In 2022, the luggage market was valued at approximately 17.6 billion U.S. dollars worldwide.* We’ll look at Lean and Six Sigma applications in luggage manufacturing and finish with a video of how suitcases are made in Japan.

*Source: Copy and paste the following link into your browser to see the statistics.

Sustainable Lean Six Sigma in Luggage Manufacturing
In a paper titled “Sustainable Lean Six Sigma Competitive Manufacturing Strategy for Luggage
Manufacturer” authors Febriana Lestari, Iveline Anne Marie and Emelia Sari discuss their creation of a framework to apply sustainable Lean Six sigma to a luggage company.

The paper includes:

  • Process Flow of Hardcase Luggage
  • Process Flow of Plastic Recycling Line
  • Quality Report in Production and Warehouse
  • Flowchart of Method Implementation Procedure
  • Relevant Indicators for Sustainable Manufacturing
  • Sustainable Lean Six Sigma Research Framework

Click on the following link to read the paper.

Sustainable Value Stream Mapping in a Luggage Company
In a short paper titled “Enhancing Sustainable Performance using Lean Quality Competitive
Manufacturing Strategy: A Case Study in the Luggage Company” authors Iveline Anne Marie and others discuss their proposal for a Lean Quality sustainable competitive manufacturing framework by
combining the Sustainable Value Stream Mapping (SVSM), Quality, and Sustainability Index (SI)
Assessment.

NOTE: This paper complements the one above.
The paper includes:

  • Selected SVSM Indicators for the Luggage Company
  • Current SVSM
  • Sustainability Index Calculation

Use the following link to access the paper.

Implementing Kaizen on Sewing Floor of Luggage Manufacturing Plant
In a paper titled “Implementation of kaizen for continuous improvement of productivity in garment
industry in Bangladesh” authors Saima Akter, Farasat Raiyan Yasmin, and Md. Ariful Ferdous discuss
kaizen implementation to increase efficiency and productivity in the sewing floor of a luggage
manufacturing plant.

The paper includes:

  • The Kaizen Umbrella
  • Time Study for Different Workers
  • Cycle Time Balancing by Kaizen
  • 5s Score Sheet Before Kaizen Implementation
  • 5s Score Sheet After Kaizen Implementation
  • Sewing Flow Defects
  • Fishbone Diagram for Wrinkle Problem
  • Corrective Actions for Top Five Problems
  • Results for Before and After Kaizen Implementation

You can read the paper here.

[Published in American Academic & Scholarly Research Journal Vol 7, No. 3, May 2015]

Suitcase Manufacturing in Japan
See how suitcases are made in Japan’s only suitcase manufacturing company in this video from Process X.

You can watch the video here.