ABSTRACT As competition among industries increases in terms of quality, price, and flexibility, there is a need for industries to apply new advanced manufacturing philosophies, such as Lean Manufacturing (LM), for operational excellence in today's dynamic market. Manufacturing industries in Tanzania are now thinking of applying LM tools such as value stream mapping (VSM) to detect and eliminate waste in their production processes for improvements in their operations and the contribution of the manufacturing sector to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country, which stands at 8% as of date. This study applied VSM for one rice milling industry as a case study of food industries to identify nonvalue‐added and value‐added activities. The study comprised three phases, which were data collection from the industry, analysis of data, and mapping of actual and future state maps using the EdrawMax software version 10.5.0. Future state maps indicated that there would be significant improvements in the reduction of lead time by 44.3%, cycle time increase by 5%, increase in employee performance indicator from 88.3% to 91.7%, increase in quantitative production indicator from 82.8% to 90.5%, and increment of income generated after the elimination of identified activities which do not add value in their production operations. The study is beneficial for manufacturing owners and practitioners as it highlights how organizations can improve operational efficiency in terms of time reduction and an increase in income using VSM. The study recommends that the owners and practitioners of Tanzanian manufacturing industries and other developing countries should conduct VSM for each production process of their operations to improve the efficiency of their organizations and the contribution of the sector to the economy of the country.
Matindana et al. (Mon,) studied this question.