Process Improvement in Operations Management The Case Study of SAS interior modules

Afonso Maria Marques da Gama

Key information

Authors:

Afonso Maria Marques da Gama (Afonso Maria Marques da Gama)

Supervisors:

Anselmo Rodrigues; Bruna Alexandra Elias Mota (Bruna Alexandra Elias Mota)

Published in

11/23/2022

Abstract

The present dissertation focuses on SAS Palmela, an automotive industry’s company responsible for the production and delivery of the cockpit and center console modules for Volkswagen Autoeuropa's T-ROC car model. This work arises in the context of continuous improvement and its main objective is to improve SAS's logistics and production processes, by making them more efficient. A first literature review regarding Toyota Production System and Lean Thinking was conducted, and then regarding its flow mapping tools, Material and Information Flow Diagram and Value Stream Mapping, where it was decided to follow a methodology based on the former. Additionally, it was also conducted a literature review regarding In-house Logistics and the Storage Location Assignment Problem. This work’s first step was to characterize and to map the current situation of the system in study. Based on the mapped diagram, improvement opportunities were identified, and then each one of them was studied in detail. After this step, each improvement opportunity was evaluated, weighing the obtained savings against the necessary investment and, considering this, the ones that would be accepted for implementation were selected. For the selected improvement opportunities, recommendations of actions to be taken for its implementation were developed. Six improvement opportunities were accepted for implementation, such as the reduction of operator movements, the reduction of handling of materials and the digitalization of paper documents. A total investment of 124,500 € is estimated to allow for a reduction of 190,27% of operator time in total, increasing the efficiency of SAS’s processes.