Lean knowledge work (applying lean production principles to knowledge work)

Citation

(2012), "Lean knowledge work (applying lean production principles to knowledge work)", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 20 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2012.04420baa.007

Lean knowledge work (applying lean production principles to knowledge work)

Article Type: Abstracts From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 20, Issue 2

Staats B.R. and Upton D.M. Harvard Business Review (USA), October 2011, Vol. 89 No. 10, Start page: 100, No. of pages: 10

Describes how many manufacturing and service companies have gained considerable benefits by applying variations of the Toyota Production System, a method for making operations “lean” through relentless efforts to increase quality and efficiency and eliminate waste. Points out that conventional wisdom holds that lean principles do not lend themselves to knowledge work, which involves judgment and expertise, not the sorts of repetitive, easily specified tasks found on an assembly line. Reports the results of the authors’ research, including multi-year studies of approximately 1,800 projects at the Indian IT services giant Wipro, that challenge this thinking. Concludes that knowledge work can be made lean if managers draw on six principles: continuously root out all waste; strive to make tacit knowledge explicit; specify how workers should communicate; use the scientific method to solve problems quickly; recognize that a lean system will always be a work in progress; and have leaders blaze the trail. Suggests that, although applying these principles demands sustained investment and a grass-roots reinvention of how work is performed, the benefits are considerable with ever-increasing productivity and job satisfaction, and a system that will be difficult for competitors to replicate. ISSN: 0017-8012 Reference: 40AT252

Keywords: Lean production, Knowledge management, Manufacturing, Organizations