Abstract
Today’s VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world and the continuous search for new products and services requires companies to pursuing excellence and continuous improvement. This paper aims to describe a lean implementation project developed in a Portuguese cutlery SME. Action-research was adopted as research method. The production processes of the most representative products (spoons, forks and knives) were analyzed with adequate tools (e.g. VSM – value stream mapping – and indicators monitoring). The main problems identified were excess of inventory (of both finished products and WIP – work-in-process), and consequent long throughput times and low productivity. The root causes for those problems were investigated. Then, improvement proposals, involving the creation of a system to monitor and control production orders, the implementation of daily kaizen meetings, the redefinition of safety stocks and reorder point of finished products and the promotion of training and creation of work instructions regarding equipment setups, were developed and implemented to mitigate the identified problems. The implementations had quite positive impacts such as WIP reduction of 255 K€, 38.5% decrease in finished products stock, throughput time reduction from 17.3 to 4.6 days for spoons and forks, and from 12.4 to 6.8 days in the case of knives, and, finally, an overall productivity enhancement of 36.5%.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Dinis-Carvalho, J., Guimaraes, L., Sousa, R.M.R.M., Leao, C.P.C.P.: Waste identification diagram and value stream mapping: a comparative analysis. Int. J. Lean Six Sigma. 10(3), 767–783 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLSS-04-2017-0030
Dinis-Carvalho, J., Monteiro, M., Macedo, H.: Continuous improvement system: team members’ perceptions. In: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol. 122, (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41429-0_20
Dinis-Carvalho, J., Moreira, F., Bragança, S., Costa, E., Alves, A., Sousa, R.: Waste identification diagrams. Prod. Plan. Control. 26(3), 1–13 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2014.891059
Dombrowski, U., Ebentreich, D., Krenkel, P.: Impact analyses of lean production systems. Proced. CIRP. 57 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2016.11.105
Galsworth, G.D.: Visual Workplace: Visual Thinking – Creating Enterprise Excellence Through the Technologies of the Visual Workplace. CRC PRess (2017)
García-Alcaraz, J.L., Morales García, A.S., Díaz-Reza, J.R., Jiménez Macías, E., Javierre Lardies, C., Blanco Fernández, J.: Effect of lean manufacturing tools on sustainability: the case of Mexican maquiladoras. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-18978-6
Hu, Q., Mason, R., Williams, S.J., Found, P.: Lean implementation within SMEs: a literature review. J. Manuf. Technol. Manag. 26(7) (2015). https://doi.org/10.1108/JMTM-02-2014-0013
Imai, M.: Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success. McGraw-Hill Education (1986). https://books.google.pt/books?id=q0rCTQlvNMoC
Liker, J.: Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer. McGraw-Hill Education (2004)
Liker, J., Franz, J.: The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement : Linking Strategy and Operational Excellence to Achieve Superior Performance. McGraw-Hill Publishing (2011)
Little, J.D.C.: A proof for the queuing formula: L = λ W. Oper. Res. 9(3) (1961). https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.9.3.383
Miller, R.: The Shingo Model for Operational Excellence, p. 45. Jon M. Huntsman School of Business (2016)
Naftanaila, I., Radu, C., Cioana, G.: Operational excellence - a key to world-class business performance. Studies in Business & Economics. 8(3), 133–141 (2013)
Ohno, T.: Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production (C. Press, Ed.; 3a Edição). Productivity, Inc (1988).
Ortiz, C.A.: The TPM Playbook: A Step-by-Step Guideline for the Lean Practitioner. Productivity Press (2016)
Purvis, B., Mao, Y., Robinson, D.: Three pillars of sustainability: in search of conceptual origins. Sustain. Sci. 14(3) (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0627-5
Ribeiro, P., Sá, J.C., Ferreira, L.P., Silva, F.J.G., Pereira, M.T., Santos, G.: The impact of the application of lean tools for improvement of process in a plastic company: a case study. Proced. Manuf. 38 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2020.01.104
Rodrigues, J., Sá, J.C., Silva, F.J.G., Ferreira, L.P., Jimenez, G., Santos, G.: A rapid improvement process through “quick-win” lean tools: a case study. Systems. 8(4) (2020). https://doi.org/10.3390/systems8040055
Rother, M., Shook, J.: Learning to see: value stream mapping to add value and eliminate muda. In: The Lean Enterprise Institute (1999). https://doi.org/10.1109/6.490058
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., Thornhill, A.: Research Methods for Business Students, 5th edn. Pearson Education (2009)
Womack, J., Jones, D.: Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation. Fee Press (1996)
Womack, J., Jones, D., Roos, D.: The Machine that Changed the World. Free Press (1990)
Wong, Y.C., Wong, K.Y., Ali, A.: A study on lean manufacturing implementation in the Malaysian electrical and electronics industry. Eur. J. Sci. Res. 38(4) (2009)
Yue, D., Brychko, A.: Competitiveness of production as a determining factor of effective management of the enterprise in market conditions. Ekon. Upr. APK. 2(151), 10.33245/2310-9262-2019-151-2-67-75 (2019)
Zhou, B.: Lean principles, practices, and impacts: a study on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Ann. Oper. Res. 241(1–2) (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-012-1177-3
Acknowledgments
This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Macedo, H., Moniz, I., Dinis-Carvalho, J., Sousa, R. (2022). Applying Lean Tools to Improve the Performance of a Small and Medium-Sized Cutlery Company. In: López Sánchez, V.M., Mendonça Freires, F.G., Gonçalves dos Reis, J.C., Costa Martins das Dores, J.M. (eds) Industrial Engineering and Operations Management. IJCIEOM 2022. Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics, vol 400. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14763-0_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14763-0_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-14762-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-14763-0
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)