A lean production based implementation in food sector

The lean production system, in which continuous improvement is realized with the aim of eliminating all kinds of waste from the production process, is a very effective method used to deliver quality products or services to customers by providing competitive advantage. Businesses in the food sector, where customer diversity is very high and has an demand that is hard to predict, apply lean production techniques in order to survive in an environment of increasing competition and to meet the expectations of customers. In this study, the production process of a patisserie operating in Eskişehir province is analyzed. In the study where mapping, 5S and Kaizen applications from lean production techniques were realized, firstly, the areas that cause food loss and waste in the production process were determined with observations in genba and solutions were proposed with the Kaizen technique. Then, the mapping technique was used for the magnolia product, where the most wastage occurs during production, and the production stages were determined by creating a flow chart, the movements in the process were defined with the spaghetti diagram and the realization time of each step of the production was calculated with the process diagram. With the proposed new system, 45% improvement in movement and 8% improvement in time was achieved in the magnolia production process. In addition, some improvements were realized in the production area within the scope of 5S studies.