Every company strives to come-up with innovative products that satisfy customer requests efficiently and effectively. The principles and working methods of Lean thinking have been suggested in literature for companies to optimize stakeholders’ interests throughout their product development (PD) process. However, the application of the Lean PD remains unclear from practitioner’s perspective. As ...

This paper presents a comprehensive lean approach, based on Value Stream Management (VSM), which makes it possible to enhance the performance of a service, by spotting and tackling its criticalities. The study is motivated by the growing need to extend lean concepts to the service industry and, on the other hand, by a lack of operating tools capable to support technical staff in this effort. Sp...

This paper is presenting the conceptual Lean Product and Process Development (LeanPPD) model which is a project funded by the EU-PF7. The project is addressing the needs of European manufacturing companies of a new model that goes beyond lean manufacturing, to ensure the transformation of the enterprise into lean environment. This is a respond to the market demand of value creation, incorporati...

BACKGROUND There is growing interest in applying lean thinking in healthcare, yet, there is still limited knowledge of how and why lean interventions succeed (or fail). To address this gap, this in-depth case study examines a lean-inspired intervention in a Swedish pediatric Accident and Emergency department. METHODS We used a mixed methods explanatory single case study design. Hospital perfo...

The last twenty years has seen a consistent application of Continuous Improvement (CI) by practitioners and a series of academic articles promoting the approach as well as identifying its possible weaknesses. The vast majority of these have been within a manufacturing context. However, perhaps strangely there has been a lack of attention to the possibility of applying CI to the very academic in...

Intravenous rt-PA is an effective recanalizing treatment for ischemic stroke within 4 and half hours from its onset (Onset-to-Treatment [OTT]), with the best result seen in those treated within 90 minutes OTT. Yet few patients currently are treated in this time frame. From the standpoint of process improvement or a lean thinking perspective, there is a potential opportunity to reduce the time b...

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