Practical Implementation of Lean at Small and Young Companies

Sammanfattning: Introduction: This thesis aims to investigate how a small and young company can implement the management philosophy Lean. The thesis is designed as a literature study with two objectives. The first objective is to identify what Lean is and what its underlying tools, methods and principles are. The first objective is accomplished in the results chapter. The second objective is to investigate how these tools, methods and principles can be implemented at small and young companies. The second objective is completed in the analysis chapter. Method: The database LUBsearch has been used to search for relevant scientific articles. Peer Review were used to verify the quality of the articles. Two books and a lecture from Lund University were also used. Results: The results display several methods, tools and principles that can be used when implementing the Lean philosophy e.g. Just-in-Time, Autonomation and Kaizen. Analysis: The analysis evaluates the tools from the results. An investigation on how Lean can be implemented at small companies and at young companies is conducted. Lastly, the tools, methods and principles that are well suited to be implement at young and small companies are implemented at a real company. Conclusion: The conclusion discusses the evaluations of the Lean tools and the practical Lean implementation at the real company. The majority of the evaluated tools and methods are proved to be applicable at small and young companies. The truly difficult aspect of implementing Lean at a young and small company turned out to be making people use the Lean tools, methods and principles.