Enhancing production planning and control of semi-finished products: a case study combining Business Process Management and Lean Manufacturing

Abstract Companies are increasingly operating in a dynamic environment that requires them to adapt to constant fluctuations in demand and improve productivity while continually reducing costs. This paper reports a case study of a manufacturing company that needed to improve its production planning and control of semi-finished products. During COVID-19, there was a significant increase in orders, which put a great deal of pressure on the production system and led to high downtime on the assembly lines and backlogs due to component shortages. Once the problem was characterized and the root causes identified, the communication between the planning and production departments was improved using process modeling with BPMN (Business Process Modeling and Notation), and a dynamic Kanban system was implemented in the most critical area to align production with demand, based on the principles of Lean Manufacturing. The measures implemented helped to immediately reduce the downtime on the assembly lines, the intermediate stocks and the amount invested. This work contributes to the literature by reporting the application of an advanced Lean tool such as Kanban, and by combining two philosophies for process improvement with the joint application of BPMN and Kanban. It may also support other companies facing the same problems by providing guidelines for using and implementing these tools.