Abstract
In a competitive market, most manufacturers strive to efficiently manage their operations so that they stay competitive. Manufacturing and market penetration strategies are set in to achieve this. This study explored the application of lean tools to continuously improve a coal fly ash processing plant of a manufacturer situated in Sasolburg, South Africa. The manufacturer had challenges with the underperformance of equipment named classifier that was having a production output of 32 tons per hour on average versus a design capacity of 45 tons per hour at their classification plant section. This challenge further cascaded to underperformance of the packing plant section where coal fly ash products are packed in 25 kg, 40 kg, 1-ton bulk bags and 1.25T bulk bags together with longer Turn-Around-Time on the despatch work process of bulk dry tanker trucks to customers. The study a used mixed method research design to gather various areas of interest. Qualitative data analysis through observations, interviews, questionnaires and quantitative data collection through rating on the Likert scale, collection of numeric data on production output by making use of SCADA production computer software. HODIM Computer despatch software was used to despatch bulk tanker trucks, Thus, indicating how many trucks are being despatched in an 8-hour shift, and also, it gave information on Yard-In-Gate-Out and Gate-In-Gate-Out which was an indication of TAT Lean tools and principles such as bottleneck analysis, 5S, standardisation, and, total productive maintenance together with simulation modelling using Arena simulation software 16.0 was used to optimise the despatch work process for the maximum possible number of trucks that can be despatched in an 8-hour shift under ideal plant operating conditions, were all applied to improve the operations. Recommendations were made to the management team to sustain the improvement findings obtained.
Keywords: Lean tools, simulation, software, turn-around-time.