Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Practices and its Impact on Productivity in Coimbatore Foundries

It is very essential to produce the cast components in foundries with high quality, reliable, consistent and at lowest cost. Hence the foundry owners have to introduce the Lean manufacturing to improve the productivity. This study brought out how technically qualified entrepreneurs of selected foundries have carried out technological innovations, mainly due to their self-motivation and self-efforts. Introducing the Lean manufacturing in the process and changing product designs, as desired or directed by the customers resulted in cost reduction, quality and productivity improvement. These have enabled the selected foundries to enhance competitiveness, grow in the domestic market and penetrate the international market and grow in size over time. And have achieved technological innovations successfully based on their technological capability and customer needs, enabling them to sail through the competitive environment. There are about 35000 foundries in the world with annual production of 90 million metric tons, providing employment to about 20 lakh people. Indian foundry industry is acknowledged as the worlds second largest producer of castings (7.4 Million Tons per Annum - MTPA) based on Tonnage during 2009, next to China (35.2 MTPA). There is a large gap between India and other nations, along with the fact that the foundry industry is not able to keep up with the local and international demand and to catch up in terms of absolute production quantities and qualities and hence the market share. Having reached this stage, what we need is to utilize the potential for growth in our favour. Indian Foundry Industry occupies a special place in shaping the countrys economy. India has around 5000 foundries, producing about 7.4 MT of castings worth Rs 20,500 crores. It ranks second in terms of casting production, next to China. These units are mostly located in clusters with numbers varying from 100 to 500 per cluster. Some of the notable clusters are Agra, Howrah, Coimbatore, Kolhapur, Rajkot and Belgaum. Coimbatore foundries have more export opportunities to tap with growth in the end user segment. Coimbatore foundry cluster has about 620 units and most of them are small-scale. They produce 40,000 to 45,000 tonnes of castings a month. The foundry product line of Coimbatore cluster is mainly catering to motor pumps, machineries and is slowly emerging to cater to valves and auto components sector from South India. In the last five years, output of the Coimbatore foundries has grown at 15 to 20 percent and it is estimated that Coimbatore contributes nearly 15 percent of the total casting production in the country. The total monthly casting production has gone up from about 25,000 ton in 2007 and in 2010 it is 60,000 ton. Almost 20% of the total production goes for exports (direct and indirect) to most of the European countries.