El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Micro and small businesses in the metalworking sector present a high percentage of informality, and the majority of their production processes are not documented nor standardized. The production approach of Toyota, the enterprise-resource-planning system, and the lean manufacturing system were created for large organizations with sufficient financial resources to successfully implement these models. However, the human factor is a critical component in implementing these models. Therefore, a production management model has been proposed, which is based on lean manufacturing and focuses on the human factor, to increase productivity in the production area of a metalworking company, a small business. The result was that the company’s mentality changed, reaching a productivity of 70% through the use of lean manufacturing tools in the production area.

This research study seeks to identify and prioritize the causes of order fulfillment delays in a small wooden furniture manufacturing company. The authors propose a 5-phase Lean Optimization model to address and reduce this problem. Post-implementation results yielded a 54.87% reduction in material search and transportation times, a 32.86% reduction in travel times between stations, and a 19.81% increase in line efficiency. In addition, order fulfillment percentages increased from 12.5% to 60%.