje processteg. Detta beror i sin tur på att det är mycket gods som kommer in i huset, de tillgängliga resurserna är hårt belastade och att reklamationsärenden generellt sett är nedprioriterade. Detta ställer höga krav på effektivitet och resursoptimering. I detta examensarbete har det framkommit att ett av de största hindren för att kunna ge kunden svar inom 10 arbetsdagar är att en ofullständig felbeskrivning ofta lämnas av kunderna. Detta gör det svårt att kunna göra en bra undersökning av produkterna. Ett annat problem är att en stor andel av det tillbakaskickade godset som kommer till ABB Control Products är felfritt, detta tar en massa tid och kostar mycket pengar för såväl kunderna som ABB Control Products. Ytterligare en brist med reklamationsprocessen är att reklamationshanteringen är personbunden, information om reklamationsärendena är knutna till en viss anställds e-mail och därmed inte åtkomliga för andra anställda. Dokumenten som används ser också lite olika ut beroende på vilken produktfamilj man jobbar med. Ett förbättringsförslag som rekommenderas för att åtgärda bristen med ofullständig felbeskrivning från kund är att införa en interaktiv Trouble Shooting Form där kunden via ett gränssnitt beskriver sina problem och de förhållanden som rådde då felet med deras produkt uppstod. Syftet med denna interaktiva Trouble Shooting Form är att kunna erhålla fler och bättre svar från kund. Detta skulle samtidigt även minska andelen tillbakaskickat gods som inte är felaktigt eftersom en bättre bedömning av ett reklamationsärende kan göras redan innan godset skickas tillbaka. Dessutom är det viktigt att man har en kontinuerlig dialog med kunden och att man betonar vikten av att fylla i denna interaktiva Trouble Shooting Form och givet att kunden gör detta så ska svar till kund garanteras inom 10 arbetsdagar. Vidare bör en breddutbildning av kvalitetspersonalen initieras för att de ska kunna skriva rapporter även för andra produktfamiljer. Syftet är att de anställda vid kvalitetsavdelningen ska kunna backa upp varandra vid frånvaro av personal. För att kunna göra detta behövs även åtkomst till alla e-mail som berör reklamationsärenden. Detta kan åstadkommas genom att skapa en, för kvalitetsavdelningen, gemensam inbox. En standardisering av de dokument som används för de olika produktfamiljerna är ytterligare ett förbättringsförslag som är viktigt att genomföra i syfte att kunna ge ett mer professionellt intryck gentemot kund. Beslut om standardisering bör man fatta på en högre organisatorisk nivå. I ett framtida tillstånd kan alltså reklamationsprocessens lagertid, med ovanstående och andra förbättringsförslag som framläggs i denna rapport, minska väsentligt och således blir flödet genom reklamationsprocessen bättre, ledtiden förkortas och kunden får svar snabbare. I ett längre perspektiv kan man tänka sig ett optimalt framtida tillstånd för produktfamiljen mjukstartare där processtegen undersöka produktochskriva rapport & krediteringsunderlag utförs av en och samma person på samma sätt som för kontaktorer och tryckknappar idag. Fördelarna med detta optimala tillstånd är att undersökning av produkt och skrivande av rapport till kund kan ske i direkt anslutning till varandra, man minskar ett led i  reklamationsprocessen och färre personer blir inblandade i ett visst  reklamationsärende vilket resulterar i att kunden får svar ännu snabbare. / Value stream mapping is a tool frequently used within the improvement concept Lean and is aimed at eliminating waste in processes and obtaining higher resource efficiency. Value stream mapping originated in the production sector but has developed for use in the service sector even though it is not used there to the same extent. The process for handling customer claims is the kind of service process which this thesis aims to investigate. The goal of the thesis is to furnish results to ABB Control Products which help them provide customer response within 10 working days from receipt of returned goods. The products investigated in this thesis are contactors, softstarters and pilot devices. In addition to these cases, a softstarter case is followed throughout the process for handling customer claims in real time to allow the process to be observed directly. Result show that the main reason for the lead time for a claim today being too long is the large stocks accumulated at every process step. This in turn is due to many goods being returned to the factory, the available resources having a high workload and customer complaints generally not being prioritized. This places high demands on efficiency and optimization of resources. The conclusion of this thesis is that one of the greatest obstacles to responding to the customer within 10 working days is the incomplete fault description given by the customers. This makes it difficult to conduct a proper investigation of the products. Another problem is that a large number of the goods returned to the factory are not defective and this costs a great deal of time and money for the customers as well as for ABB Control Products. On top of that the process for handling customer claims is dependent on individual employees: information about the claims is tied to the e-mail correspondence of these employees and thus, not available to other employees. The documents used also look slightly different depending on which product family an employee is working with. A suggestion for improvement to counteract the inadequate fault descriptions from the customers is to introduce an interactive Trouble Shooting Form where the customers through an interface describe the problem and the circumstances when the fault occurred. The purpose of this interactive Trouble Shooting Form is to receive more and better answers from the customers. This would also decrease the volume of non-defective returned goods because a better assessment of a claim can be made before the goods are sent back. It is also important to maintain a continuous dialog with the customer and to emphasize the importance of filling in the interactive Trouble Shooting Form; provided that this is done the customer must then be guaranteed an answer within 10 working days. A further recommendation is to initiate a broad training program for the employees at the quality department so they also can write reports for other product families and thus be able to support each other when undermanned. For this purpose, access to all the e-mails concerning the process of handling customer claims can be obtained by creating a common inbox for all those working at the quality department. Another important improvement to implement is to standardize the documents used for the different product families in order to give the customer a more professional impression. The decision to standardize should be taken at a higher organizational level. With the abovementioned and other suggestions for improvement presented in this thesis, the shelf life in a future state may be substantially reduced; thus the flow through the customer claims process will be better, the lead time will be reduced and the customer will receive a faster response. In the long term, an optimal future state could be outlined with the process steps investigate productandwrite report & base of credit for the product family softstarter being performed by the same person in the same way as for contactors and pilot devices today. The advantages of this optimal future state are that the investigation of products and the report to the customer can be written directly after each other, thus a link in the process of handling customer claims is reduced and fewer people are involved in product claims, resulting in even quicker responses to the customer.

SME companies are of greatest importance to our society. They contribute to job opportunities for a large portion of the population and account for 60 percent of the total revenue in the Swedish Enterprise. Given that there are a lot of SME:s, it is crucial to obtain efficient production.  In today's manufacturing industry, a major issue is the fact that value-added time is low compared to the total time it takes to manufacture a product. Lean production is a well-designed and proven method to apply to streamline production. With the help of Lean tools, continuous improvements can be made by eliminating unnecessary and inefficient processes in production. The aim of this study has been to investigate how SME:s can streamline their production using value stream analysis, and the questions that have been answered are:  - What methods can be used to evaluate production efficiency? - What parameters affect production efficiency? - How can a value stream analysis be used to streamline production and identify improvement measures?  The empirical case study was conducted using data collection methods that included interviews with employees at the case company, time measurements, and observations. These methods formed the basis for the creation of the present value analysis as well as the calculations of the OEE-values.  The result shows that SMEs can use value stream analysis as a way to identify inefficiencies and thereby implement improvement measures that increase production efficiency.  Keywords: SME, Lean, Value-stream mapping, Muda, 5S, RBV / Små- och medelstora företag är av yttersta vikt för vårt samhälle. Det bidrar till jobb åt en stor del av befolkningen och det bidrar till 60 procent av den totala omsättningen i det svenska näringslivet. Med hänsyn till att det finns så många SMF är det av yttersta vikt att erhålla en effektiv produktion. I dagens tillverkningsindustri är ett stort problem det faktum att den värdeskapande tiden är låg i jämförelse med den totala tiden det tar för att tillverka en produkt. Lean production är en välutformad och beprövad metod att tillämpa för att effektivisera en produktion. Med hjälp av Lean-verktyg kan ständiga förbättringar ske genom att eliminera onödiga och ineffektiva moment i produktionen. I studien har syftet varit att studera hur SMF kan effektivisera sin produktion med hjälp av en värdeflödesanalys och frågeställningarna som besvarats har varit: - Vilka metoder kan användas för att utvärdera produktionseffektiviteten? - Vilka parametrar påverkar produktionseffektiviteten? - Hur kan en värdeflödesanalys användas för att effektivisera produktionen och identifiera förbättringsåtgärder? Den empiriska fallstudien har genomförts med hjälp av datainsamling i form av intervjuer med anställda på fallföretaget, tidmätningar och observationer. De här metoderna har legat till grund för skapandet av nuvärdesanalysen samt beräkningar av TAK-värdena. Resultatet visar att SMF kan använda värdeflödesanalys som ett sätt för att identifiera ineffektivitet och därigenom genomföra förbättringsåtgärder som ökar produktionseffektiviteten.

Introduction: To stay relevant, it is required that companies work with continuous improvements.Finding inefficiencies is not always easy. One way to try to find inefficiencies is throughflow mapping. This study examines what causes inefficient activities for industrial servicecompanies. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate how a workflow at an industrial servicecompany can be made more efficient with the help of flow mapping. Method: The study is conducted through a case study at a service industry company that maintainsand repairs motors and frequency converters. Flow mapping was used to map activitiesin the workflow and literature was collected to be able to conduct a flow mappingcorrectly. Interviews and observations have been used to support the flow mapping. Results: The company has two service workshops that have similar activities in their flow. Evenso, one of the workflows is more efficient than the other. Based on the comparison of theworkflows, inspiration has been used to adjust the workflow for the frequency converterworkshop. Using flow mapping and methods from lean, a future flow map has beencreated where non-value-added activities have been eliminated. Conclusion: Based on the results, several improvement proposals have been drawn up for thecompany's workshops. Industrial service companies can use flow mapping and VSM toeliminate non-value-added activities. Lean tools can be used to create order and structurethat lead to shorter lead times.