Lean manufacturing for SMEs: Enabling rapid response to demand changes
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Achanga, Pius Coxwell
Shehab, Essam
Roy, Rajkumar
Nelder, Geoff
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Pius Achanga, Esam Shehab, Rajkumar Roy and Geoff Nelder, Lean manufacturing for SMEs: Enabling rapid response to demand changes, Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED '05), Melbourne, Australia, 15-18 August 2005, paper number DS35_471.44.
Abstract
Small-to-medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) make significant contributions to most national economies. In the UK for instance, SMEs account for up to 40% of gross domestic product (GDP) and 85% of newly created jobs. However, the current economic turnaround, fostered by recent technological advances in terms of e-commerce coupled with the advent of globalisation, has been felt in the manufacturing sector in general but more severely by SMEs. This paper aims to demonstrate through a case study approach how lean manufacturing can enable organisations to respond rapidly to sudden changes in customer demand.