Continuous Improvement of Logistics Processes in a Production Line of Electric Buses Chassis

Nowadays, environmental concerns are deeply rooted in our society. This growing concern is reflected in the strategies implemented by organizations, which are increasingly focused on eco-friendly strategies, not only for its strategic aspect but also for its social responsibility. Therefore, a bus manufacturing company and an automotive company, both located in the north of Portugal, followed this trend by acting in an extremely important area, electric mobility. Since the market is becoming increasingly competitive in these areas it is necessary to ensure the ability of the organization to adapt to its volatility and the efficiency of its processes, in which logistics flows play an important role. It is within the scope of internal logistical flows and processes that this work, developed at the automotive company, in the chassis production line for electric buses, is inserted. The main objective of this project is the continuous improvement of logistics processes, using Lean tools. Firstly, it was necessary to perform a diagnosis and to map the current state of the logistics processes of the electric chassis line, to identify the existing problems and prioritize them in terms of urgency. Based on the Lean philosophy and its inherent tools, such as Standard Work, 5S, Kaizen philosophy and Visual Management, several improvements were presented and implemented, to mitigate the problems that were identified. With the implementation of these improvements in the picking operations, more specifically the picking of the material for the picking boxes, a 44.6% reduction of the time spent on the operation was obtained. Regarding the supply of material to the production line, the duration of this logistic process was reduced by 18.4%.