A study about the level of lean usage in plastic industry

Lean production strategy was created around the 1950’s in Japan and has been developed and applied worldwide since then. In Brazil, this strategy arrived during the 90’s and its application became a standard in successful industrial organizations. Therefore, it would be reasonable to suppose that nowadays lean production principles would be widely applied in Brazilian industrial companies. Thus, the aim of this research is to confirm this supposition in the context of the Brazilian plastic industry. The study was approached through a survey research. A sample of eight plastic companies was considered and the instrument used was a questionnaire based on a bibliographic research developed by Brazilian and Portuguese researchers. Levels of compliance of each item was transformed in a numerical rating scale. Originally in English, descriptions of items were translated to Portuguese and adapted to Brazilian industrial language. Results were analyzed one by one, and all together. Surprisingly, four companies have declared low knowledge and use of lean principles and tools. Three declared to have a good level of knowledge and application. One is in the middle level. Differently from what was supposed initially, lean strategy is not so well known and used in the sample of plastic industries.