Proposal to Improve the Productivity of T-shirts through Lean Manufacturing Tools in an SME of the Textile Sector

Considering the implementation of lean methodologies is key to generate a significant change in improving the productivity of companies in the textile industry, which are currently affected by the growing competitiveness of the sector. This article explains the proposal to increase productivity in the manufacture of t-shirt of a textile SME located in Lima - Peru, using Lean Manufacturing tools and promoting a well-balanced assembly line to solve the high percentage of defective products and the lack of monitoring and control in the production line. A time study and the application of lean tools were carried out to obtain the diagnosis of the current situation and to identify the operations with more slack. As a solution, the 5S and Standardized Work methodologies were implemented to achieve a correct distribution without unnecessary transports and a standardized inspection methodology. In addition, implementing line balancing reduced the number of workstations from 14 to 7 by combining production line operations. The improvement proposal was validated in ARENA software through a simulation of the current situation and the improvement resulted in a 47.54% increase in productivity.