An evaluation of Lean deployment in Irish micro-enterprises

Figures & data

Table 1. Literature themes related to Lean deployment in SME’s & Micro Enterprises.

Lean in Small and Medium and Micro Enterprises – Literature themes	Cited literature
Studies related to ME’s	Gaps in Lean ME literature Shah and Shrivastava (2013); Alkhoraif et al. (2019); O’Reilly et al. (2021)
Motivations for implementing	Competitiveness O’Reilly et al. (2021); Bhat et al. (2021); Keegan (2014)
Challenges for implementing	Lack of leadership support/strategy alignment Belhadi et al. (2019); Alkhoraif et al. (2019); Al-Balushi et al. (2014) Lack of training Al-Balushi et al. (2014); Belhadi et al. (2019) Lack of resources Gherhes et al. (2016); Bhat et al. (2021); Sahoo (2020); Albalkhy and Sweis (2021) Poor culture Inan et al. (2021); Albliwi et al. (2014)
CSF’s for deployment	Leadership support Albliwi et al. (2014); Antony et al. (2020); Trubetskaya et al. (2022) Government supports O’Reilly et al. (2021); Bhat et al. (2021); Lande et al. (2016); Brennan (2018); Keegan (2014)
Lean tools deployed	Simple tools Hu et al. (2015); Nguyen (2015)

Table 2. Study participants by sector type with the Irish Micro Enterprise.

Participant No.	No. of employees working in each ME organisation	Industry type	Length of Lean programme deployment	No. of employees trained
1	Eight	Service Provider	<1 year	75%
2	Five	IT/Telecommunications	1 year	100%
3	Nine	Design & Manufacturing	1.5 year	100%
4	Nine	Design & Manufacturing	2 years	100%
5	Six	Design & Manufacturing	1.5 years	100%
6	Three	Design & Manufacturing	1 year	100%
7	Five	Agriculture & Food	2 years	100%
8	Three	Design & Manufacturing	1 year	100%
9	Three	Agriculture & Food	2 years	100%
10	Three	IT/Telecommunications	1 year	100%
11	Two	IT/Telecommunications	<1 year	100%
12	Three	Agriculture & Food	1.5 years	100%
13	Eight	Design & Manufacturing	<1 year	100%
14	Six	IT/Telecommunications	2.5 years	100%
15	Nine	Retail	1 year	50%
16	Two	Agriculture & Food	2 years	100%
17	Eight	Transport & Logistics	1 year	100%
18	Two	Service Provider	1.5 years	100%
19	Three	Agriculture & Food		100%
20	Nine	Design & Manufacturing	1 year	100%
21	Nine	Agriculture & Food	9 months	100%
22	Nine	Agriculture & Food	2 years	100%

Figure 1. Breakdown of participant ME’s by sector.

Figure 2. Functional role of participants in the ME’s.

Table 3. Key reasons for Lean initiative deployment in Irish ME’s obtained from interviews

Key reasons for Lean deployment in ME’s	Frequency
Improve delivery times	20
Work faster	16
Streamline processes	5
Improve productivity	15
Brexit	3
COVID-19	5
Understand and reduce waste	12
Process and efficiency improvement	8
Increase competitiveness	22
Reduce congestion	7
Layout improvement	9
Improve data & admin processes	12

Figure 3. Lean tools deployed by participant ME’s.

Figure 4. Lean tools deployed comparison by sector.

Table 4. Sample results of Lean deployments in Irish MEs case study

Results
‘Standardised scheduling and reporting system’ P1
‘Improved customer order prioritisation system and order tracking’ P3
‘Improved inventory management and replenishment which has led to increased productivity’ P4
‘Time delays reduced, cost savings, and increased profitability’ P6
‘Improvement in stock management and stock control and identification’ P7
‘Real time quote system eliminating non value add administration stages’ P8
‘Improved invoicing process and faster payments – more related to order delivery and completion’ P10
‘Standardisation of documents freed up administrators’ P11
‘Overtime was eliminated’ P12
‘One stop location for all customer information’ P13
‘The 5S and Process mapping exercises in the production area decreased our production time per order, reducing the average production time by 60%. This has saved us 40 hours a week’ P20
‘Daily trending of output and “huddles” at visual management boards helped us improve and plan’ P15
‘New business gained through “leaner” website aligned to customer needs’ P16
‘Space savings saved money on new extension – less stress in team’ P17
‘Only product that is needed is produced and only when there is an order for it – reduced inventory and waste’ P22

Table

Interview questions

Part 1: Demographics

In what sector is your organisation based? E.g. Services, Retail, Agriculture, Food, Design, Manufacturing

What is your organisation’s size? E.g. No of employees

What position have you within your organisation? E.g. Owner/Manager, Admin, Manager

How many personnel within your organisation are trained in Lean?

How long have you been involved with the Enterprise Ireland Lean for Micro programme?

Part 2: Thematic questions

What were your reasons for implementing Lean or starting training in Lean?

What Lean tools and principles did you use and implement, and why?

What types of challenges to Lean deployment did you encounter?

In your opinion, were there any critical success factors in implementing Lean successfully?

What types of results did you get with using and deploying Lean in your business?

Was the Enterprise Ireland support an enabler for Lean in your organisation?

Would you have implemented Lean without the support, or had you planned to implement Lean?

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