The Lean Woman

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 lit...

The Lean Enterprise

The Japanese automotive industry is based around principles of “lean thinking”, and attaches great importance to reducing waste and focusing on those activities which add value for the customer. There has recently been interest in applying similar principles in service industry environments, including communications providers. This paper discusses the application of lean principles to BT, and d...

A pink papule on the forehead of a young woman

The Psychology of Lean Production

Lean Manufacturing in the Factory

In this chapter, we describe in somewhat more depth the complexities of how lean production affects the manufacturing function. We look at both major process changes and enabling tools. We provide specific examples of lean implementation efforts and the savings that resulted. The companies that participated in this study demonstrated many lean pilot projects where savings were achieved in manuf...