A SIMULATION BASED FRAMEWORK TO STUDY THE IMPACT OF LEAN TECHNIQUES ON GREEN SUPPLY CHAINS

摘要

This research focuses on applying lean techniques to identify the various "green" opportunities in a supply chain. With the recent focus on green manufacturing, the lean practitioners have added another form of lean waste, called "energy waste." This research uses value stream mapping to study the overall process flow. Subsequently, the map is used to represent the energy consumed in each step in the energy stream map. Once the energy stream map is completed, the next step is to assess the degree of "greenness" for the key processes identified in the map. The degree of greenness is represented as an alphanumeric indicator, with the alphabet representing the degree of energy consumption, and the number representing the quantity of ease of addressing the opportunity. Based on this index, "Energy Kaizen" bursts can be prioritized and actions to reduce the wastes determined. Once the actions are determined, they are fed into a discrete event simulation model to determine the impact of these modifications on energy wastes and also other key performance indicators such as cycle time, throughput and resource utilization rates.