Trabalho realizado na Bi-Silque - Produtos de comunicação Visual S.A., orientado pelo Engenheiro Abel Maia / Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Mecânica. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2012

This dissertation aims to contribute to the discourse on the future of manufacturing in Sweden. It is argued that the real threat does not come from lower wages in Eastern Europe and Asia. Rather it comes from an inability to make the most of existing manufacturing systems. The joint contribution of the underlying studies that this dissertation is based on provides compelling support for corroborating this line of thought. More important, however, is that in addition to showing that there is room for improvement, a lot of input is provided on how to act creatively for enhanced performance. The discussion on how to act mainly focuses on three research issues. First, enhancing continuous improvement capability. The continuous improvement abilities considered most important for Swedish manufacturers to develop are pointed out. That is, the ability to adopt a systematic and strategic approach to continuous improvements, the ability to lead the way towards continuous improvements, and finally the ability to involve customers and suppliers in continuous improvements. Furthermore, the likely positive performance impact of accomplishing this is clarified. Second, adopting the principles of lean manufacturing. Rather than reinforcing Taylorism, it is shown that lean manufacturing seems to contribute to the creation of sustainable work systems in Sweden. However, a broad process of change awaits the many companies that might aspire to transform their operations in this direction. In order to reap the full potential of this strategy, the work organisation, as well as management accounting and remuneration systems, must change, not only manufacturing processes. Third and finally, making more effective outsourcing decisions. It is shown that any positive effects of outsourcing manufacturing are more likely to be realized if concurrent initiatives are taken to develop the capability of the manufacturing function. The analysis also indicates a potential for taking a more strategic approach to outsourcing, i.e., outsourcing in order to increase focus on core manufacturing activities and take advantage of the supplier’s higher innovation capability. Moreover, a potential for selecting suppliers more appropriately is also indicated, such as by trying to achieve greater economies of scale. The chosen methodological approach has been to combine two large-scale surveys of representative samples of Swedish engineering industry companies with two multiple case studies. The surveys measured continuous improvement behaviours, lean manufacturing and outsourcing, and provides descriptive statistics as well as tests of theoretical assumptions. The case studies provide a deeper understanding of researched issues. One was designed to illustrate how the Balanced Scorecard may enhance the continuous improvement capability level, and the other, to hearing some voices of the empirical field. / QC 20100525

Pour faire face aux contraintes économiques (demande de plus en plus importante pour de la personnalisation de masse, globalisation et réduction des coûts...), le développement de stratégies de production " Juste À Temps ", ou " Lean Manufacturing " impose la réorganisation de l'entreprise sur les activités génératrices de valeur en suivant une logique de chaîne de valeur pour éviter tout gaspillage. Cette stratégie conduit de fait à un recentrage métier et une extension de la chaîne de valeur. L'entreprise est donc amenée à développer des stratégies de collaboration (Bare et Cox, 2008 ; Davis, 1987) et doit disposer d'un SI Lean (réponse au plus juste), agile pour réagir aux fluctuations et aléas, ouvert pour assurer un partenariat avec ses fournisseurs, ses clients et ses partenaires et, enfin, interopérable pour faciliter la communication entre les différents systèmes et concilier ces différentes facettes métiers. Or, le SI de l'entreprise est constitué d'une multiplicité de logiciels (l'ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), le MES (Manufacturing Execution System), le PLM (Product Life-cycle Management), le SCM (Supply Chain Management)...). Chaque système vise à répondre à un objectif donné pour une facette métier, et est développé selon des spécifications métier propres échappant le plus souvent à toute standardisation. Ceci engendre une redondance, une hétérogénéité et une augmentation du volume d'information, d'où des risques d'incohérence, de rigidité du SI et notamment une grande difficulté de communication dans le cadre de collaboration interentreprises. Pour répondre à ces aléas, il importe de définir un SI agile et interopérable et de réorganiser les processus pour supporter la chaîne de valeur de l'entreprise. C'est dans cet objectif que nous proposons de développer un Lean ESB (Enterprise Service Bus), socle d'une Architecture Orientée Services, doté d'une couche sémantique métier. Nous avons défini quatre modules du Lean ESB : * Le module de médiation définit les échanges d'information entre les différents métiers et entre le métier et la technologie pour assurer le fonctionnement des autres modules. * Le module de chorégraphie dynamique permet de composer les services industriels pour définir les processus selon les besoins de production spécifiés par le client. * Le module de routage intelligent organise les ressources de l'atelier pour définir des processus en flux tirés. * Le module de monitoring et gouvernance permet de contrôler la performance de la production et la qualité des produits.

Continuous improvement as a business philosophy and quality management strategy has become the choice of many organisations world-wide. It is a concept filled with the promise for excellence in quality, customer service distinction and business efficiencies. Continuous improvement philosophies like Lean Manufacturing, promote tools, techniques and a culture of quality values that have the potential to create a dynamic business environment, capable of seizing opportunity, predicting failures and surpassing competition. Why then, are these organisations that are so vehemently pursuing continuous improvement initiatives with concerted efforts not reaping the rewards that have been successfully achieved by a monumental few great organisations? According to the literature study, failure to implement continuous improvement (CI) programs successfully stems from a lack of focus on the soft side of continuous improvement efforts. The soft issues that are considered vital to successful implementation include an employee’s quality cultural values and an organisations soft key success factors for CI implementation. This study focused on how these soft variables have an impact on employee attitudes such as job satisfaction, employee commitment, intentions to quit and work success. The theoretical research conducted in this study focused on continuous improvement cultural values and the key soft success factors for CI implementation impact on work related attitudes like job satisfaction, employee commitment, intentions to quit and work success. The empirical study was conducted on 149 employees in a multi-national manufacturing company. A questionnaire was distributed throughout the entire company to verify how the theoretical and empirical data compared. The study concluded that the specific cultural value of shared vision and goals was a significant predictor of all four work related attitudes, whilst other cultural values of purpose and continuous improvement also proved to be significant predictors. The study concluded that key soft success factors like leadership, training and development and job security were significant predictors of employee commitment, whilst communication and job security were significant predictors of job satisfaction. Thus, work related attitudes like employee commitment is greater when employees identify and exhibit favourable quality cultural values and also when employees perceive that their organisation possess essential key soft factors for successful CI implementation. Incorporating these findings into recommendations will allow for organisations implementing CI programs, to develop the soft issues of CI that have a beneficial impact on work related attitudes that lead to successful and sustainable continuous improvement efforts. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Continuous improvement as a business philosophy and quality management strategy has become the choice of many organisations world-wide. It is a concept filled with the promise for excellence in quality, customer service distinction and business efficiencies. Continuous improvement philosophies like Lean Manufacturing, promote tools, techniques and a culture of quality values that have the potential to create a dynamic business environment, capable of seizing opportunity, predicting failures and surpassing competition. Why then, are these organisations that are so vehemently pursuing continuous improvement initiatives with concerted efforts not reaping the rewards that have been successfully achieved by a monumental few great organisations? According to the literature study, failure to implement continuous improvement (CI) programs successfully stems from a lack of focus on the soft side of continuous improvement efforts. The soft issues that are considered vital to successful implementation include an employee’s quality cultural values and an organisations soft key success factors for CI implementation. This study focused on how these soft variables have an impact on employee attitudes such as job satisfaction, employee commitment, intentions to quit and work success. The theoretical research conducted in this study focused on continuous improvement cultural values and the key soft success factors for CI implementation impact on work related attitudes like job satisfaction, employee commitment, intentions to quit and work success. The empirical study was conducted on 149 employees in a multi-national manufacturing company. A questionnaire was distributed throughout the entire company to verify how the theoretical and empirical data compared. The study concluded that the specific cultural value of shared vision and goals was a significant predictor of all four work related attitudes, whilst other cultural values of purpose and continuous improvement also proved to be significant predictors. The study concluded that key soft success factors like leadership, training and development and job security were significant predictors of employee commitment, whilst communication and job security were significant predictors of job satisfaction. Thus, work related attitudes like employee commitment is greater when employees identify and exhibit favourable quality cultural values and also when employees perceive that their organisation possess essential key soft factors for successful CI implementation. Incorporating these findings into recommendations will allow for organisations implementing CI programs, to develop the soft issues of CI that have a beneficial impact on work related attitudes that lead to successful and sustainable continuous improvement efforts. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Cocoa has been useful in several ways, especially to countries that produce it and consumers all over the world. Its benefits range from improving economies to satisfying millions all over the world who desire one cocoa product or the other. The production of cocoa however is not without its own attendant problems. Aging tree stock, spread of diseases, and production capacity problems are, but a few of many challenges that seed gardens that produce cocoa face. This study investigated the pollination process on selected seed gardens in Ghana, the second largest world producer of cocoa. The purpose of this study was to investigate the artificial pollination process of cocoa on seed gardens in Ghana, and explore ways by which the Lean principle of Value Stream Mapping could be applied in improving the process. The process of pollination was observed on eighteen seed gardens, and a current value stream map depicting the existing process developed to give an indication of the current state of affairs. Subsequently, a future value stream map based on the current map was developed to show aspects of the process that could be improved to enhance the operations of the seed gardens. The future value stream map revealed that operational procedures relating to cleaning and preparation of trees, choosing male and female trees for pollination, harvesting of pollen, and manually pollinating practices presented various avenues for improving the pollination process and hence seed production output.

O processo de desenvolvimento de sistemas de grande porte, envolvem particularidades que tornam a sua gestão mais complexa, quando comparada ao desenvolvimento de sistemas tradicionais. Estudos ilustram resultados favoráveis quando aplicado a filosofia ágil durante o processo de fabricação de um software, no entanto, desperdícios ainda são observados quando o contexto do desenvolvimento são aplicações de grande porte. Assim sendo, a pesquisa em questão procura a redução de desperdícios identificados durante o processo de desenvolvimento de sistemas de grande porte. Foram realizados estudos teóricos e práticos objetivando analisar as técnicas e ferramentas Lean para obtenção de resultados mais eficientes. O estudo apresenta e discute conceitos do Lean para desenvolvimento de software e a sua relação com as metodologias ágeis para desenvolvimento de sistemas de informação. Resultados apontam melhorias no processo de desenvolvimento de software além da redução de desperdícios com superprodução de funcionalidades e defeitos encontrados. A dissertação em questão será constituída de uma etapa de revisão da literatura, e duas próximas etapas com aplicações práticas de ferramentas e técnicas Lean para a redução de desperdício no processo de desenvolvimento de software de grande porte. / The development process of large systems involves particularities that make their management more complex when compared to the development of traditional systems. Studies illustrate favorable results when applied to agile philosophy during the manufacturing process of a software, however, wastes are still observed when the development context are large applications. Therefore, the research in question seeks the reduction of wastes identified during the development process of large systems. Theoretical and practical studies were carried out to analyze Lean techniques and tools to obtain more efficient results. The study presents and discusses Lean concepts for software development and its relationship with agile methodologies for the development of information systems. Results point to improvements in the software development process besides the reduction of waste with overproduction of functionalities and defects found. The dissertation in question consists of a literature review stage, and two next steps with practical applications of tools and Lean techniques to reduce waste in the large software development process.

Diante de um crescimento econômico, as empresas de maneira geral e, em particular, a indústria de manufatura, acabam procurando um meio de eliminar perdas que estão em evidência e outras que não estão tão expostas, para assim maximizar seus lucros. Este trabalho mostra uma programação de produção otimizada, de modo a aumentar a disponibilidade de um equipamento responsável em manufaturar mais de um modelo de produto. Com exigências cada vez maiores, os consumidores obrigam a indústria a variar seu mix de produção de modo a não poder mais possuir equipamentos dedicados para cada tipo de modelo produzido. Com isso, exige-se cada vez mais o uso de abordagens de pesquisa operacional para poder montar um cronograma de produção de forma mais rápida e assertiva. Não se pode deixar de considerar a influência da disponibilidade do equipamento para o bom andamento da programação da produção. Alinhado a isto ao avaliar as maiores perdas de um equipamento, verifica-se a necessidade de se reduzir seu tempo de set-up. Para que isto seja possível, é sugerida a aplicação da metodologia SMED, a qual foi criada dentro do sistema Lean Manufacturing, mais especificamente do sistema TPM. Do ponto de vista da otimização, o problema proposto é desafiador, já que há múltiplos processadores idênticos, em paralelo e o set-up entre os produtos é dependente da sequência de produção. Assim, cabe ao sistema proposto definir quanto da demanda total de cada produto será produzida em cada um dos processadores, visando a minimização do tempo total de set-up. Ou seja, os lotes de produção não têm tamanho fixo. Foi proposta uma abordagem híbrida usando regras de despacho (heurísticas) para a solução do problema proposto, com resultados satisfatórios. / Due to economic growth, companies in general – but particularly manufacturing industries - end up looking for a way to eliminate losses that are evident and others that are not so easy to identify so as to maximize profits. This project seeks for an optimal production schedule to increase the availability of a device responsible for manufacturing more than one product. With increased demands from customers, industry is compelled to vary its production mix so that it can not have equipment dedicated to each produced model type. Thus, the use of operational research approaches is more and more required to be able to set up a production schedule in a faster and assertive way. One can not stop considering the influence of equipment availability for a smoother production scheduling. Aligned with this, when evaluating the major losses at the equipment, there is a need to reduce the set-up time. To make this possible, it is suggested the implementation of the SMED methodology, which was created within Lean Manufacturing - more specifically, by TPM system. From the perspective of optimization, the proposed problem is challenging since there are multiple identical parallel processors with sequence dependent set-ups. Thus, it is up to the proposed system to define how much of the total demand for each product will be produced in each of the processors in order to minimize the total set-up time. In other words, production lots have no fixed size. It was proposed a hybrid approach using dispatch rules (heuristics) for the solution of the proposed problem that have presented satisfactory results.

A competitividade de uma empresa é passível de ser construída em diferentes dimensões. Entre elas, está o modelo de gestão da produção. E, nesse sentido, destacam-se ferramentas do modelo lean. Esse modelo de produção tem sido o núcleo de numerosas iniciativas de melhoria contínua e referenciado como necessário para o aumento da competitividade das empresas. Contudo, ao considerarmos o universo das médias empresas e a implementação de um modelo de produção, realizado como um processo contínuo de melhoria, que permite estabelecer os objetivos e as capacidades da empresa, além de orientar à melhor utilização dos recursos, é pouco utilizado, e tais organizações se apresentam ineficientes na implementação de um modelo de produção que aumente sua competitividade. Partindo dessa proposição, uma empresa que adotou como modelo de gestão da produção o lean, deveria ter, também informação acerca dos benefícios das ferramentas implementadas, bem como o seu efeito sobre o desempenho produtivo. Nesse sentido, a proposta deste trabalho consiste em avaliar quais ferramentas do modelo lean foram implementadas em cinco médias empresas do segmento automotivo, em diferentes países, se houve benefícios para o processo produtivo em função da implementação e se as ferramentas foram implementadas baseadas em algum método estruturado ou não. / Submitted by Marcelo Teixeira (mvteixeira@ucs.br) on 2014-04-29T11:40:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Rubilar Toniazzo.pdf: 2713904 bytes, checksum: 503ebd1c9afeeaa97084a6d3d6c6636f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-04-29T11:40:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Rubilar Toniazzo.pdf: 2713904 bytes, checksum: 503ebd1c9afeeaa97084a6d3d6c6636f (MD5) / The competitiveness of a company is liable to be built in different dimensions. Among them, the model of production management. And in this sense we highlight the model lean tools. This production model has been the core of numerous continuous improvement initiatives and referenced as needed to increase the competitiveness of companies. However, when considering the universe of medium enterprises and a implementation of a production model, performed as a continuous process of improvement, which allows us to establish the goals and capabilities of the company, besides guiding the best use of resources, it is rarely used and such organizations present inefficient implementation of a production model that increases their competitiveness. From this proposition, a company that has adopted as a model of lean production management, should have the information about the contribution of the tools implemented, as well as its effect on performance. In this sense, the purpose of this study is to assess which model lean tools were implemented in five medium-sized companies from the automotive sector, in different countries, there are benefits to the production process due to the implementation and tools have been implemented based on a structured method or not.

The movement and handling of material are necessary activities, however, commonly regarded as waste. Moving and handling material more times and over longer distance than necessary is time consuming, costly and unproductive. Therefore, a suitable material handling (MH) system with appropriate facility layout is advocated. The purpose of this thesis is to explore options for material flow improvements and handling of material in production area. This comprises of a study of the material flow from storage to production areas and the handling of material in production section A. If necessary for improvements of material flow, a change in layout design will be recommended. The research approach for this thesis is a case study where data has been collected from documents, observations and interviews. The study shows that 9 % of the production time of one article is spent on manual material handling (MMH). These activities are classified as both waste and necessary, however not adding any value. The same applies for the material flow. Unnecessary distances of movements are caused by the current location of storage, operations and lack of proper structure for handling and moving material. The contribution of this study is a list of suggestions for improving the material flow and handling. Changes for improvements are, namely, availability of appropriate equipment, storing materials closer to the operations and investing in automation and vision systems with cameras of robots. The material flow and the way the material is handled can further beimproved by a change in the layout of the production area. Connecting and rearranging operations can shorter and ease the movement of material with ample space to handle the material.