Barriers and opportunities in implementation of Lean Manufacturing tools in the ceramic industry

Abstract

The concept of lean management in an organization, improving products and processes using the Lean Manufacturing concept, is discussed in this paper. Striving for excellence is the key factor in maintaining competitiveness on the market. Only organizations able to adapt to changing environmental conditions faster than others achieve an advantage, and the management in line with the Lean Manufacturing philosophy is de facto change management. In this paper, important factors in the ceramic industry, which should be taken into account when implementing Lean Manufacturing are characterized. Important factors affecting the implementation of lean tools include, such as: the size of the enterprise, involvement of employees, knowledge about the Lean concept, technological factor, type and variety of the product line, as well as the specificity of the ceramic industry. The greatest opportunity associated with the implementation of Lean is to increase the competitiveness of the company obtained through: meeting the quality and economic expectations of customers. The greatest opportunity associated with implementation of the Lean is to increase competitiveness of the company obtained through: meeting the quality and economic expectations of their customers. Practice shows, however, that despite the simplicity of rules and tools, few organizations manage to achieve the level of excellence of the pioneer of this concept, the Japanese Toyota Corporation.

Implementation of Lean Instruments in Ceramics Industries

“…An improvement in the functioning of a given enterprise may take place when the most important factors influencing the company's management are taken into account. Also, the selection of techniques and tools should be individual, taking into account specific technical and organizational requirements [21,22]. That is why many organizations strive for Lean Manufacturing (LM), which is a standard in the automotive industry [23,24,25] and for other industries in this ceramics industry it is a new production paradigm that focuses on reducing all types of waste and improving efficiency and resource use [26,27,28].…”

Problems with the Implementation of Industry 4.0 in Enterprises from the SME Sector

“…The global industrial landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years due to the rapid technological development and innovation in production processes [1]. In recent years, many initiatives have been launched for intelligent production in the world in order for a significant share of industry in the economy to be stored and regained [2,3].…”

LEAN Production issues in the organization of the company - results

“…During the examination of the process, it is also necessary to collect the data on duration of both the complete retooling and its individual components. For this purpose, chronometrical measurements should be made (Walczak, 2009;Kleszcz, 2018)…”