Value stream mapping and an application in a manufacturing company

Today's competitive conditions force enterprises to work in a customer-focused manner in order to survive. Competition conditions require being dynamic as well as being open to innovations and changes. Being customer-focused aims to meet customer needs and even go beyond their expectations. In this direction, enterprises try to shape their production systems according to the production systems that will keep up with today's competitive conditions instead of traditional production. These conditions have introduced enterprises to the lean production system that increases their competitiveness and enables them to work in a customer-focused manner. Lean production tries to eliminate activities that do not add value to the product as waste during the manufacturing process and focuses on the value that is expected of the customer. Here, value stream mapping within the scope of lean production is a technique used to see the activities that add and do not add value to the product. The purpose of this research is to study the value stream mapping concept within the scope of lean production and to evaluate the results by making the value stream mapping application in a manufacturing enterprise. Accordingly, literature research has been done on "Lean Production" in the first part of the thesis and "Value Stream Mapping" in the second part and the survey of these subjects has been reflected in the relevant chapters. In the third part, value stream mapping, which is the application of the research subject, was carried out in line with the collected data in a manufacturing enterprise that does not apply lean production. In the light of these data, the current situation of the enterprise was revealed and then the future situation map was drawn according to the results of the planned improvement works. The difference between the two maps is analyzed and the gains are evaluated. When you examine the current situation value map in the application section, you will be able to see the status of an enterprise that manufacture with the traditional method. It can be clearly seen that how much the manufacturing flow time extends because of waste and breakdowns. After the applying lean production techniques and the improvements, the future situation map was drawn where waste was eliminated, processes work in harmony with each other and value flows in line with customer demand. The gains of the enterprise are 61% improvement in production lead time and 42% improvement in process time. Within the scope of this research, an example that will contribute to the enterprises experiencing similar problems is presented to solve their problems by using value stream mapping technique. By studying this example, enterprises can help themselves to see their curent and future situation.