Lean thinking is a philosophy that allows organizations to move towards perfection through continuous improvement. With the applications of lean tools, it is possible to identify waste within an organization and present simple, effective, and cost-effective solutions to achieve higher productivity and profitability. The present article is a result of the work carried out in a company responsible for designing and projecting automated material handling and storage systems. Using lean tools such as value stream mapping (VSM), it was possible to identify several wastes and improvement opportunities throughout the productive chain. This article aims to present the solutions developed to reduce wastes in the internal logistics department. Subsequently, the application and evaluations of the impact of lean tools, it was possible to calculate the impact in the internal logistics which results in a decrease of 16% in the production costs.
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Currently, change is a constant in any market in which an organization belongs. Competitors become more aggressive, new opportunities, and new challenges arise such as as new technologies to support logistics, has contributing to force companies to adapt to changes to remain profitable and competitive (Dias et al., 2019). To this end, organizations must focus on identifying activities that add value, eliminate waste, increase the quality of their products and services, and thus increase customer satisfaction (Rosa et al., 2017).
Over the last years, continuous improvement, and the application of Lean tools have proved to be a key aspect on increasing the competitiveness of companies worldwide (Correia et al., 2018). The Lean philosophy aims to streamline companies to make them more dynamic, to be able to adapt to changes in the environment where they operate, eliminate waste, and promote a culture of continuous improvement within the entire organization (Pombal et al., 2019). Nevertheless, the application of Lean tools within an organization can lead to significant changes in its strategy (Silva & Gouveia, 2020), which can represent a change in the habits of employees, which often constitute a barrier to the implementation of these tools (Costa et al., 2018; Silva et al., 2022).
The work described in this article was developed in a company in the automation area, and its purpose was to propose the implementation of Lean tools to improve internal logistics processes, with regard to the flow of materials internally. The application of improvements proposed should cover stock management, visual management, 5S, and continuous improvement at Gemba, with the main objectives to be accomplished as follows: identifying the main wastes, reducing activities that do not add value, improving the supplies of materials at workstations and improvement in the organization and factory cleaning.