BACKGROUND "Lean" is a set of principles and techniques that drive organizations to continually add value to the product they deliver by enhancing process steps that are necessary, relevant, and valuable while eliminating those that fail to add value. Lean has been used in manufacturing for decades and has been associated with enhanced product quality and overall corporate success. OBJECTIVES...

In Recent times, pharmaceutical companies are faced with the demanding tasks such as adjustments to the unstable and turbulent market in times of economic crisis as well as to meet the customer needs. The pharmaceutical industry, manufacturing in a current Good manufacturing practice (cGMP) environment has been slow to adopt the lean manufacturing unlike many sectors where it has been successfu...

Lean principles have shaped the automotive sector’s success in reducing costs and improving performance. Other industry sectors such as aerospace and construction in the U.K. have pursued similar benefits by similar means with differing degrees of success. An acknowledged vein of research in the transaction cost economics and relational contracting fields, emphasises the importance of informal ...

Purpose Lean thinking has revolutionised the approach to manufacturing and there are indications that it can do the same for New Product Introduction [NPI] processes. This paper explores the question “Is the application of Lean principles to NPI sufficient for best/good practice and has this been proven by the work of the UK Lean Aerospace Initiative [UK LAI]?” Focussing on the eight years of r...

Lean Thinking is current ly of t en posit ioned as t he underlying t heory of lean product ion among pract it ioners and academics, al t hough it s originat ors, Womack and Jones, seem not t o have present ed it as a t heory. This paper endeavours t o analyze whet her Lean Thinking can be viewed as a t heory of lean product ion. For t his purpose, a crit ical assessment of Lean Thinking is carr...

This paper presents a newly defined set-based concurrent engineering process, which the authors believe addresses some of the key challenges faced by engineering enterprises in the 21 century. The main principles of Set-Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) have been identified via an extensive literature review. Based on these principles the SBCE baseline model was developed. The baseline model ...

This study explores to what extent the adoption and performance of smart manufacturing technologies builds on lean principles. Primary explorative survey data level principles various operational outcomes were collected from a set Dutch manufacturers analysed using Cluster Analysis, ANOVA, Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA). The shows that while is also applied without (“lean-only” companies), ...

Building with Building Information Modelling (BIM) changes design and production processes. But can BIM be used to support process changes designed according to lean production and lean construction principles? To begin to answer this question we provide a conceptual analysis of the interaction of lean construction and BIM for improving construction. This was investigated by compiling a detaile...

Agile software development (ASD) has emerged as a practice-led initiative which offers great promise in improving software productivity. However some confusion exists as to its relationship with Lean Software Development (LSD). Some treat LSD as more or less synonymous with ASD whereas others view LSD as a different concept. The definition and positioning of LSD relative to ASD is important as ...