Waste Reduction in a Herbal and Tea Bags Factory

Abstract

The Royal Herbs Company is an Egyptian organization specialized in producing and exporting high-quality herbal products such as Mint, Anise and, green tea. There are 3 sizes of herbal bags packaging (25, 50 and 100) Pcs. The company was established in 1985, located in Shabramant - Giza Egypt. After investigating the herbal bags production line, observed a number of wastes. First, changeover time from one size to another is 8 hours for one machine. Second, there is 3.2% scrap out of 1 ton of daily production caused by cotton thread. Third, the waiting time of changing empty rolls with a new one takes around 407 sec. Fourth, the herbal and spices packaging machine breakdowns because of lack of lubrication on average three times a day. Fifth, there is an overproduction about 300 ton of Finished goods. The project aims to reduce production waste by implementing lean concepts in the production line Such as 5S, and pull system in the production line. The obtained results showed that changeover time from one size to another is reduced around 74%, by redesigning the machine. The overproduction was controlled, and the inventory was reduced by 40% by using pull system technique. The breakdown time is reduced from 163 min to 53 min by using preventive maintenance. The waiting time is reduced from 407 sec to 30 sec by using 5S methodology.