Melhoria contínua numa operação de retalho

Abstract

Continuous improvement has an unequivocal presence in the production companies and its implementation in this context has been fundamental to maximize their resources management, improve processes and competitiveness and bring innovation to enterprises. The introduction of the continuous improvement in retail services is still in its early days, therefore there is still the need to explore and analyze more deeply its implementation in this context to increase our understanding of this process. This is the main contribution of this internship project: to analyze and to think through the implementation of continuous improvement in a retail services company, favoring its implementation in similar companies. To achieve this goal, this internship project’s objective was the implementation of the continuous improvement in Modalfa, a business unit of Sonae’s Group. To have a better understanding of this question, the internship project comprised three major stages: Integration and training – Internship’s initial part which consisted in joining the company and having the needed training within the continuous improvement’s process already in place; Research and Planning – during which there were identified both in the process and in its procedures the inefficiencies and wastes, essential for a proper action plan development; Implementation and Assessment – this phase consisted in the implementation of the
improvements in the company, the assessment of their impact, the diffusion of the action plan and the maintenance of the continuous improvement’s mindset. For each of these stages the participation of every company’s workers was
essential, from the executive board to the stores’ staff. Moreover, the close Contact and team work developed with the stores’ staff have been a strategic point in the internship project’s success, what strengthens even more the
importance of everyone’s participation within the continuous improvement’s implementation. This project allows, on the one hand, the understanding of the main concepts of continuous improvement and, on the other hand, the assessment of the way and shape by which the continuous improvement can be applied in retail’s service companies.

Date of Award	Sept 2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rui Sousa (Supervisor)