Scrap reduction in TMT reinforced bar production by the application of lean techniques

Abstract

Lean aims to eliminate the non-value-added activity which affects the cost of production along with the scrap rate Lean is often considered as a collection of tools and practices for superior operational and financial performance, through process improvement. Lean is an improvement concept for operational performance in the manufacturing environment. In this work, lean techniques are applied to the manufacturing of random rods at a leading manufacturing company of Thermo Mechanically Treated (TMT) reinforced bars to reduce the scrap. The hot billet coming from the extrusion machine is sent to the rolling mill machine where the TMT bars are produced; this consists of three stages – roughing mill, shear cutting, and programming logical controller. During the shear cut operation performed on the billet, a large amount of scrap was being generated. To reduce this scrap and the non-value-added activities, lean techniques have been applied. Also, the size of the billet was changed to produce maximum yield. With this, the scrap rate at the rolling mill machine has significantly decreased leading to a notable reduction in the cost of production.