To enhance the productivity and quality of products many firms are practicing the lean manufacturing concepts. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is one of the lean tools to visualize the hidden waste and its sources. This paper describes the lead time reduction of steering knuckles. On observing the present system of steering knuckle production, the current lead time was calculated and found to be 19.44 minutes for producing one component simultaneously in CNC machines and their current production

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... is 500 components per shift against the customer demand of 535 components per shift. A VSM is drawn to find out the value and non-value added activities involved in current production floor. Then, a Future Value Stream Map is developed to design a lean process flow through process improvements. This project uses the VSM technique thereby helps the management to reduce the production lead time of steering knuckle and to fulfill the customer demands.