Improving the Shipbuilding Sales Process by Selected Lean Management Tool

Abstract

Market positioning, i.e., the competitiveness of European shipyards, depends a lot on the measures of continuously improving the business processes, therefore meeting the criteria of environmental protection and sustainable energy. Lean management enables ongoing improvements of all system processes by recognizing and removing the unnecessary costs of the same, i.e., those activities which do not contribute to the added value for the customer. In this paper, the authors research the magnitude of improvements in the shipbuilding sales process achieved by applying the Lean tool “Value Stream Mapping” (VSM). The example of analysing the informational stream of the studied European shipyard’s existing sales process, performed by implementing the VSM, has defined the measures to decrease the losses in the process, with an emphasis on waiting time in internal and external communication. Upon VSM of the future state, measuring improvements realised by applying key performance indicators began. Significant cost savings in the sales process and the simultaneous increase of productivity of the employees participating in those process activities have been noted, as well as the substantial growth in sales and the shipyard’s income.

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