Maruti Suzuki - India - Case Study

2010
Maruti Lean Supply Chain Initiatives
Corporate Dossier Article




At  Maruti Suzuki, India's largest carmaker, E. Nagare or 'electronic flow' is a religion. This electronic flow is actually the sequence of production plans from the vendor to Maruti's shopfloor, which now runs  at a two-hour cycle.  E. Nagare has completely transformed the supply chain at Maruti over the last four years.

Across Maruti's twin sprawling plants in Gurgaon and Manesar, multi-coloured bumpers arrive in mobile trolleys and components line up outside factory sheds directly feeding the ever-hungry, multi-tasked assembly lines.  The company's 250-odd Tier I vendors and 20 global suppliers, now supply multiple times in a day within a slot of two hours based on the information given out tothem the previous night to crank out 4,600 cars a day.
http://m.economictimes.com/features/corporate-dossier/maruti-suzuki-sports-lean-look-and-ensures-its-vendor-network-gets-even-leaner/articleshow/msid-6948124,curpg-2.cms


2010

Maruti is  moving to the next level by upgrading the entire process quality through our production management system (PMS), process improvement and people capability development.  It is  adopting latest production technologies (eg, TWB, weld automation, new paint & assembly technologies, etc).

It has employed some cross functional teams to work in various areas like assembly, paint, weld, power-train and materials, etc, to identify the opportunities for capacity enhancements.

Automation and robotics have always been a focus areas for improvement in process efficiency, product quality and also for elimination of unsafe & difficult work. Lot of stress is put on internal low cost automation. Low cost automation provides lower process cost, repeatability and reliability. Robotics, in addition, also provides flexibility and accuracy in weld and paint processes.

Maruti has adopted  lean processes enveloping man, machine, material & methods – the four resources of manufacturing.  It has built its own lean philosophy, ‘Maruti production system’ which is a customised waste reduction concept, which is easily followed by our line supervisors and in-charges. Over the years, the company has realised tremendous improvement in quality and productivity by targeted application of lean methods by involving the  workforce through its ‘production management system’.

It also developed an innovative cost index system for cost reduction and control, which includes various elements like process costs, energy cost, and consumables cost, etc.

The total R&D engineers’ strength has gone up three fold to around 1000 engineers.It  will give it  the capability to completely design and develop new models in India only in the coming years.

 All assembly lines are capable of manufacturing multi-models. It built a  robust system of model and line compatibility, which helps  in shifting models from one production line to another line across weld, paint and assembly lines without much effort.


Presently Maruti is making a car every 16 seconds from Gurgaon and Manesar plants put together. It is basically the production of one million vehicles from four integrated plants from these two locations.



100 per cent water recycling is being used  for process use, rain water harvesting and co-processing of hazardous wastes. The company is moving towards becoming zero landfill company, with reusable and recyclable packing to reduce generation of solid waste. Lot of energy conservation steps are being taken. For example, use of energy efficient pumps and motors; variable frequency drives for motor operation; special sensors like temperature sensors in cooling towers; motion sensors in lighting; calendar timers for street lighting; LED lights in place of CFL and HPSV lights for illumination and optimisation of equipment start-up time. Reduction of  the carbon emissions is also being emphasized by using natural gas based power plants; waste heat recovery to process steam; steam compressor operation; use of natural lighting during day time and solar lighting.

 In MSIL, management is  extremely conscious to bring down resource consumption to reduce operational costs. Management is focusing on this aspect  through constant involvement of frontline people and supervisors in various cost drive projects. The ideas for cost reduction from the shop floor people are equally valued. The innovative cost indexed system referred to above is used  to monitor operational costs. The constant efforts are yielding  better results.




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