In 2023, the global leather goods market was expected to reach US$ 443.52 billion.* In 2023, 25% percent of the global value of exported leather goods were realized by China, making the country the leading exporter for leather goods in the world.** We’ll look at Lean and Six Sigma applications in the leather industry from Abyssinia and Bangladesh and finish with a video of cow leather manufacturing in India and Japan.
Minimization of Tannery Defective Products Through the use of Lean Six Sigma: Abyssinia
In a master’s thesis titled “Minimization of defective products in Abyssinia tannery industry” author Mahlet Zebenay discusses the development of a continuous quality improvement model that integrates Lean Six Sigma in order to reduce the defect level in Abyssinia Tannery Industries.
The thesis includes:
- Percentage of Defects at Different Stages in Tannery
- SIPOC for Finished Leather Process
- Process Flow Map
- Number of Non-conformities by Month
- Current State Value Stream Map
- Type of Defects Observed at Finishing Stage
- Pareto Chart of Defect Percentages at Finishing Stage
- Cause and Effect Diagram for Grade Deviation
- Cause and Effect Diagram for Size Variation
- Improvement Plan and Actions for Causes of Three Significant Defects
- Future State Value Stream Map
- Comparison of Current and Future Value Stream Maps
- Experimental Design: Factors, Range, and Levels
- Pareto Chart of Effects
- Proposed Integrated Model
You can read the thesis here.
Lean Implementation to Improve Productivity in Leather Goods Manufacturing: Bangladesh
In a case study titled “Productivity Improvement of Leather Products Industry in Bangladesh Using Lean Tools: A Case Study” authors Sayid Mia MA and Swarna NA discuss the implementation of Lean principles in a leather goods manufacturing industry in order to evaluate present process cycle efficiency (PCE), lead time and productivity prior to developing an improved strategy to achieve the improved PCE, productivity and to reduce the lead time.
The case study includes:
- Existing Process Map
- Proposed Process Map
- Existing Cycle Time Analysis for Bi-fold Production Line
- Cause and Effect Analysis for Production Delays
- Cycle Time Analysis for Proposed Bi-fold Production Line
- Pareto Chart of Down Time for Bi-fold Production Line
- Process Cycle Efficiency after Applying Lean Tools
Applying Lean tools at the bi-fold wallet production line improved productivity by 85.42%.
You can access the case study here.
Lean, Green, and Six Sigma in Leather Manufacturing: Bangladesh
In a paper titled “A Lean, Green and Six Sigma (LG6σ) for SMEs in the leather industry in Bangladesh” authors MD Mahabubur Rahman and James Ogunleye discuss the use and implementation of Lean, Green and Six Sigma in small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) in the leather manufacturing industry in Bangladesh.
The authors conducted surveys for analysis and to reach their conclusions.
To access the paper, copy and paste the following link into your browser.
Cow Leather Manufacturing
See the step by step processing of cow leather in Indian and Japanese factories in this video from Complete Agriculture.
It is quite labor intensive.
You can watch the video here.
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