Lean Manufacturing Methodology for waste reduction in the production sector: A systematic review

Resumen

Lean Manufacturing (LM) is a methodology that uses various tools to optimize production processes and reduce waste in various industries. The objective of this work is to apply these principles to minimize waste in the productive field, through the analysis of articles indexed in Scopus published in the last five years. From a systematic literature review, 183 Scopus documents were obtained, which were discarded through duplicate articles, studies excluded for not using the methodology or applying it and finally not complying with the PIOC questions, thus achieving 50 documents in the end. To this end, four selection criteria were considered: articles that cover the problem of waste, only documents that are articles, that are studies that have applied the methodology, while only being in Spanish and English and a range of 5 years old (2020-2024), thus reducing it to 50 articles. The analysis of the documents obtained allowed us to identify the main tools such as Single Minute Exchange Die (SMED), 5S, Kaizen, Value Stream Mapping (VSM), and Just-In-Time (JIT), which reduce operational waste, improve delivery times and increase efficiency in key sectors. For example, reductions of 45% in set-up times and 70% in process cycles were achieved. In addition, the integration of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) has increased productivity by up to 80% and significantly reduced defects. This study reinforces Lean Manufacturing's ability to transform production processes towards more sustainable and competitive operations.