Adaptação, implantação e avaliação de uma proposta de manufatura responsiva para a indústria de calçados: pesquisa-ação.

Abstract

Nowadays enterprises are structuring themselves to become competitive in the world market. In the footwear business the search for competitiveness is even greater as this sector is highly dependent on labour and its products follow international fashion trends which make internal organisation and production and planning control (PPC) extremely difficult. A lot of research has been carried out to contribute to the improvement of this sector and this work is going to complement this body of research, helping the national footwear industry enterprises to become more competitive. The aim of this study is to adapt, implement and evaluate a model proposed in a doctorate thesis concerning a new approach of Responsive Manufacturing through action-research in a footwear factory. The object of study was a children s footwear factory in the city of Birigui in São Paulo state, whose workers had a strong influence on the research, thus characterising it as action-research. Considering these facts, it was possible to achieve the study s aim and to initiate the implementation of the Responsive Manufacturing paradigm in the footwear industry. Among the results obtained, we can highlight the following: reduction of production and labour costs; an increase in the amount of orders supplied within the deadlines; and the decrease of rework level. All these results also contribute to reducing the existing gap between theory and practice in Production Engineering studies and open up opportunities for new research in the footwear industry sector.