Desenvolvimento de produto lean e green: um estudo comparativo entre pequenas e médias empresas brasileiras e japonesas

Abstract

With the increase in competitiveness between enterprises, aiming to meet the needs of the increasingly demanding consumer market, they focused on the development of new products, seeking to obtain higher yields with less waste by adopting lean practices. This methodology in production is seen as a way to develop new products with greater precision or improve existing products with aspirations for greater success in the market where they are inserted. Still, in order to produce with awareness, it became necessary to satisfy customers and consume a minimum of resources that is, also adopting the concept of green products, which can be defined as the ability of a product to be manufactured continuously, ensuring lower impacts environmental and providing economic and social benefits to stakeholders. For small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the application of these concepts is more complex, due to the limited amount of available resources. In this sense, the objective of this work is to analyze the maturity of lean and green methodologies in the product development process in Brazilian and Japanese SMEs. The methodology used is multi-criteria, combining the Hierarchical Analysis Process (AHP) method, in which criteria are prioritized and TOPSIS 2-Tuple, in which the 18 lean-green enablersare ranked. The research comprises four Japanese and four Brazilian SMEs, in the metal mechanic sector and with activities focused on product development. The criteria for evaluating SMEs arecompany flexibility, difficulties with NPD, innovation, limited resources and High Authority. The alternatives of the TOPSIS 2-Tuple method refer to 18 enablers of lean-green methodologies found in the literature. The AHP method, when applied with specialists from both countries, showed a divergence in the hierarchy of what are the most relevant characteristics in the enterprises. For the Japanese, the incidence of innovation is the main characteristic of SMEs and is elected as a benefit criterion thathasa positive impact on the enterprises, whereas for Brazilians, the most determining characteristic is the limited resources in the processes, which is elected as a criterion cost, that is, it has a negative impact. In the TOPSIS 2-Tuple method, the resultsfound were that Japanese enterpriseshave a higher maturity level than Brazilian enterprises both in the lean methodology and in the green methodology, which could be analyzed based on the application responses in the research instrument. However, in bothcountries, enterprisesshow a lower adherence to green methodology enablersthan lean. In addition, Japanese companies show greater emphasis on forming a well-structured work team, with strong project management, and invest more in technologies to composeprototyping and testing prior to launching new products.