TO IMPLEMENT LEAN MANAGEMENT IN INDUSTRIAL PLANTS

TO IMPLEMENT LEAN MANAGEMENT IN INDUSTRIAL PLANTS

The terms lean production (production translated into Castilian as adjusted) and lean management (lean management) have been used by Womack et al. (1990) to refer to the technical production of Toyota. These techniques and the philosophy underlying them had been disclosed previously in the West and Just-in-Time (Sugimori et al., 1977). The principles of this approach are the fight against wastage of resources on activities that add value for the customer and better use of the experience and intelligence personnel through versatility and continuous improvement.

The principles and tools of lean management (mirror and moyano (2007) made a revision according to different approaches) are applied to companies from different countries, of varying size, linked or not to the car even in the services sector (Emiliani, 2000; swank , 2003). In every case where it has been implemented has obtained a result of mixing between the fundamentals of lean management, national culture and the specific environment of the company (Sayer, 1986).

Since the lean concept is relatively recent, the literature refers to it has no extension to other fields, but in literature success stories based on accurate and complete adoption of the lean philosophy is' and failures due, above all, a mindset unpropitious to the transformation and lean mimetic simple implantation of a toolkit.

How to implement the principles is not part of this body of doctrine focuses philosophy because implanter is a dynamic of continuous improvement starting from the initial situation of the company and their context. toyota implant its management system through a process of trial and error over the years and with a particular sociopolitical environment (Kenney and Florida, 1993), so that the implementation process is now extrapolated (Spear and Bowen, 1999 ). Subsequent experience has also led to a unique pattern of implementation models appearing in the literature are quotas: ex-post analyzes are performed on locations already made, seeking common threads in each process of implementing and developing intuitive relationships in a group of companies (Garcia and Avella, 2007), to reach conclusions that are valid under certain conditions. Some studies, following the institutional theory, intended to guide future implementations by inference from known cases, applying procedures that success is predictable. This group methodologies developed by the Lean Aerospace Initiative (Crabill et al., 2000) and the Lean Enterprise Research Centre (Hines and Taylor, 2000), which are discussed in this article.

This paper provides a methodology for implementing a lean system for medium sized industrial plants and autonomous management when taking decisions regarding the adoption of the lean philosophy. The study uses an action research methodology, as some of the authors have been involved in implementations described, ensuring a thorough understanding of the cases.

The research has been divided into the following steps:

- Definition of the scope.

- Review of the literature on implementation of the principles of lean management and identification of elements to include in the methodology developed here.

- Specification of the objectives.

- Detailed description of the steps of the methodology.

- Description of actual cases.

2. DEFINITION OF A METHOD OF IMPLEMENTATION LEAN PRODUCTION.

2.1 Scope

The methodology set has been applied, and therefore leads to plants with siguientes features:

a. Medium size: large plants the need for coordination of the whole plant imposes other needs while they must have sufficient size to provide expert engineering products and processes and assume that devote part of their time to the project development.

b. Autonomy of management: The manager of the plant can make decisions without being an agile mode in operating subject to the overall policies of a parent company issues. While it is necessary that a strong dependence on individual customers is given. Be given this dependence, the client company and should be subject to a methodology that would raise a joint implementation (for example, be the case for companies that work exclusively for automakers serving the just-in-time) .

c. industrial activity: While lean management also applies to service companies, the methodology proposed here fits the manufacturing production. Companies studied, prior to implantation, have a conventional management based on plants produced in batches with functional arrangement.

d. Average technological level: high-tech companies have their own constraints.

2.2 Relationship with the literature

In the literature there are several papers on lean implementation methodologies. In this paper we focus on three methods that have the backing of centers of reference in the application and study of lean management.

According Filippini et al. (1998), the differences between improvement initiatives depend on the changes affect only the machinery and production equipment or the organization, and whether the company adopts new techniques of production partially or totally.

Womack and Jones (1996) included in his book Lean Thinking a chapter devoted to the implementation and indicating the stages that comprise and propose a policy to follow. The sequence starts with a partial decision to phase lead to complete adoption.

The Going lean work (Hines and Taylor, 2000) born in the lean enterprise Research Centre influences the design phase transformation. This methodology is specially designed for the automotive sector in the UK and recommends a comprehensive analysis to deal with a widespread adoption as possible.

A third approach to implement lean processes from initial preparation to continuous improvement, was developed in the framework of the Lean Aerospace Initiative facing American companies aeronautical sector (Crabill et al., 2000).

The three methods outlined have much in common and have been taken as a basis for defining the new methodology. A first distinction in relation to them is the field: the works of Womack and Jones (1996) and Crabill et al. (2000) consider a process transfection total of the company, while our empirical work focuses on the change in operating a plant. Furthermore, these methods are defined to be applied in large companies (very large compared to the dimension of existing companies in Spain).

...