Open Access Conference Proceedings

Companies’ effort to work effectively, associated with the implementation of lean philosophy principles has changed significantly all companies processes within last decade. There has been a huge progress since the day when principles of lean manufacturing were introduced by Toyota. The change is visible not only in the number of companies’ departments where these principles may be implemented, but also in the number of companies adopting them in any of them. In the very beginning lean processes were associated to automotive mainly, but today we can see an acceptance of these principles also in the other industries. Main focus of the article is on comparison of differences in management of company’s procurement in three companies. Data about supplies’ management and processes in automotive companies will be compared to the data from company operating in engineering, metallurgy. This comparison can contribute to advocate two statements. First of them is that not only production but also all companies’ processes are lean nowadays. Second is that the principle of being lean within whole supply chain management has been accepted also by companies in other industries, including suppliers of metal products. Article describes key elements of lean supply chains and identifies how far are the companies, including company from metallurgy, with their implementation.

Keywords: lean, supply chain, procurement, efficiency, metallurgy

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