A lean warehousing integrated approach: a case study

This paper focuses on reengineering of production warehouses with lean manufacturing. Using as a case study an Italian interior design producer, we present an integrated approach for lean warehousing. Firstly a detailed description of the warehouse logistics is provided by the Unified Modeling Language (UML), hence Value Stream Mapping (VSM) allows identifying non-value adding activities, and the Gemba Shikumi technique helps to rank such anomalies. The reapplication of VSM produces an overall picture of the optimized warehouse, and using UML we detail the reengineered warehouse processes. The approach represents a useful tool to systematically improve production warehouse management.