BACKGROUND During the past decade, the concept of Lean has spread rapidly within the healthcare sector, but there is a lack of instruments that can measure staff's perceptions of Lean adoption. Thus, the aim of the present study was to develop a questionnaire measuring Lean in healthcare, based on Liker's description of Lean, by adapting an existing instrument developed for the service sector. ...

In the traditional sense, IT has often been viewed as a contributor to waste within lean production. However, as the business world changes and competition from low-cost countries increases, new models must be developed which deliver competitive advantage by combining contemporary technological advances with the lean paradigm. By applying an action research approach, this paper evaluates the su...

The application of lean manufacturing has been successfully proved that can reduce the work in process, increase service level and shorten cycle time simultaneously. Many guidelines are proposed for traditional production systems to achieving lean manufacturing. However, there is no evidence of work applying lean manufacturing principles to fishing net production. This research follows some gui...

The last half century has seen significant changes to Maternity services in England. Though rates of maternal and infant mortality have fallen to very low levels, this has been achieved largely through hospital admission. It has been argued that maternity services may have become over-medicalised and service users have expressed a preference for more personalised care. NHS England's national st...

Experience of implementing lean thinking (LT) in a multispecialty hospital located in southern part of India is discussed. Case hospital was chosen and problems associated with various processes were identified and they were mapped to seven wastes. Solutions based on lean principles/practices were implemented and improvements were evaluated through performance

A lean manufacturing simulation model was created that replicated the existing assembly system as well as a potential system of similar capacity that modified the existing design to incorporate lean manufacturing shop-floor principles. Arena’s manufacturing simulation software generated performance statistics for both systems and measured each system’s resource requirements and performance in t...

Lean manufacturing is a strategic concern for companies which conduct mass production and it has become even more significant for those producing in a project-oriented way by modularization.  In this paper, a bi-objective optimization model is proposed to design and plan a supply chain up to the final assembly centre. The delivery time and the quality in the procurement and low fluctuation of t...

In recent years there has been a noticeable shift in attention from those who use agile software development toward lean software development, often labelled as a shift “from agile to lean”. However, the reality may not be as simple or linear as this label implies. To provide a better understanding of lean software development approaches and how they are applied in agile software development, w...

OBJECTIVES Due to an increasing demand for more examinations in a non-profitmaking hospital with a fixed budget, Lean Management was introduced in the Department of Radiology in 2006. The process, experience and results are discussed from a management view. METHODS Lean principles were introduced in the department and ways of working were adjusted accordingly. RESULTS Higher productivity an...

This case study describes a local home health and hospice agency's effort to implement Lean principles and Kaizen methodology as a rapid improvement approach to quality improvement. The agency created a cross-functional team, followed Lean Kaizen methodology, and made significant improvements in scheduling time for home health nurses that resulted in reduced operational costs, improved working ...