Lean Success Story - K. Girdharlal International Ltd., Surat

K. Girdharlal International Ltd., India a DTC Sightholder and a leading diamond Company is transforming itself by adopting lean manufacturing, the Japanese technique for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing practices and operation. The group employs more than 2000 people at its factory in Surat, India. Over the period of last 2 decades, the group has been consistently innovating processes to manufacture high quality diamonds. As part of that, the Group has initiated to develop the culture of continual improvement across the organization through implementation of lean tools commensurate with TPS (Toyota Production System) philosophy. This has been pursued through participation in Government of India (GOI) sponsored scheme under the guidance of RSM Astute Consulting (Astute) being an empaneled Lean Manufacturing Consultant as per the scheme.

Project started with definition of milestones to derive tangible results in terms of productivity improvement, reduction in production cycle time, increase in process wise throughput through elimination of 7 types of wastes namely Transportation, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Inventory, Defects and Unused Creativity of People. During the first phase of the project, considerable benefits have been derived in terms of reduction in process cycle time, increase in productivity of machine/ people, increase in throughput of process/department, better workplace management and effective communication across the production shop floor. This has been pursued with the help of lean tools viz. 5S, Visual Controls, Kaizen, Value Stream Mapping, Standardized Work Practices and Mistake Proofing. The process of lean implementation also encompasses culture of continuous improvement, awareness amongst the people to seek for the root cause of the problem areas with the help of problem solving tools and improved motivation and morale amongst team. The journey of lean transformation is still being pursued through active involvement.    

“It’s our privileged to be on path of transforming organization to lean for sustainable growth and increase in bottom line. We are keen to take the process forward as part of continual improvement” - Mr. Yogesh Shah – Director

Lean Success Story - Ankit Gems Transferming to Lean Organization

Ankit Gems Pvt. Ltd. India, a DTC Sightholder and a leading diamond Company is transforming itself into a lean organization. Ankit Gems (www.ankitgems.com) employs more than 600 people at its state of the art modern diamond manufacturing factories in India and Namibia. Having established as a strong and recognized manufacturer, Ankit Gems wanted to challenge its existing processes and bring further improvement in smooth flow of production, maintenance of WIP inventory, production load balancing across some process departments, inventory turnaround time and also explore the scope for standardize action of process definitions/work practice guidelines. To improve the processes further and move towards a high performance business, Ankit Gems turned to RSM Astute Consulting (www.astuteconsulting.com) through participation in government sponsored lean manufacturing programme.

As part of implementation, a team was formed comprising of representatives from various process departments. Training was imparted to the team about lean tools including site tour of different industries having implemented lean tools successfully. As part of 5S implementation, work area was re-organized so as to facilitate the efficient working and reduction in motion and waiting time waste. With the help of Pareto analysis and studying of past trends, reasons contributing to high proportion of damage/breakage were ascertained and corrective actions taken to overcome the same. Process flow was re-engineered for certain processes to eliminate the unwanted activities through Kaizen. The journey of success started with a significant cost saving during the first phase.

 

“We are pleased to be on this journey of process improvement through lean tools. We could achieve substantial benefits with an instinct to change for better. The entire process triggered a cultural change across the Company. For us it is to cross new and exciting milestones in the journey to high performance. We would be glad to continue this journey & seek more improvements” - Mr. Pravin Shah – Director