Production smoothing decisions with seasonal variation through value stream management

In the last years, organizations must pay attention on customer demands for surviving and also for increasing their market shares. But customers have not stable demand and stable view. Demand is fluctuated through the time period and seasonal variation is mostly common. Organizations' main problem is how to cut costs while producing small numbers of many types of products with seasonal variation. The solution of this problem is built up with lean based production systems. There are many tools of lean production systems as value stream mapping, cellular manufacturing, 5S, SMED, pull production systems and production smoothing. In this study, production smoothing decisions are studied through value stream mappings. Smoothing scenarios for seasonal variation are developed in order to reduce the deterioration of the production systems performance. The scenarios were tested in a real life “white goods” production system. Firstly the work flow was visualized using value stream mapping, then production schedule was created using production smoothing method and lastly developed smoothing scenarios were tested. One of the scenarios with the chosen pull production control system alternative was given the better performance.