Estimation of Lean production factors in the milk industry

Lean production is a new philosophy and approach in manufacturing, originated in Japan. This approach is prevailed in Europe and America and is welcomed by many automobile factories. In this method, it is tried to minimize waste and obtain maximum efficiency of the facilities, human resources and capitals. This study is going to introduce factors and characteristics of the lean production in food industries and propose a model for comparing the factors of the buttermilk process by using dimensional analysis. In this respect, lean manufacturing factors were divided into 6 main factors and 42 sub-factors or sub-criteria. Most of the research studies in the past have been done in the automotive factories, while the present innovation has been done in a food industry with the focus on the buttermilk process. The results of this study show that the rate adjustment in the buttermilk production line with the lean criteria is 0.73. These results show that the disagreement between "management of equipment and hardware," and the lean production is maximum and disagreement between "system purchase and logistics management" with the lean production is minimum. The Results show the rate of disagreement between various parts of the production management with respect to lean production. With these findings, we can eliminate the defects and get closer to the lean production. This approach can be used in every production line in food industries.