Improving truck maintenance processes through Lean principles

The increasing importance of the After-Sales service provision within automotive manufacturing companies calls for a proper management of existing After-Sales processes and activities. A continuous improvement of service quality and efficiency is a fundamental requirement for creating competitive advantage. In particular, every organisation must move towards improving the efficiency of its activities, like maintenance and repair. In this sense, lean initiatives have a significant impact on the economy of companies because they aim at increasing their efficiency. Goal of this paper is to understand how lean principles can affect maintenance process efficiency. These principles have been applied in a truck workshop with the aim to identify and eliminate obvious waste. Starting from these results a procedure to standardise the obtained solutions has been also implemented.