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A Literature Review on Lean Manufacturing in Small Manufacturing Companies

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Progress in Lean Manufacturing

Abstract

This chapter aims to identify, through a systematic literature review, the main Lean Manufacturing (LM) practices, critical success factors (CSF) and barriers within small manufacturing companies’ context. This paper presents a systematic literature review based on the proposed approach denoted as ProKnow-C to identify the correlated bibliographic portfolio (BP). Our findings indicate that the consolidation of specific CSF related to the context of small manufacturing companies reinforces the body of knowledge, reinforcing the establishment of a broader perspective of LM implementation in these companies. Further, the capability of disseminating the continuous improvement mindset across all employees is a significant challenge for these companies, since their leaders are poorly trained in accordance with the underlying LM principles. The recent growth of small companies and their relevance to socioeconomic development has raised the importance of improving their management processes. Particularly for LM implementation, few studies have specifically approached this context whose challenges may be differentiated, highlighting the need for a better comprehension of proper practices, barriers, and CSF.

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Appendix—Bibliographical Portfolio

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    Article  Google Scholar 

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    Google Scholar 

  • Zhou, B. (2016). Lean principles, practices, and impacts: A study on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Annals of Operations Research, 241(1–2), 457–474.

    Article  Google Scholar 

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Pereira, L.G., Tortorella, G.L. (2018). A Literature Review on Lean Manufacturing in Small Manufacturing Companies. In: Davim, J. (eds) Progress in Lean Manufacturing. Management and Industrial Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73648-8_3

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