Lean and Green Product Development in SMEs: A Comparative Study between Small- and Medium-Sized Brazilian and Japanese Enterprises

Abstract

Facing the new challenges in production processes, companies should adopt lean and green practices in product development. In SMEs, the application of these practices is more complex. This work explores the maturity of lean–green methodologies in the product development process in Brazilian and Japanese SMEs. The methodology used is multicriteria, combining the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and TOPSIS 2-tuple method, applied to four Japanese SMEs and four Brazilian SMEs in the metalworking sector. The criteria for evaluating SMEs are company flexibility, difficulties with NPD, innovation, limited resources, and personnel authority high. The TOPSIS method alternatives refer to 18 lean–green enablers. In the AHP method, the prioritisation of criteria between Japanese and Brazilian specialists presented divergences. In the Japanese context, the incidence of innovation is predominant, while in the Brazilian context, the most important is the limited resources. In the TOPSIS 2-tuple method, the results showed a higher level of maturity in lean–green methodologies in Japanese companies than in Brazilian ones. Lean practices are more evolved compared to sustainable practices in both countries. The study also addressed how open innovation adoption may contribute to innovation and NPD practices. Policymakers need to understand the heterogeneity of innovators within SMEs and how they differently innovate, developing distinct internal and external activities.

Sustainable practices and their driving factors in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)

“…Meanwhile, Nor-Aishah et al (2020) and Hanaysha et al (2022) measured the sustainable performance of SMEs in a holistic manner, which consisted of three aspects known as economic, environmental and social sustainability. In some other previous studies, researchers focused on the adoption of "lean and green thinking" in achieving efficiency in production and reducing waste (Caldera et al, 2019), implementation of "lean thinking" in directing business firms towards sustainability practices (Franco & Rodrigues, 2021), application of "lean-green operations" in new product development for efficiency (Oliveira et al, 2022), green manufacturing practices and green innovation for corporate sustainable performance (Al-Hakimi et al, 2022), sustainable product and process design, sustainable waste disposal management, sustainable human resource management and local community development (Mitra, 2023) and, performing sustainable manufacturing practices which focused on using economically-sound processes to reduce negative environmental impacts in products production (Ali & Johl, 2023). It could be said that although many organizations have adopted sustainable practices, there remains no uniformed reporting standard and measurement of sustainable performance in which firms measure different things and report in different ways (Byrne, 2023;Ribeiro, 2023).…”

The link between lean manufacturing and Industry 4.0 for product development process: a systemic approach

“…The studies linking LM to the PDP encompass performance evaluations (de Toledo et al. , 2023), maturity assessments (Oliveira et al. , 2022; Sassanelli et al.…”

“…Throughout the phases of the PDP, integrating external knowledge with internal knowledge plays a crucial role in enhancing design quality and MP for new products, fostering synergy within the organisation (Benitez et al, 2022). Notably, several authors have suggested that LM principles can serve as catalysts for achieving superior market performance in the PDP (de Toledo et al, 2023;Dahmani et al, 2022;Francisco et al, 2022;Oliveira et al, 2022;Reis et al, 2021;Varl et al, 2020;Marodin et al, 2018). Therefore, the objective of our study is to investigate the potential positive association between LM and the various phases of the PDP, focussing on improving efficiency in terms of MP.…”

“…The studies linking LM to the PDP encompass performance evaluations (de Toledo et al, 2023), maturity assessments (Oliveira et al, 2022;Sassanelli et al, 2020) and investigations into the impact of LM practices and principles on innovation (Marodin et al, 2018;Reis et al, 2021). They propose methodologies for incorporating LM to develop sustainable products (Dahmani et al, 2022), utilise statistical techniques and quality tools in different phases of the PDP (Francisco et al, 2022) and explore the moderating role of LM in quality performance Lean manufacturing and Industry 4.0 in PDP (Marodin et al, 2018).…”

Exploring the Lean Implementation Barriers in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Using Interpretive Structure Modeling and Interpretive Ranking Process

“…Lean is considered to be a management practice that improves organizational performance, ultimately leading to sustainability; hence SMEs adopt lean principles in their operations [16]. Furthermore, while facing new challenges in production processes, companies should adopt lean and green practices in product development [19].…”