Case Study - Relaxo

Implementing some of the lean Techniques at a Shoe Manufacturing Unit to ensure Productivity Improvement and help them run on a Fast Track Growth

CLINT PROFILE:

Relaxo Footwear has now emerged as the second largest footwear producer in India. Relaxo Footwear commenced its journey with the manufacture of Hawaii slippers. It has now grown into a large-scale entrepreneurship catering to the basic needs of the quintessential Indian citizen. From a modest sale figure of Rs. 1 million in 1977 to more than Rs. 8700 million last year; the company has experienced a record-breaking growth since inception. Today, the company manufactures over 3 lakh pairs of footwear per day, which approximately adds up to over 10 million pairs per year. Each pair is given thorough attention by the dedicated and skilled employees working at the 9 state-of-the-art manufacturing units in Northern India. Thus, it is no small wonder that the annual turnover has doubled in last 4 years from Rs. 427 crore in 2008-09 to a whopping Rs. 870 crore in 2011-12.Although Relaxo Footwear commenced its journey with the manufacture of Hawaii slippers, but two of it’sproducts  FLITE and  SCHOOLMATE  became the most popular in the market . 

CLIENT NEEDS:

To improve productivity and reduce cost for various manufacturing process components, by increasing production rate and by utilization of optimum manpower and suggest method improvements, if any.

CHALLENGES AND GOALS OF PROJECTS:

 
Assessing Man power requirement in each department and allocation of optimum man power in each workstation, Time and motion study setting the production norms, Balancing the assembly line by identifying the bottleneck and elimination, unavailability of skilled people was the major problem so to analyze the work method and deskilling the method, improvement in existing layout to proper utilization of work place.

 
How Vrunda consultancy services helped: 

First team understood all the processes and working ,to assess current allocation of manpower, to optimize work allocation for present manpower,   and done method study to develop the new and improved method of doing job with optimum utilization of man power  Vrunda consultancy services partnered with company leaders to implement the suggestions, role mapping, training, communications, and Change Tracking.One of the key success factors was to create the implementation team including plant head, managers of each division with supervisors.Theboard met weekly to advise the implementation team with the best methods.Throughout the projectVrunda consultancy services,Worked alongside the implementation team and worked to transfer knowledgefor future change in any production process.

After successful implementation of improved methodsVrunda consultancy services started time study to set the production norms with improved methods, 30% reduced manpower and 20% increased production rate.