2021 IEEE 8th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Applications
Lean Warehouse Management through Value Stream Mapping: A Case Study of
Sugar Manufacturing Company in Thailand
Panittha Ketchanchai
Department of Industrial Engineering
2021 IEEE 8th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Applications (ICIEA) | 978-1-6654-2895-8/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICIEA52957.2021.9436732
Srinakharinwirot University
Nakhon Nayok, Thailand
e-mail: panittha.ket@gmail.com
Nattapong Kongprasert*
Department of Industrial Engineering
Srinakharinwirot University
Nakhon Nayok, Thailand
e-mail: nattapong@g.swu.ac.th
Abstract—The price war is commercial competition
characterized by the repeated cutting of prices below those of
competitors. The sugar industry is the country’s most
important business in Thailand that is facing a price wars
competition in the global market. Sugar manufacturers have to
eliminate and reduce the cost that occurs from non-value-
added activities from processes to compete with the producer
from other countries. Then, lean manufacturing (LM) is used
to be a systematic approach for the identification and
elimination of wastes (non-value-added activities) from
processes. It can apply to all types of business organizations to
enhance productivity and minimize cost. This study aims to
apply lean manufacturing for analyzing, improving and
eliminating unnecessary activities through value stream
mapping (VSM) in warehouse management of sugar
manufacturing company in Thailand. All activities are broken
down into smaller activities to can be analyzed via workload
analysis. ECRS principle is used to make up new activities
after identifying the waste and the optimal workflows. The
results illustrated that one operation process was removed, the
number of workers was decreased by 3 persons, the cycle time
of warehouse management decreased by 36% and the total
workload of workers decreased by 48%.
Keywords-value stream mapping; lean manufacturing;
warehouse management; sugar manufacturing; ECRS; workload
analysis
I. INTRODUCTION
Owing to the world economic crisis, both large and small
companies face the business problems. Many companies
have to terminate the business. The remaining companies
have to struggle to survive and preserve their business. The
sugar industry is the country’s most important business in
Thailand because Thailand is the world’s fourth-largest sugar
producer and second-largest exporter in 2019. Now, the
global sugar price is expected to drop continually as output
increases from main producers such as India, Pakistan and
China. The oversupply situation is expected to continue in
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Kitisak Tangchaidee
College of Creative Industry
Srinakharinwirot University
Bangkok, Thailand
e-mail: kitisakt@g.swu.ac.th
the next few years. Then, all manufacturers in the sugar
industry have to eliminate and reduce the cost that occurs
from non-value-added activities from processes to make
competitiveness in the global market.
Lean Manufacturing (LM) is a business philosophy that
is derived from observations of methodologies applied by the
Japanese manufacturing industry, Toyota, during 1950’s
which was famously known as Toyota Production System
(TPS). The first goal of TPS was to improve productivity as
well as to decrease the cost by eliminating waste or non-
value-added activities [1-2]. Application of the TPS was
guided by five principles starting by 1) specifying the value,
2) identifying the value stream, 3) making the value flow, 4)
configuring of the pull system by the customer, and 5)
pursuing towards perfection [3-4]. Based on the Toyota
Production System, lean manufacturing consists of a set of
powerful “tools” and “techniques” that assisted in the
identification and steady elimination of waste (Muda) such
as 5S, just-in-time (JIT), PDCA, Kanban, cellular
manufacturing, total productive maintenance (TPM), ECRS,
single-minute exchange of dies (SMED), value stream
mapping (VSM) and standardized work [5-7]. These tools
focused on certain aspects of a manufacturing process to
eliminate waste and improve the quality while production
time and cost were reduced. Many studies defined lean
manufacturing as a set of concepts, principles, methods,
procedures, and tools towards the improvement of the
production flow by reducing waste. There are several tools in
lean manufacturing that can be used to reduce waste such as
SMED [8], PDCA [9], VSM [5, 10-11], ECRS method [12]
and standardized work [13].
Among several tools of lean manufacturing, VSM can be
highlighted since it is used to analyze, design, and manage
the various workstreams and information flows. It is suitable
tool to facilitate decision makers, operators to visualize and
analyze the operations to recognize waste and identify its
causes. Thus, it can be used to view and diagnose current
status and develop strategies for future improvements
making it an effective method for illustrating and redesigning
the value streams. VSM is developed through four basic
stages: firstly, identifying the product or the object of
research; second, creating a current state map; third,
evaluating the current state map and identify the existing
problems; lastly, creating a future state map [14]. VSM
includes a set of all activities. They are value added activity
(VA), necessary but non-value added activity (NNVA) and
non-value added activity (NVA) that are essential to bring a
product through the main flows, starting with raw material,
and ending with the customer [15-16].
ECRS stands for Eliminate, Combine, Rearrange and
Simplify. It is a lean manufacturing method that is a unique
approach towards process activity optimization. ECRS steps
are used at the level of process, operation and motion. This
method is very easy in which with its simplicity, it can lead
to new ideas for improvement. When analyzing the current
situation and methods used in manufacturing, work activity
analysis can be used in almost every area.
To eliminate and reduce the cost in warehouse
management, lean manufacturing is used to analyze, improve
and eliminate unnecessary activities through VSM in
warehouse management of sugar manufacturing company.
All activities are broken down into smaller activities to can
be analyzed in more detail via workload analysis. ECRS
principle is used to make up new activities after identifying
the waste and the optimal workflows.
II. METHODOLOGY
This research methodology followed step of the new
VSM that was proposed by Suhardi et al. [14]. It begins with
the VSM process to identify production processes including
material and information data, then for ECRS to improve the
production process.
The first step is to identify and map process production.
The data included cycle time of each process, a number of
operators, a number of machines, and process flow from raw
materials to finished goods. This step describes the activities
in process production to break down into small activities.
The second step is to create the current VSM. VSM is
created as a visualization of the flow of material and
information in the production process and can map the
overall business process. VSM is used to help in identifying
the waste in a process.
The third step is to identify the waste in a process. Waste
identification can be done using brainstorming and observing
the physical and information flows. Waste is regarded as
non-value added operations such as overproduction, waiting,
transportation, inappropriate processing, unnecessary
inventory, unnecessary motion, defect, power and energy,
human and potential, environmental pollution, unnecessary
overhead, and inappropriate design.
The fourth step is to improve the process. It is to
eliminate waste in each process thereby increasing the
efficiency and effectiveness of the production process. The
workload analysis is used to analyze the current situation
with the details of the working activities. Furthermore, the
calculation of workload is used to determine the workload
level of each operator so that the optimal number of
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operators can be determined. This step, ECRS is used to lead
to new ideas for improvement after identifying the waste and
the optimal workflows.
The finally step is to create the future VSM. future VSM
an idea created for lean implementation plans in the future is
created with the aim of improvising the production flow to
achieve the desired conditions by improving the current
VSM.
III. CASE STUDY
A sugar manufacturing company in Thailand is selected
as a case study in this paper. This company is a leading
manufacturer of industrial and sugar manufacturing. This
study focuses on applying lean manufacturing to analyze,
improve and eliminate unnecessary activities through value
stream mapping (VSM) in warehouse management.
A. Identify and Mapping Process Production
The process operation in this study, it has ten operations.
It started out to arrange the sugar packaging form production
line until load up on truck ship product to customers as
shown in Table I.
1) Packaging arrangement: The sugar products are
produced from two production lines. Two robot arms are
used to arrange the sugar packaging. They pick and place the
sugar packaging on the pallet and the pre-sling bag as shown
in Figure 1. Both sugar packagings are arranged from the
customer requirements. The sugar packaging on the pallet
will be stored on the racks and shelves. The sugar packaging
on the pre-sling bag is stored on the ground floor.
Figure 1. The sugar packaging arrangement.
2) Load up 1: Both sugar packagings are loaded up on
truck by forklift to move the products from production line
to warehouse.
3) Fastening: The sugar packagings on the pre-sling
bag are fastened before load down from the truck .
4) Load down 1: The products are loaded down from the
truck by a forklift at dock load in the warehouse.
5) Preparation storage area: The workers prepare the
storage area on the ground floor for the sugar packaging on
the pre-sling bag.
6) Move into warehouse: The products are moved into
the warehouse by workers using the reach trucks.
7) Move out from warehouse: The products are moved
out from the warehouse to dock load by workers using the
reach trucks.
 3 supplier 2 Planning Customer 1
4
Production
5 7
Warehouse 20
Packaging
6
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Packagingarrangement Load up 1 Fastening Load down 1 Preparation Move into Move out Package cleaning Package printing Load up 2
8 storage area
warehouse
warehouse
FIFO
19
GMP2
Positions Arrangement worker FLdriver Fasteningworker FLdriver Preparation worker RT worker RT worker Cleaningworker Printingworker FLdriver
No. Worker 3/shift 2/shift 1/shift 1/shift 2/shift 1/shift 2/shift 1/shift 1/shift 4/shift
Machine Robot Forklift Forklift Reach truck Reach truck Forklift
23
Mins. 0.5 10 1 2 2 0 10 0 0 0 25.5 min.
21 13 2 30 2 20 1 2 3 3 1 77 min. 24

Figure 2. Current VSM.

8) Packaging cleaning: The products are cleaned The Packaging arrangement process consists of three
packaging again by worker. workers. The Packaging Arrangement Worker #1 (PA1) is in
9) Packaging printing: The products are printed the charge of the sugar packaging on the pre-sling bag. The
company logo on packaging before ship out to customers. activity of putting the pre-sling bag on the packaging line
(PA1-02) is more frequent activity than others. The worker
10) Load up 2: The products are loaded up on track to
had to walk to bring the pre-sling bag from shelve in distance
ship out to customers. of eight meters from the packaging line. This activity was
B. Creating Current VSM simplified by reducing the distance between the packaging
line and shelve. The distance was reduced from eight meters
Current state mapping (CSM) is a description of the
to two meters.
operating conditions that occur in the production process at
this time. The construction of Current VSM (CVSM) is The Packaging Arrangement Worker #2 (PA2) cannot
based on identifying the flow of materials and information in apply the ECRS principle due to all activities were NNVA.
the actual warehouse, and transferring the collected data; The activity of Packaging Arrangement Worker #3 (PA3)
(cycle time and transport time), the position of workers and can eliminate many activities include fasten the rope with the
number of workers into current state map using the specific sugar packaging on pallet (PA3-01), arrange the defected
graphic symbols. The current VSM has shown in Figure 2. product in packaging line (PA3-03), sort the defected
product (PA3-04), and clean the packaging line (PA3-06).
C. Waste Identification These activities were eliminated because of this study change
Waste identification is performed based on NNVA and the arrangement of the sugar packaging on the pallet as
NVA activity on current VSM to determine the various shown in Figure 3. The new arrangement is stronger than the
waste that exists in the process. Four operating processes are previous arrangement. It does not need to fasten the rope
NVA activity are selected to identify the value of each with a pallet to protect the product to fall down during
activity as shown in Table I. They are packaging packaging and transportation. Then, the remain activities of
arrangement, fastening, preparation storage area, and Packaging Arrangement Worker #3 (PA3) were combined
packaging cleaning. After identifying the value of each with the activity of Packaging Arrangement Worker #1
activity, NVA activities were selected to find waste and (PA1).
classify waste. All wastes of NVA activities are processing. This operation process, the workers were reduced from
Workload analysis was used to determine the time, effort and three workers to two persons.
resources necessary to carry out the operations, resulting in
identifying the organization’s actual needs of human
resources both in terms of quality and quantity. The example
of workload analysis of packaging arrangement was
illustrated in Table II.
D. Improvement Process
To find ways to reduce wastes, the ECRS principle was
used to apply in the work process as shown in Table II. The
activity that has more frequently and has a long cycle time
was considered in first priority. Figure 3. The arrangement of the sugar packaging.

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 TABLE I. THE PROCESS ACTIVITY MAPPING OF SUGAR PACKAGAING

Cycle time No. Type of

No. Process Activity Machine Value
(min.) Worker waste
1 Packaging arrangement Operation Robot 13 3 NVA Processing
2 Load up 1 Transportation Forklift 2 2 NNVA
3 Fastening Operation 30 1 NVA Processing
4 Load down 1 Transportation Forklift 2 1 NNVA
5 Preparation storage area Operation 20 2 NVA Processing
6 Move into warehouse Transportation Reach truck 1 1 NNVA
7 Move out from warehouse Transportation Reach truck 2 2 NNVA
8 Packaging cleaning Operation 3 1 NVA Processing
9 Packaging printing Operation 3 1 VA
10 Load up 2 Transportation Forklift 1 4 NNVA

TABLE II. THE IMPROVEMENT PROCESS OF PACKAGAING ARRANGEMENT

Before After
No. Activity Frequency Cycle time Workload Cycle time Workload
Value ECRS
per Shift (min) (min) (min) (min)
Packaging Arrangement Worker #1 (PA1)
PA1-01 Prepare the pre-sling bag 15 3 45 NNVA - 3 45
PA1-02 Put the pre-sling bag on the packaging line 120 3 360 NVA Simplify 1 120
PA1-03 Put the rope on the defected packaging 2 2 4 NNVA - 2 4
PA1-04 5S 1 15 15 NNVA - 15 15
PA1-05 Support a maintenance technician 1 10 10 NNVA - 10 10
PA1-06 Put the tag on the product 2 5 10 NVA - 5 10
Total 444 204
Packaging Arrangement Worker #2 (PA2)
PA2-01 Prepare the rope for fastening the pre-sling bag 120 2 240 NNVA - 2 240
PA2-02 Fastening the pre-sling bag with forklift 120 2 240 NNVA - 2 240
Total 480 480
Packaging Arrangement Worker #3 (PA3)
Fasten the rope with the sugar packaging on
PA3-01 30 5 150 NVA
pallet Eliminate 0 0
PA3-02 Wrap the plastic film 30 5 150 NVA Combine 5 150
PA3-03 Arrange the defected product in packaging line 2 20 40 NVA Eliminate 0 0
PA3-04 Sort the defected product 2 30 60 NVA Eliminate 0 0
PA3-05 Arrange the product after stopping packaging line 5 10 50 NNVA Combine 10 50
PA3-06 Clean the packaging line 2 10 20 NNVA Eliminate 0 0
Total 470 200

E. Create Future VSM The operation process was decreased from 10 to 9

The future VSM is used to identify and improve the
current value stream that will lead to shorter cycle time. The
results of the improvement are shown in Figure 4 in terms of
future VSM. From the figure, significant time reductions
occur due to improvements, namely improving working
methods by practicing ECRS principles and improving the
allocation of operators with workload considerations
IV. DISCUSSIONS
The main goal of this study was to apply lean
manufacturing for analyzing, improving and eliminating
unnecessary activities through value stream mapping (VSM)
in warehouse management of sugar manufacturing company
in Thailand, which is becoming a useful tool for
implementing lean manufacturing in actual production
settings. The result is summarized as following this.
processes because the activity of the preparation storage area
was over processing. It was put on the canvas on the ground
floor to protect the contamination of the sugar packaging on
the pre-sling bag.
The number of workers were decreased from eighteen to
fifteen workers per shift. Two workers from the preparation
storage area operation were removed. One worker from the
packaging arrangement operation was removed due to the
new arrangement of packaging that was stronger. Then, it
does not need to fasten the rope with a pallet to protect the
product to fall down during packaging and transportation.
The cycle time was decreased from 77 to 49 minutes. It
was decreased by 36% due to removing the activity of the
preparation storage area, combining the activity of packaging
arrangement, and changing the package cleaning from rag to
air blow.

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 3 supplier 2 Planning Customer 1
4
Production
5 7
Warehouse 19
Packaging
6
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Packagingarrangement Load up 1 Fastening Load down 1 Move into Move out Package cleaning Package printing Load up 2
8 warehouse
warehouse
FIFO
18
GMP2
Positions Arrangement worker FLdriver Fasteningworker FLdriver RT worker RT worker Cleaningworker Printingworker FLdriver
No. Worker 3/shift 2/shift 1/shift 1/shift 1/shift 2/shift 1/shift 1/shift 4/shift
Machine Robot Forklift Forklift Reach truck Reach truck Forklift
23
Mins. 0.5 10 1 2 0 10 0 0 0 23.5 min.
20 6 2 30 2 1 2 2 3 1 49 min. 24

Figure 4. Future VSM

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