Rikke Vestergaard Matthiesen

Lean Maturity, Lean Sustainability

Although lean is rapidly growing in popularity, its implementation is far from problem free and companies may experience difficulties sustaining long term success. In this paper, it is suggested that sustainable lean requires attention to both performance improvement and capability development. A framework for describing levels of lean capability is presented, based on a brief review of the literature and experiences from 12 Danish companies currently implementing lean. Although still in its emerging phase, the framework contributes to both theory and practice by describing developmental stages that support lean capability development and consequently, lean sustainability.

Management of automation and advanced manufacturing technology (AAMT) in the context of global manufacturing

Automation and advanced manufacturing technology solutions (AAMT) that present tangible and intangible benefits remain key drivers for manufacturers from both the developed and developing countries. However, the reality is that some manufacturing companies exploit the benefits of AAMT more effectively than others and develop their competitive advantage. Historically, the International Journal of Production Research (IJPR) has been instrumental in disseminating research on the challenges and benefits associated with new manufacturing technologies and this research has predominantly been documented from either an Operations Research (OR) or an Operations Management (OM) perspective. In the 1980s, IJPR publications drew attention to a range of OR issues including justification techniques (e.g. Mkrkdtth and Surksh 1986), layout design (e.g. Aneke and Carrie 1986), flow optimisation (e.g. Kimemia and Gershwin 1985) and distributed scheduling using local area networks (Shaw 1987). At the same time publications from an OM perspective included implementation issues (e.g. Carrier et al. 1984), diffusion studies (e.g. Hyer and Wemmerlov 1989), and visions of future manufacturing paradigms (e.g. Bullinger, Warnecke, and Lentes 1986; Plossl 1988; Primrose and Leonard 1988). In the 1990s, OM IJPR publications on manufacturing technologies increased the focus on technology sourcing (e.g. Baines 1999), strategic appraisal techniques (e.g. Naik and Chakravarty 1992; Gupta 1993) and implementation issues (e.g. Ramamurthy 1994; Silveira 1999). Meanwhile, the exploration of new manufacturing paradigms continued with, for example, disassembly systems (Ng, Ip, and Lee 1999), the virtual enterprise (e.g. Zhou 1999) and rapid prototyping and extendible systems (Weston 1998). Similarly, OR studies continued into new areas including ‘design for’ new systems (e.g. Ngoi and Fang 1994), optimal use (e.g. Dong and Vijayan 1997) and improvement of new systems using sophisticated modelling techniques (see e.g. Suresh and Kaparthi 1994; Venugopal and Narendran 1994; Talluri, Huq, and Pinney 1997; Cheng-Leong, Li Pheng, and Keng Leng 1999; Zhang et al. 1999). At the dawn of the new millennium, IJPR publications on manufacturing technology still concerned conceptual and survey work on new paradigms including web-based (Yang and Xue 2003) or factory less (Bateman and Cheng 2006) manufacturing systems, reconfigurable manufacturing systems (Abdi and Labib 2003), or the application of augmented reality technologies in manufacturing (Ong, Yuan, and Nee 2008). Publications also concerned more practical challenges associated with the use or limitations of modern technologies including the need for flexible fixture design (Bi and Zhang 2001), the need for ontologies to support interoperability (Lin, Harding, and Shahbaz 2004) and applicationoriented research concerning for example the use of RFID (Liu and Chen 2009) and of collaborative autonomous agents (Ratchev, Shiau, and Valtchanov 2000). Parallel to such publications focusing on the potential or use of specific technologies and dealing with objective challenges, a stream of OM research focused on the broader topics of selection, implementation and performance of ‘advanced manufacturing technology’ (AMT). Traces of such research were also evident in IJPR and included publications on managerial challenges (Sohal et al. 2006) such as human factors (e.g. Machuca, Díaz, and Gil 2004) and contingencies related to manufacturing strategy (e.g. Das and Jayaram 2003) or the environment affecting performance-technology links. However, in the past few years, studies of the AMT-performance link and related selection and implementation challenges have dropped in number. Meanwhile, the OR stream continued to develop advanced optimisation and modelling schemes for emerging technologies or new types of manufacturing systems including for example advanced modelling of processing operations (e.g. Chan, Kwong, and Tsim 2010; Sanz-Lobera et al. 2015), applications of RFID in wireless manufacturing (Zhang et al. 2011), partner selection in virtual manufacturing (Tao et al. 2012), models for investments in premature technologies (Peters 2015) and the incorporation of sustainability considerations in various decisions (e.g. Lee and Prabhu 2015). In contrast to the studies in the 1990’s, the word AMT in the recent past has begun to encompass nascent process technologies such as additive manufacturing, nano-engineering and fabrication (e.g. Gardan 2016; Wang et al. 2016; Achillas, Tzetzis, and Raimondo 2017). Nevertheless, these technology developments and their industrial application have not been truly reflected in the existing studies and the research in this domain is still in an embryonic stage with very few studies of manufacturing technology implementation or of transition processes towards new manufacturing

Two Distinct Theories of Production: Lean and Toyota Management System

The paper analyses differences between “lean” and its sister concept “Toyota management system (TMS)” by drawing out deep-rooted theories of production within these two streams of literature. The paper argues that such deep-rooted beliefs should be the first target for organizational transformation as these beliefs provide an important contextual layer for any attempts to transfer organizational practices from one organization to another. Examples of implications in relation to translation are sketched out.

Lean Transformation of Multinational Concerns

Competitive pressure demands that companies constantly strive to catch up to world class manufacturing performance and practice. Continuous change is a mode of competition for many companies [1]. This is a departure from the punctuated equilibrium model of change in which change is event triggered. This paper reports on exploratory studies from a multinational company adopting centrally managed pilot projects as a transformation mechanism for continuous change towards a lean business system and an organizational culture of continuous improvements (CI).