Evaluation of Value Stream Mapping Application in Pasta Manufacturing: A Case Study of Golden Pasta Company, Lagos

Over the years manufacturing industries faced persistent increase in global competition to the extent that most industries find it difficult to make profits. This unfavorable trend in global competition coupled with high costs of production were responsible for the new trend in business. In order to survive in today’s fiercely competitive market, and remain profitable while producing at a lower cost, many manufacturing outfits started thinking on the best way to eliminates wastes through the lean methodology. This work evaluated the application of lean approach of wastes elimination through the application of Value Stream Mapping (VSM) techniques. The manufacturing operations of Fava Long Goods 3 (FLG3) production line of Golden Pasta Company (GPC) was carefully understudied. Data collected from the company’s Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) and shop floor including feedback from the customers were analysed and evaluated. The results of the evaluation of these data were used to derive the Value Stream Mapping parameters for the developing the current state map and exposure of pasta manufacturing activities that accumulated to wastes generation. A Kaizen Blitz, a lean improvement workshop was held at the workplace where improvement suggestions were made towards the elimination of the wastes. The improvement suggestions were approved and implemented using a series of Value Stream Mapping techniques such as 5S, Kanban pull system, Supermarket pull system, Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), Kaizen idea sheet, Lean implementation tracking sheet and root-cause analysis to remove all the identified wastes. The results of the lean implementation showed that Production Lead Time (PLT) was massively reduced from 34.4 hours to 5.04 hours with a 85.3% waste reduction. A practical approach of implementing the value stream mapping, using Microsoft Visio 2016 software was suggested. An actual cost savings of N158, 515,200 was realised after third quarter (nine months) of lean implementation between September 2016 and June 2017. This was revealed in the Financial Statements of Accounts approved by the General Manager/Director of the Golden Pasta Company.


Introduction
Pasta manufacturing companies in Nigeria have been facing fierce competition in price differentiation, higher cost of production and distrusted customer's feedback since year 2010 when the first pasta manufacturing company, Golden Pasta started the pasta business. In early 2014, several pasta companies such as Dangote Pasta, Honeywell Pasta and BUA Pasta find it difficult to cut the high costs of production [1]. In the middle of the year 2015, several of these pasta manufacturing adopted some lean approaches to cut production costs such as mass production, quality demerit matrices, 5S methodology, Total Productive Maintenance, reliability management etc. but instead of reducing their production costs, most of these methodology resulted to higher costs of production and decreasing customers' Golden Pasta Company, Lagos satisfaction as a result of higher delivery time and significant amount of scraps. The reasons for this persistent rise in production costs was as a result of the non-value added manufacturing activities that gulped up most of the initial capital invested without any value addition to the customers. Most of these non-value added manufacturing activities were mere wastes that are often neglected which later boomeranged at the end of the lean implementation. Lean manufacturing philosophy was practiced in Japan many years ago with associated cost benefits that includes reduced inventory, reduction in production lead time, and increased customer satisfaction [2]. The core idea about lean methodology is maximizing customer value while minimizing wastes. A lean organization understands customer value and focuses its key processes to continuously increase it. Eliminating these non-value added processes are best done by learning to see through the processes from its input stage to the finished output, and to the point of delivery to customers [3].
Waste elimination should be a priority for any manufacturing industry that is aiming to beat stiff competition, achieved customers' satisfaction at lower production cost because 90% of manufacturing activities are directly or indirectly non-value addition [4]. This research work will explore various lean methods adopted in the past years and look out for opportunities for continuous improvements. The research work focused on application of Value Stream Mapping (VSM) techniques towards achieving quick delivery of customer's request within a short time by identifying the wastes and eliminates them from inception of raw material to the point of delivery to customers, and deliver the expected cost benefits for the overall lean improvement objective of the manufacturing company.

Definitions of Value Stream Mapping
A Value Stream includes both value-added and non-value added elements that occur to a given product from its inception through delivery to the customer. A Value Stream is all actions currently required to bring a product from raw material to the arms of the customer or through the design flow from concept to the point of delivery to customers. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a lean technique that was first developed in 1990 by the Toyota Production System (TPS) in the automobile industry. Value Stream Mapping has been deployed to other automobile industries and construction companies with results showing significant wastes identification and elimination.
Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a hands-on process to create a graphical representation of the process, material and information flows within a value stream. It is a planning tool to optimize the results of eliminating wastes. It simply entails drawing the current state map of the manufacturing processes, material and information flow, then identifying and eliminating the non-value added activities through lean techniques and finally mapping the future state map for the lean organization. The relationship between VSM and Lean is depicted in Figure 1.

Types of Wastes
According to the Toyota Production System (TPS), there are seven original wastes known as "muda," which means "waste" in Japanese [5]. Waste is any activity that absorbs resources and creates no value. TPS was the pioneer of lean philosophy in 1980s, which was later conglomerated into Lean Manufacturing System, LMS in 1999 [6]. In order to create a lean working environment, these wastes need to be identified and depleted. The seven wastes of lean manufacturing include; i. Overproduction ii. Defects.
iii. Waiting iv. Inventory v. Unnecessary motion vi. Transportation vii. Overprocessing Figure 2 shows the description and activities that resulted to these wastes in a manufacturing outfit.

Significant of the Research
The research work was done, to establish the Value Stream Mapping (VSM) parameters, analyse production operations for a single pasta production line and establish a future state map in order to eliminate wastes and achieve customer's delight in manufacturing. This Value Stream Mapping technique contributed to the knowledge of the application of lean methodology in food industries and validated that it was an effective tool in wastes elimination and also established that Value Stream Mapping when properly implemented could serve any manufacturing company to achieve lean implementation fully.

Objectives of the Research
The specific objectives of the study are to: (a) develop a current state map of the spaghetti production line and identify non-value and value added activities along the production processes (b) carry out problem solving techniques to eliminate wastes; and (c) propose a future state, operate and evaluate performance using the future state map.

Research Methodology
The following Value Stream Mapping (VSM) methodology were applied along Golden Pasta company (GPC) spaghetti production line to achieve the research objectives.

Develop a Current State Map and Identify Value and Non-Value Added Activities
The section discussed the method of analysis used to develop current state map of the spaghetti production line, identify non-value, and value added activities (value stream) along the production processes.
a. Select a pilot product family The first step towards developing a current is to select the pilot line in order to simplify the application of value stream mapping techniques. There are six production lines in Golden Pasta having the same sequences of operation and producing the same brand of spaghetti pasta. Investigation was carried out along the six production lines using a lean statistical method called "Production Line-Breakdown Matrix to determine the pilot production line [7]. The Production Line-Breakdown Matrix is a graphical representation production line versus number of breakdowns per machine for a given period. The production lines were represented on the x-axis while the number of breakdowns were represented on the yaxis of the graph.
The Table 1 represents the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) data for number of machine breakdowns between 2012 and 2016 for the six (6) production lines for spaghetti manufacturing. The analysis of the PL-Breakdowns Matrix was depicted in Figure 4. The values of the PL-Breakdown Matrix as shown in Figure 4 revealed that Fava Long Goods 3 (FLG3) predominantly increases in breakdowns (which includes all downtimes due to machine failures) between Year 2012 to 2014 more than the remaining five lines FLG1, FLG2, FLG4, FLG5, and FLG6. Since these bottlenecks occurred most in FLG3 throughout the years under review, it was selected as the pilot production line.
b. Form a cross-functional team At the first phase of the project, a Value Stream Mapping (VSM) Project Charter describing the subject matter was drawn with the General Manager/Director (GM/D) on day1 after discussing the thesis proposal. Briefing session was held at the Company's conference room with the top executives for 3 days. The session involved, training the top executives of the management team on VSM fundamentals, setting goals and objectives of the VSM, selection of mapping team and sign-off of the project by the GM/D (executive sponsor). A cross sectional mapping team was formed. The Team members includes the shift manager, ERP administrator, operator, warehouse manager, quality control supervisor and the external customer. Besides attending meetings with the team, the external customer key role was to actually define the value from the customer's perspective. All the team members were trained on the lean methodology, collecting relevance data for value stream, and drawing, lean methods to identify wastes and lean improvement strategies.
c. Walk through the entire production processes The purpose of performing a workplace walk-through the entire production processes is to visualize the current state situation and understand how each process are interrelated in the transforming of raw material into finished goods from inception of raw material to the point of delivery to customers and establish problem statement of objectives. The mapping team constituted on the project charter, led by the Production Manager were deployed at this stage. Gemba walk was conducted and joined by all the team members including Fava Long Goods 3 (FLG3) process operators, process supervisor, stripper operator and packers so that a full understanding on the operations and manufacturing processes can be obtained and to ensure the process owners do it by themselves. Detailed of the manufacturing operations were summarised below [8].
Raw material supply The Golden Pasta Company (GPC) production operations runs two shifts per day (12 hours per shift) and seven days a week production schedules. The planning department raised monthly transfer orders for semolina supply to GPC using Enterprise Resource Planning ERP electronic platform. Raw material semolina supplied via bulk truck by Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN) is first weighed on arrival at the GPC factory. The trucks are positioned at the nearest discharge point where three Quality tests (moisture analysis, granulation, and high base tests) are performed before discharging into the silo bins. The semolina discharged into silo bins are transported to the feeder (hopper) in the FLG3 production line via pneumatic automation system.
Mixing and spreading processes The next production stage is the mixing of semolina and water at the pre-mixer to form dough. The dough undergoes compression at the extrusion unit and strands of spaghetti are formed with the aid of a die at the die chamber. The strands of spaghetti formed are conveyed into the sticks at the spreader unit. The sticks-carrying pasta are transported into the pre-dryer unit through the intermediate chain assembly.
Pre-drying process At the pre-dryer unit, initial amount of moisture is removed from the pasta strands through thermoregulation process using circulating pumps and ventilation fans driven by electric motors. This involves the removal of initial water added at early stage of the process via: conduction, diffusion, evaporation.
Drying process The Pasta moves to the dryer through a chain drive. At the end of the drying process, the pasta still has quite an elevated temperature temperature. But from this moment on, the temperature of the product start decreasing in order to reach values (temperature, pressure and humidity) close to the ambient ones. The main aim is to avoid that the surface of the pasta drying up too much and too quickly which normally leads to cracked spaghetti.
Humidifying process The dried pasta is trnansported through into the humidifier unit in order to stabilize the product once the drying phases are terminated. Here moisture content Mt, of the product is increased by 0.5% to attain 12.5% total moisture.
Cooling process The pasta moves through the chain drive to the cooler. In this phase, the product is cooled until ambient temperature is reached. The cooled product which has attained the desired stability is transported by roller chain drive to the storage silos, where the material would be called for packaging.
Stripping process The next stage of the production process is the stripper unit, where spaghetti strands arranged on sticks are moved by chain and accumulator to the stripper cutters where pasta strands are stripped off from the sticks cut into sizes and the plain sticks removed back to the spreader unit through the lowerator and chains. The off-cut materials stripped and cut off are manually packed into bags as Talia while the remaining stripped length of the pasta strands are packed into sachets as finished product, spaghetti.
Elevator and packaging processes The sized spaghetti length, measuring 21cm each are transported by means of elevators and conveyors to the packing machines where the finished products are packed into sachets, with each sachet weighing 500g. Arrangement of spaghetti sachets into cartons are manually done by operatives. Each carton contains 20 sachets of pasta each. Cartons are arranged on wooden pallet manually while each pallet contain 80 cartons. The pallets are then moved to the transit area by forklift. Finished product remains in the transit area for 24 hours for inspection and counting operations to the warehouse for storage.
Warehouse processes The products are stacked on the pallets for a long time in the warehouse and there is no effective procedure for First-in First-out (FIFO). Products demand is considered in the customer service department, a sub-unit of the sales department when a customer walks-in or calls to place an order while on queue. The total number of customer's orders received in a month are sent to the logistics department while annual sales forecast is forwarded to production planning department by sales team. Golden Pasta Company, is currently meeting demand raised the customers but at a longer lead time and with several production bottlenecks.
After the walk-through was completed, the following problem statements were observed; i. It takes a longer production lead time to fulfil customers' requests. ii. Customers' demand ae met but with several delays and bottlenecks. iii. Downtime due to equipment failures were not resolved.
This has contributed to low Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE). iv. Major quality issues on the die such as cracked and spotted spaghetti impedes production output. v. Operators and material handling operations were not well utilized. vi. High inventory cost due to over-production and damages to finished products were discovered in the production floor and warehouse. d. Collection of data The next step towards the development of Current State Mapping after the walk-through exercise, is data collection, which started on the twelfth day from the point of raw material supply to the point of shipping to external customers. The whole data collection exercise lasted for two weeks. At the end of the twenty-sixth day, the following data were collated.
Customer requests The data is used to determine the customer's demand, Golden Pasta Company, Lagos which was collated from shop floor daily production reports and customer request orders in Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP. The analyzed data was shown in Table 2. Loading days for customers 20 days per month 9 Working period, Wp 8 hours per day Customer demand for spaghetti as shown in Table 2 was 4,000 pallets in a month.
Supplier's information A total of 20 bulk trucks is normally supplied on weekly basis and once delivered; it is stored in silo bins for further processing. The suppliers' transfer orders obtained from the Enterprise Resource Planning data is shown in Table 3 for more details. The above information become necessary to meet customer's target. The purpose of doing this is to find rate of customer demand through the "Takt time" Takt time Takt time is the rate at which products or services should be produced to meet the rate of customer demand. It is derived from the German word, Taktzeit, which is often referred to as heartbeat or drumbeat of production in lean manufacturing. The value, in conjunction with current production rates, is used to analyze pokes loads, bottlenecks, and excess capacity. In any VSM, it is fundamental to determine the 'Takt time' for the current production operations of the FLG3 production line before drawing the future state map. The data derived from the ERP as shown in the Table 4 was used to analyze the Takt time. At the end of the data collection, analysis and investigation, it was observed that GPC were not meeting the current delivery to customers which was found out be 20 days per month while orders were placed 25 days in a month. Mathematically, where, Q = Inventory Quantity (Pallets) Tk = Takt time (minutes per Pallet) The value of the Cycle Time and Inventory time were used to evaluate the plant efficiency. The value stream mapping parameter used to measure the plant efficiency is called the Overall Equipment efficiency, (OEE).
Overall Equipment Efficiency Overall Equipment Efficiency, OEE: The results of the data analysis of the cycle time, inventory quality, and Takt time were used to determine the Productivity, Availability and Quality rate for spaghetti manufacturing processes. The results obtained were further used to determine the Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE), a lean metric used to evaluate how effectively a manufacturing operation was utilized. It is commonly used as a key performance indicator (KPI) in conjunction with lean manufacturing efforts to provide an indicator of success. Mathematically, where; P is performance, A is availability, and Q is quality of product. P = Parts produced X ideal cycle time/Operating time A = Net operating time/Scheduled time Q = Units produced-defective units/Units produced At the end of these data collection, analysis and evaluation, the results obtained were used to develop the Current State Mapping.
e. Identification of non-value and value added activities The non-value added activities constituted the real time wastes, this thesis tends to identify and consequently eliminate. It was achieved by walking through the current state mapping by a cross-functional mapping team involving senior, middle and shop floor staff who were actually working at the Gemba. The full participants of the team members foster team building and brought about, the expected cultural change required for the sustenance of continuous improvement. The main purpose of walking through the current VSM as is to expose opportunities for improvements and help in prioritizing them. The walk through was led by the GM/D (sponsor) alongside the mapping team with guidance from the researcher (facilitator). It lasted for two days (4 hours per day). This session involved looking at the processes, material flow and information flow, step by step until we got to the finishing point (customer to evaluate if VSM methodology will be a success or failure in eliminating wastes, achieving customers' requests at shorter time and saving cost of production.

Carry Out Problem Solving Techniques to Eliminates Wastes
The lean technique employed for eliminating the identified wastes is called "Kaizen Blitz''. Kaizen Blitz Method Kaizen is a Japanese word for continuous improvement while Blitz also means, "lightening fast". Kaizen Blitz is an intensive and focused approach to process improvement. A Kaizen Blitz method is a rapid improvement workshop or event designed to produce results to discrete process issues within a few days. It is a way for teams to carry out structured, but creative problem solving techniques in a workshop environment, over a short time scale. The Kaizen Blitz event is divided into three stages; Preparation, The Blitz Event and Follow-up.
i. Preparation: The preparation stage involves preparation of agenda for the work, setting goal, preparation lean tool sheets to be used for the main blitz event and compiling of Current Value Stream Mapping data and information for pilot line FLG3.
ii. The Blitz Event: This involves taking the detailed video of current state activities, investigating the current video records of identified wastes as captured on the time observation sheets and circulation of identified wastes documents for current VSM among team members, braining sessions to find the root causes of the wastes, making and approving improvement suggestions, applying the improvements suggesting directly on the all the areas of wastes segregation along the current state mapping to eliminate the wastes. The results of the improvement suggestions implemented were documented using the lean improvement tools such as Kanban tools, Supermarket Pull system, 5S Checklists and Oval and Kaizen Worksheet.
iii. Follow-up; Involved details checks and action on new changes, reviewing the progress results, taking videos of the new processes after lean implementation, test-running the solutions to avoid difficulties/bottleneck, re-planning and scandalizing results.

Proposed Future State Map, Operation and Evaluation of Performance
This section will discuss, the proposed Future State Map drawn after wastes elimination, setting of goals and objectives of each of the four loops as earlier discussed, followed by the yearly lean improvement plan to be implemented, and evaluation of performance using the Future State Map.
a. Development of the Proposed Future State Map The proposed Future State Map was drawn using with all the Kanban tools, and Improvement suggestions implemented after carrying out the Kaizen blitz method.
b. Setting of Goals and Objectives for Future State Golden Pasta Company, Lagos Operation The main goal of drawing the future steam map is to build a production chain where each processes would be linked to the external customer (s) by either continuous flow or pull and ensuring that these processes were close as possible to produce only what the customer only needed. This was achieved by prioritize objectives and goals along the four loops established during the waste identification exercise. The following implementation steps were taken on each of the value stream mapping loops to operate future steam map. the warehouse entry by installing an automated conveyor belt from packing machines to the warehouse entry point that in order to transfer finished goods directly to the warehouse. This will eliminate cartonizing operation and reduce palletizers from 12 employees to zero. iii. Implement kaizen to reduce cycle time from 1,567 minutes to 33 minutes iv. Increase uptime at stripping, elevator and packing processes to 95% v. Establish supermarket pull system between stripping and elevator processes to control excess inventory. vi. Introduce continuous hourly quality control checks on the packed products between packing and the automated belt conveyor and eliminate the 24 hours non-value added time at the transit process. vii. Eliminate excess packing material inventory at the production floor by using a kanban card every 4 hours to keep material inventory in check between the material supplier and the cartonizing operation. viii. Establish a FIFO system to prevent over-production and storage of unwanted stock at the warehouse ix. Maintain a buffer stock of 1,100 cartons of finished goods at the warehouse operation to meet fluctuating customer's demand at peak period. The main goals/targets to be achieved at the packaging loops are; i. Only 160,000 kg of pasta stands should be supplied to the stripper unit from the finished good silos with only 1.3 minutes of inventory time allowed on a continuous flow.
ii. Maximum packaging material supplier to the production floor should not exceed 2,500 in every 4 hours while the wrapping reels should not exceed 64 reels within the same period. iii. Zero scraps Loop 2: Processing Loop The objectives to be achieved are i. Establish continuous flow of material between the flour dosing and mixing. ii. Carry out kaizen to eliminate Work-In-process (WIP) inventory between the spreader the pre-dryer process. iii. Introduce daily production schedules. iv. Increase uptime from the mixing to the cooler unit to 100% v. Carry out kaizen to eliminate the root cause of failing sticks at the stripper entrance. The main goals/targets to be achieved at the processing loops are; i. The Accounting department of the Golden Pasta Company was presented with the evaluated implementation plan using all the data gathered so far including non-value added time, cycle time, uptime, productivity, available time, uptime, scrap level, demand etc. to decide the best way to determine the cost benefits [9]. The cost benefits of implemented plan against targets were summarised in the Cost-Loss Matrix from the Accounts Department as shown in below.

Figure 6. Comparison of Current and Future State Map on Cost-Loss Matrix.
The evaluated performance of the nine (9) months conversion costs from the financial statement of the Golden Pasta Company (GPC), directly released by the Accounting Department and approved by the General Manager/Director was used to determine the cost benefits of lean implemented for the elimination of wastes in Pasta Manufacturing.
The conversion cost is defined as the unit cost of transforming a single unit of raw material into finished goods. The composition of the conversion cost varies from one company to another. In a typical pasta manufacturing, the flowing costs made up the conversion cost.
i. Material cost: cost of raw material and packaging materials need for production.
ii. Maintenance cost: Costs of spare parts usage, planned (lubrication, overhauling, preventive and unplanned maintenance (breakdown, corrective and delays due to nonavailability o spare parts).
iii. Power costs: These includes the cost of electric supply, gas consumption, diesel consumption, compressed air, heat ventilation and air conditioning systems (HVAC) and lighting.
Labour cost; costs savings from labour optimization, elimination of over production that consumed unnecessary man hour lost Figure 6 shows clearly the results comparisons of the various conversion costs performance metrics between the current and future state the conversion costs.
In Figure 6 above, the total value of conversion cost savings for 9 months of lean implementation was 5160 naira/tonne In a day 12,800 cartons of pasta are demanded in average.
Golden Pasta ran and made of pasta in 240 days excluding holidays and planned maintenance The achieved cost benefits in 9 months' savings in a year will amounted to; Cost Savings (Q1, Q2, Q3) = 660,480 x 240 =N158,515,200

Results
The results of evaluation of evaluation of Value Stream Mapping application in Fava Long goods 3 (FLG3) production line for golden Pasta were presented as follows;

Results for the Development of the Current and Future State Value Stream Mapping
The results of the Value Stream Mapping (VSM) parameters was presented on the data box on the maps with details of each process flow, information flow and material from the input stage to the point of delivery to customer. The completed Current State and Future State Maps were drawn using Microsoft Visio 2016, software as shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8. The current state and future state maps have the following processes presented on the map with all the measured Value Stream Mapping parameters

Results of Waste Identification
The following results were wastes identified along the current value stream mapping along the four loops of the production processes -supplier loop, processing loop, packaging loop and customer loop. Each of the identified non-value added activities were spotted with kaizen burst in red colour indicating areas of improvement opportunities and the needs to eliminates these wastes in manufacturing.
The wastes on the Current State Map are marked out with a "Kaizen Burst" indicating areas for improvement opportunities from the input state to the point of delivery to customers. i. Overproduction was denoted by letters "OP" ii. Over processing was denote by letters "OPR" iii. Defect was denoted by letters "DF" iv. Motion was denoted by letters "MO" v. Waiting was denoted by letters "WT" vi. Inventory was denoted by letters "I" vii. Transportation was denoted by letters "TP"

Results of Wastes Elimination
The outcomes of the Kaizen Blitz workshop carried out for the eliminating of wastes for each process on the current VSM were discussed below in Table 5, 6. 7 and 8 accordingly.
a. Supplier Loop Kaizen improvements results from lean implementation were in Table 5.

Supplier Loop Type of Wastes Kaizen Solution implemented
Quality Testing Over processing Records shows that, there have been insignificant number of quality issues from raw material supply from FMN. Since the sister company FMN supply the raw material, a certified test analysis of the raw material from FMN was incorporated to guarantee quality raw material supply to Golden Pasta.

Motion
Eliminated. All quality tests is now performed by supplier prior to the supplier of raw material to Golden Pasta with authorized signatory that validated raw material quality.

Inventory
Only ISO certified bulk trucks with history and guaranteed effective maintenance record were allowed for raw material delivery.5S housekeeping were implemented to eliminate inventory at the silo area. b. Processing Loop Kaizen improvements results from lean implementation were in Table 6.

Processing loop Type of Wastes Improvement Solution
Mixing Waiting Single Minutes Exchange of die (SMED) reduced mixing time.

Spreading
Motion Stick extractor sensor from the stick storage unit was re-located to the press-leg to enable touch-and-go effect.

Wet Scrap Inventory
Installed conveyor belt to the point of waste accumulation removes wastes. Installed crushing crumbler for recycling to deliver crushed scraps for discharge into the mixer. This action mixed the crushed wet scraps with contents at the mixing unit Humidifying Defects Why-why analysis was done to find the root cause. Sprayer joint alarm was caused by constant deflection of the cam-lever due to piled up sticks. Monitoring the control unit and keeping the gap at 5mm to the stick carrier eliminated the alarm. A conditioned based monitoring program kept the cam-lever in position. Visual marking was done to know when the cam-lever dislocate.
Waiting Implemented visual control to rest the control unit every I hour prevented hooked sticks from re-occurring and eliminates waiting time.

Cooling
Defects Why-why analysis was done to find the root cause. Sprayer joint alarm was caused by constant deflection of the cam-lever due to piled up sticks. Monitoring the control unit and keeping the gap at 5mm to the stick carrier eliminated the alarm. A conditioned based monitoring program kept the cam-lever in position. Visual marking was done to know when the cam-lever dislocate.

Waiting
Implemented visual control to rest the control unit every I hour prevented hooked sticks from re-occurring and eliminates waiting time. c. Packaging Loop Kaizen improvements results from lean implementation were in Table 7. Overprocessing due to rework of dry-scraps for failing sticks. This was caused by starwheel constant breakage due to misalignment of stick carrier. A calibrated bolt installed eliminated starwheel breakage. Also an alarm will signal once the carrier moves out of position, which stops the machine to avoid starwheel breakage.

Defects
Cracked spaghetti was caused by lack of quality matrix for various grades of high base material. Non-effective cleaning of ventilation fans at the dryer and cooler units were addressed by 5S. Implemented quality maintenance matrix with required actual and start-up set-points were incorporated as countermeasures

Waiting
Waiting as a result of broken starwheel replacement was eliminated.

Overproduction Kanban pull system set up and implemented prevents overproduction
Talia bags inventory Overproduction Established Kanban pull system eliminates overproduction Elevator Waiting This sis due to intermittent tripping off of the elevator motor caused by wrong timing of the calling sensor as a result of bad relays. A conditioned based program for sensor monitoring eliminates elevator motor tripping off.

Packing Waiting
Minor stops caused by photo eye moving out of position led to constant jaw jamming that stops the machine. SMED implemented led to visual marking that eliminates photo-eye faults and also reduced reel change over to less than 1 minute

Carton and transwrap room Inventory
Established Kanban supermarket pull system where a material handler or pool man, always fills the carton trays with 400 pieces after every 2 hours eliminate excess inventory. Once the carton on the trays are less than 20 pieces, replacement is made from the store room.

d. Customer Loop
Kaizen improvements results from lean implementation were in Table 8.

Stacked Products
Defects Implement Fist-in-First-out system (FIFO). Inventory Establish and keep only buffer stock in checks. Over-production Produce to customer request and maintain a buffer stock to address fluctuation in demand.

Loading Transportation
Replace manual loading with automated loading conveyor belt between the point of loading and the customer awaiting trucks Weighing and dispatch to customers Waiting Eliminate repeated loading at point of loading and the other one at the weighing point I the security point. Only carry out the final weighing since the final weighing is computerised and more reliable.

Results for Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
The following results were achieved from the all the list of final audits conducted by examining the Current and Future State Map of the Spaghetti Production Line along Fava Long Good 3 (FLG3). The results of the KPIs is presented in Table 13. The Figure 10 shows the results of the yearly plan achieved against the targets for FLG3 production line after the lean implementation.

Discussion
This section discusses the results of evaluation of evaluated obtained and presented in section 3 accordingly.

Discussion on the Current and Future State Maps
In the Current State Map; a total number of 7 bulk weighing 30,000 kg was supplied at the raw material stage which led to excess storage of inventory at the raw material stage. In order to build an effective lean plant-level value stream, the future stream map was developed with Kanban techniques on both the supplier and receiving ends. First, at the raw material supply into the silo bins, the following analysis was computed before applying the Kanban pull system [10]. In the current state mapping, it took 60 minutes of processing time to store 30,0okg of raw material semolina.
The following actions were implemented as follows; i. In order to reduce the long lead time, each bulk truck material was reduced from 30,000kg to 20,000 kg of semolina. ii. The current charging point is three and, 3 trucks were normally discharged per hour. Since a total of 20 trucks were ordered per day, there was need to have load levelling balance at the raw material section using a levelling box. The load levelling box in Table  15 shows detailed scheduling records informing the planning department clerk to order for raw material supply as follows. All orders were done on ERP, so there is no need for physical conventional levelling box.  The Table 14 revealed that, there was one hour of elapsed time between each scheduling delivery to allow for any unwanted delays or bottlenecks while still keeping the pace of normal supply of 20 bulk trucks per day. From 4:20 pm to 7pm, enough time would be available for raw material supply when demand becomes higher and same time, reducing supplier when demand becomes low.
Load levelling is represented by the icon and it portrays a tool used to intercept batches on Kanban and level the volume and mix of them over a period.
The detailed Kanban pull system of the future value stream was highlighted in Figure 11 from the Future State Map.
Also, a load levelling box was implemented at the carton supplier unit to control over-production even though Golden Pasta packing materials supplier is not ready to receive Kanban and produce according to them. At Golden Pasta, an internal withdrawal Kanban was built to every carton and trans-wrap material at the planning department whenever a carton /trans-wrap material is used. With this Kanban system, the Planning department ordered carton/trans-wrap material based on actual demand instead of using Material Resource Planning (MRP) forecast. Therefore, as soon as planning department made the day's order for packing materials, the corresponding Kanban was placed in Kanban slots at the receiving packing machine terminals. The following analysis on the carton/trans wrap inventory on current VSM was done to achieve a future-state map. A buffer stock (sometimes-called safety stock) was stock used to protect against variation form the company. It was held as a reserve to safeguard against unforeseen shortages or demand [11]. The buffer stock handled fluctuation in demand at peak period and at low peak, once the buffer stock is exceeded supply of cartons would stop to prevent excess inventory. Similarly, packing machine consumed a reel of trans-wrap per day. Golden Pasta currently ordered for trans-wrap material from Bagco (a subsidiary of FMN Company) with 1000 reels of trans-wrap per week. The following analysis on the trans wrap supply was done to achieve a Future State map.
1 reel of trans wrap is consumed per hour 1 reel produces an average of 100 cartons per day Therefore, I carton = 1/100 reel Since demand is 64000 cartons, we know that, 6400 cartons will require = 1/100 x 6400 reel = 64 reels of trans-wrap per day (18) The outcome of the analysis of control of cartons/transwraps inventory was drawn on the Future State Map in Figure 12.

Discussion on Wastes Identification
The wastes of manufacturing were ranked in accordance with the seven tenets of lean manufacturing and were clearly marked out on the Current State Map. The results obtained and displayed on the current state shows that Value Stream Mapping is a successful tool for wastes identification in pasta manufacturing.

Discussion on Waste elimination
The high cost of production of the Current State Map was as a result non-value added activities such as of over processing (quality tests), scraps produced during charging of raw material, waiting time-in the mixing, spreading, humidifying, cooling, stripping, elevator, cartonizing, waiting in the transit area, and weighing processes, over production at FG cabins,, defects in stripping, high rate of talia bags, overstocked stacked finished goods at the shop floor and warehouse, unnecessary motion during-quality tests, spreading, cartonizing by palletizers, high accumulation of inventory time-at charging, silo bins, spreading, cartonizing, transit area, and stacked products at warehouse, transportation time-at the transit area and loading operation in the warehouse and finally several defect time consumed throughout the entire production line caused by breakdowns and quality issues. It was also observed that Golden Pasta Company are currently not producing in accordance with customers' requirements but according to the availability of raw materials, which eventually resulted to producing unwanted finished products not desired by the customers. The large improvements achieved in the Future State Map is a direct reflection of the elimination of non-value added activities along the pasta manufacturing processes. The raw material supply has been improved to daily requests with an introduction of load balancing system of four trucks every 40 minutes to meet customer demand. A Kanban post and signal system was put in place to cushion production at the upstream section, which directly improved the effectiveness and efficiency of the manufacturing processes. The visual inspection and quality tests conducted during raw material discharge were considered as wastes since there have not been quality issues for the past three years from Flour Mill of Nigeria suppliers. A quality conformance certification implemented by Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc for raw material eradicated this quality issues as only certified trucks with test certificate was allowed for raw material delivery. The inventory accumulation and scraps generated by faulty bulk trucks were considered a waste. This waste was eliminated by ensuring that only reliability-certified trucks were into the premises for raw material delivery. The supermarket pull system introduced at the stripper and packing units greatly improved the efficiency of the system between the upstream Processing Loop and Downstream Packaging Loop because it generated the expected continuous flow process that was able to eliminate all bottlenecks along the entire spaghetti manufacturing processes. The twenty-four hours non-valued added time at the transit zone was eliminated after the installation of an automated conveyor belt system directly from packing machine terminal into the warehouse, which had guaranteed higher efficiency and prompt response to customer's demand. At the end of the wastes elimination investigation and elimination, all the non-valued activities were removed.

Discussion on Production Lead Time and Cycle Time
Comparing the results of the PLT, VACT and NVACT for both Current and Future state gave a clear measure of the summary of the application of Value Stream Mapping (VSM) techniques on pasta manufacturing. The results of evaluated is presented in tabular form below The longer production lead time for pasta manufacturing was shorten by 29.36 hours (1 day and 5.36 hours) while 85.3% of manufacturing activities on current state constituted were mere wastes got from the ratio of the difference between Production Lead Time (for both current and Future State and Current State Production Lead Time). The realization of this result shown in this thesis is in accordance with the fact that approximately 90% of manufacturing activities are directly or indirectly non-value addition (David, 2016). In addition, it was also shown in Table 14 that an assault on the Non-Value Added Cycle Time (NVACT) for the Current State Map produced an automatic measure of improvement on Value Added Cycle Time (VACT) on the Future State Map, which was deduced to be 65.2% on both direction, making the whole exercise of waste reduction "scientific". The summary of the results of PLT, NVACT and VACT for both Current State Map and the Future State Map were shown in Figure 13 below. In Figure 13, Production Lead Time is shorter for Future State Map than Current State Map while Non-Value Added Time is higher for Current State than Future State. The total production lead time was reduced from 34.4 hours to 5.04 hours after the implementation of Value Stream Mapping techniques on Current state non-value added time. This is an indication that value stream mapping techniques is a successful methodology for reducing the total delivery time to meet customer's requirements to the overall objective of Lean Manufacturing.

Discussion on Overall Equipment Efficiency, OEE
Comparing the results of evaluation in Table 11 and Table  12 shows that, OEE increases from 34% to 98% after the implementation of Value Stream Mapping Techniques In Figure 14, Overall Equipment Efficiency of the plant was higher in implemented Future State Map than the Current State Map. This is an indicator that Value Stream Mapping techniques is a successful tool for boosting the productivity of Pasta Manufacturing plant.

Discussion on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
The evaluated results indicated the Future State performance after the Future State was implemented on the Spaghetti production line. All the improvement results in Productivity, Delivery, Quality, Cost and Safety were geared towards reduction in conversion cost.

Discussion on Yearly Future State Map Implementation
The objectives and targets for all the four loops on the Future State VSM which includes the Supplier Loop, Processing Loop, Packaging Loop, and Customer Loop were fully achieved up to the third quarter of 9 months between September 2016 to June 2017.

Conclusion
This work evaluated the implementation of value stream mapping techniques, a lean manufacturing principle for the elimination of wastes along pasta manufacturing company in Nigeria as revealed in this case study. The Current State manufacturing processes for a single Production Line FLG3 was thoroughly understudied, data from Golden Pasta Company, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and shop floor were collated and analysed and the Current State Value Stream Map was developed using Microsoft Visio, 2016 software. The Value-Added and Non-Value Added activities, which were the actual wastes of manufacturing, were clearly spotted along the Supplier Loop, Processing loop, Packaging loop and Customer loop of the Current State Map. A Kaizen Blitz method, which constituted, series of brainstorming sessions were carried out on the four loops. At the end of the Kaizen Blitz events, recommended Improvement suggestions were implemented to eliminate the Non-Value Added activities which accumulated to wastes. The proposed Future State Map was equally drawn implemented and evaluated to determine the performance of the Value Stream Mapping techniques in Pasta manufacturing. A set of objectives and targets were established along the four loops using the Future State Map. The results of performance evaluation against targets revealed that Value Stream Mapping techniques successfully reduced Production Lead Time (PLT) of Fava Long Goods 3 Spaghetti Production Line from 34.4 hours (1.43 days) to just 5.04 hours with a 85.3% in waste reduction. The cost savings of N158, 515,200 was realized after 9 months of lean implementation as revealed in the financial statements of accounts for FLG3 production line, which was sighted in the