Research And Improvement Of Small-Scale Wind Energy Component Manufactures Based On Value Stream Management

It becomes saturated for the whole supply chain of wind energy industry after the“Gold-Rush” period for wind energy during2007and2008. During2011and2012,the industry experienced unprecedented slow development, the turbine manufactureshad suffered great impact subjecting to not only the decreasing market demand butalso the fierce price competition. Many small-scale wind energy componentmanufactures, affected by the market economy, closed their business. Staff reductionis regarded as the most common phenomenon for cutting cost in wind energy industryduring the whole year of2012.Company A produces brakes for wind energy. It is a small-scale Spanishcompany that set up Tianjin factory in2007when coinciding with the “Gold-Rush”.At that time the customers are with various brake specifications, large order quantity,and quick payment. In order to catch the market, Company A had invested a lot ofbrake specifications.After the low months, wind energy market recoveries in2013with increasingquantity demand. However, Company A is not able to satisfy customer demand basedon current level of staff structure and production capacity. In order to grasp orders andpursuing development, Company A has to optimize current supply chain process,improve productivity, and reduce costs.The article is to identify the waste hiding in somewhere of Company A supplychain, following the theory of supply chain management and Lean production, takingas an example that Company A current status with regards to supply chainmanagement and production process management, and utilizing the tool of the valuestream mapping. Meanwhile, the article also draws the future value stream mapping.In the future value stream mapping, JIT pull production management requiresCompany A calculates the Takt time in light of customer demand, and then arrangeproduction and management corresponding to the Takt time. As a result, Company Aachieves customer demand with better Takt time and higher productivity, as well aslower headcount in the assembly line. In summary, companies are able to improvetheir supply chain under and reduce their costs as being more flexible when facing serious market competition, under the guidance of Lean Production theory, and byusing the tools of value stream mapping and pull production management.