Estratégias de operações de plantas de empresas multinacionais instaladas no Brasil que adotam XPS: um estudo multicasos

Abstract

Multinational companies are increasingly adopting a corporate system called XPSs: being XPS defined as – Specific Company Production System (usually X is replaced by the company's name). As stated earlier, XPSs are corporate production systems that define production behavior patterns; are programs of improvement to be adopted in the productive units (industrial plants) of the companies, generally they are inspired in the Toyota System of Production (TPS). Exogenous factors such as: economic crisis; decrease in sales volume; Inventory surpluses are encouraging companies to adopt this production system to survive in a highly competitive market. In this research it is proposed to identify and analyze the strategies of plant operations of industrial companies located in Brazil that applied XPSs. To do this, a survey was carried out in the first phase of the research to identify industrial plants with XPS in Brazil. From this point on, a Cluster Analysis was conducted based on the results of the survey. Where three groups were identified: cluster 1 made of 12 multinational industrial plants with advanced XPSs; Cluster 2 with 9 plants of mixed capital industrial companies, with XPSs in the intermediate stage; and the last cluster is made by 4 plants of large industrial companies nationwide with XPSs in the initial phase of implementation of lean production. Five practices of lean production were found by the answered questionnaires by the queried companies: “5S”; Visual management; Quality control; Kaizen and Team work. In the second phase of the research (case study) all companies that participated in the survey were invited to an interview. The case studies resulted in seven analysis in five companies: two plants with longitudinal analysis (2015 and 2018); three cases from the same company and two cases from different units. The goal of the second phase of the research was to characterize in detail the content of the production strategy (decision areas and competitive priorities) of the multinational companies that adopt the XPSs and the factors that determine their constitution.