Lean Manufacturing: Tenneco case study

The thesis is the result of a corporate experience in Tenneco, inside the Chivasso plant. The company, previously part of the Federal-Mogul Powertrain division, is a leading automotive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). The goal of automotive suppliers is to be competitive in the evolving industry landscape, adapting their capabilities and production systems. To do so, companies use Lean Manufacturing techniques to improve the efficiency of their industrial plants. The thesis aims to describe two Lean projects carried out inside Tenneco. The first one regards the losses analysis and the creation of standard reports for the weekly and monthly reviews in Tenneco, with the involvement of the workers. Keeping track of wastes is not only very important both on a weekly and monthly basis, but also in the daily production activities. For this reason, the losses project finds continuity in the way the company manages and escalates daily problems, starting from the Gemba, which means the “actual place”, the starting point for all corrective actions. The general results of the two Lean projects are promising, the first one helps the company deal with accurate data to identify the starting point of the corrective actions, for problems that are not easily identifiable in real-time activities or that are not solved yet, while the second one helps workers first hand, creating a more efficient and effective communication system, to intervene faster and in a better way to solve issues.