Lean manufacturing for handicraft production: A new production system to enhance productivity and competitiveness of craft enterprise

Handicrafts plays an important socio-economic role for Morocco. It contributes 9% to GDP and 20% to employment. Nevertheless, its productivity remains lower in comparison with that of other countries. This benchmarking informs us about the importance of savings deposits that the sector can make by improving its productivity. For this, it is necessary that the employees are qualified, flow management is reliable and the production management system is good. The integration of lean manufacturing in the organization of craft enterprises would contribute to this improvement. Lean is a Japanese approach to production management, based on the elimination of wastes “mudas”. Lean and craft production share some objectives, namely production in small series, unitary production and the pull business model. In this article, we present the tools can be useful for craft entreprise to improve their productivity and enhance their competitiveness.