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In a conventional sense, information technology has frequently been considered a source of Lean waste management. However, as the corporate world evolves, new models that provide a competitive edge by merging technical breakthroughs with the Lean paradigm must be developed. Enterprise resource planning (ERP), which is such technological advancement, is found to be highly influential for Lean implementation. However, there is a dearth of literature on the adaptability of ERP to minimise Lean waste in the construction industry. This paper, therefore, aims to investigate the possibility of applying ERP to minimise Lean waste in the construction industry.

The study used a qualitative approach, consisting of fifteen (15) expert interviews and code-based content analysis was used to analyse the empirical data.

The findings revealed the challenges faced when applying ERP with the Lean concept and the strategies that would help overcome the challenges. Most of the challenges could be overcome through training and awareness programmes and proper team management. The study also found that ERP could be applied with Lean to eliminate waste generation in the construction industry.

This paper contributes to the theory by providing an evaluation of the possibility of adopting ERP to eliminate Lean waste in the construction industry. The study will contribute to new knowledge related to strategies for proper use of ERP for Lean waste minimisation, which will be useful for future researchers in the area.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how effective Turkish small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) use enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in module aspect and to assess the adherence to lean manufacturing requirements. Obtaining each efficiency result separately is not adequate to make an inference about relationship between ERP and lean practices. Hence, a relational model is developed to analyze correlation between use of ERP and lean manufacturing implementation in white goods manufacturing SMEs of Istanbul, Turkey.

The examination of the proposed conceptual framework is made by statistical analyses. In parallel, leveling efficiency of each enterprise requires an expert analysis in order to obtain a fair comparison. Hence, authors have visited each facility to evaluate performance of ERP efficiency and lean manufacturing applications. In Istanbul region, 53 of total listed SMEs are visited. The questionnaire survey is designed by considering different scales of performance. Exploratory factor analyses and various correlation analyses are applied to figure out relationship between ERP use and lean manufacturing.

Interaction with rapid development of information technology (IT) and progress in modern production management strategies have emerged. Obtained results show that Turkish SMEs have widely initiated lean production practices. However, applications are in initial level in the most cases. In respect to ERP systems, enterprises are more active, some basic modules are extensively used. Another finding of this study implies that effective usage of specific ERP modules can contribute toward applying lean principles, vice versa.

The whole sample space of white goods SMEs could not be covered due to the fact that, each facility is visited and field studies are done. However, sample size calculations prove that attained feedback is statistically significant (adequate) to reflect sample space.

The literature studies reveal that there is an obvious lack of studies which focus on relationship between ERP use and lean manufacturing. Finding such a correlation helps IT-practitioners to design ERP modules by assessing related requirements of lean philosophy.

Faced with increasing global competition and growing customer expectations, manufacturers looking for significant performance improvements often look to one of the two choices: implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, or applying the tools and techniques associated with lean production. In fact, many companies are today applying both approaches in an attempt to realise competitive advantage in the global marketplace. However, there seems to be an ongoing debate within the academic literature as to whether lean and ERP are complimentary or contradictory technologies. This paper aims to present a thorough and critical review of literature with the objective of bringing out pertinent factors and useful insights into the role and implications of ERP systems in lean production and to develop a research framework that can be used by researchers and practitioners for studying the value of integrating ERP with lean.

The research methodology employed is literature survey. Literature has been collected primarily through journals within the area of operations management. For rigorousness, textbooks, conference papers, white papers and dissertations have been excluded from the subsequent analysis. Though older literature has been considered to define the scope of this investigation, only literature published after the year 2000 has been considered in the analysis in order to be current in the research field.

The paper proposes a classification scheme for the current research on ERP and lean production, which identifies six major areas in the extant literature. The literature survey is used to find existing research gaps and provides a research framework for future research directions regarding applications and implications of ERP systems in lean production.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study the interactions between ERP systems and lean production.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and Lean are both widely used approaches to business process improvement. However, research is limited on their interactions when implemented in combination, leveraging the advantages of both. The purpose of this paper is to propose a generic framework for implementing ERP and Lean in combination to develop digitally supported business process improvement capability and improved competitiveness.

Principles and elements for the framework were derived from the extant literature and subsequently applied as input for solution incubation using design science research (DSR) in a five-year case study. Study results and learnings enabled solution refinement and the development of a generic framework for digital supported process improvement capabilities.

The paper presents a case study narrative and proposes a framework for digitally supported business process improvement capability based on Lean and enabled digitally by ERP. The framework delivers tangible productivity and quality improvements deployed, and an increase of continuous improvement capability.

This paper provides a novel generic framework and a set of guidelines for implementing Lean and ERP in SMEs and/or service companies to improve their business process excellence. The paper contributes to the scientific literature by providing insights on how SMEs and service operations can integrate Lean and ERP methods, digitalize and streamline processes in the organization and build continuous improvement capabilities.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of integrating Sustainable Enterprise Resource Planning (S-ERP) systems and lean manufacturing (LM) practices on sustainability performance, especially in Egypt as an emerging country.

The authors carried out an experimental study with a sample of 144 professional accountants of MPA, MBA and DBA students at two of the top universities in Egypt.

The results provide significant evidence that the integration of S-ERP systems and LM practices implementation improve sustainability performance. However, there is no significant evidence that S-ERP adoption contributes to the success of LM practices implementation.

Because of the chosen research approach, this study is limited to use of a laboratory experiment design. Empirical evidence based on quasi experiments on a field setting would add value to the current literature.

Findings provide practical insights for the manufacturing sector managers into the benefits of integrating S-ERP systems and LM practices for sustainability performance improvement (e.g. reducing cost and waste, increasing operational efficiency). For ERP vendors, findings highlight how ERP vendors introduce “enablers” that incorporate LM best practices into their ERP systems and also how those vendors conform to the software sustainability criteria in the design of ERP applications.

Contrary to previous studies that addressed the individual impact of S-ERP systems and LM practices on performance, this paper experimentally gives an indication of the impact of concurrent implementation of S-ERP and LM practices on sustainability performance, especially in developing countries.

This research enlarges the debate on the operations management strategies pursued by manufacturing companies. The purpose of this paper is to focus on issues concerning servitisation and customisation, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and Lean-agile, supply chain orchestration, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and Lean for design management.

A questionnaire of eight questions which stemmed from a literature review was completed by 152 senior operations managers from 120 large European manufacturing companies. Responses were scaled from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The results were tested for reliability using Cronbach’s α test. The questions were tested through a one-sample t-test.

The 152 respondents consider servitisation and standardisation to be a trade-off. They consider integration of ERP strategies with Lean and agile systems and customised products/processes to be difficult. Furthermore, suppliers’ orchestration is considered not that suitable for manufacturing companies and suppliers’ CSR performance measurement excessive. By contrast, a CSR internal performance measurement is helpful for increasing sales. The respondents also indicate that there is a lack of Lean tools for design and development processes and Six Sigma is the only strategy for improving quality performance in design and development processes.

The findings are applicable only to the manufacturing sector. The findings of this research indicate many avenues of research for scholars.

The findings can be very useful for manufacturing operations managers deciding their future strategies on operations.

Findings related to servitisation and customisation, ERP and Lean-agile, supply orchestration for manufacturing companies and Lean and agile for product design are original and open a valuable debate.

While the attention of most OM scholars has shifted to supply chain management, there is still a need to understand how supply chain strategies are linked with internal manufacturing strategies. The literature shows some studies in this field, but a deep investigation of the linkages between these two areas is still missing. The purpose of this study is to investigate on an empirical basis the relationship between two supply chain integration dimensions – the integration of information flows and the integration of physical flows – and two manufacturing improvement programmes – lean production and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

Evidence is drawn from a sample of 297 European companies from the third edition of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey. Data are analysed using exploratory factor analysis and hierarchical regression.

Results show that the adoption of the lean production model has a strong influence on the integration of both information and physical flows along the supply chain, while no significant influence emerged from the adoption of ERP.

Findings open up new research questions about the missing link between ERP and information integration along the supply chain. Further developments concern the investigation of the impact of consistent adoption of internal and external practices on performance.

The paper provides managers with clear evidence of the need for consistency between internal and external integration.

This paper contributes to research by providing empirical evidence of the link between manufacturing and supply chain integration practices.

In response to increasing demand for a fully customized and individualized home environment, mass customization (MC) has been suggested as an effective strategy to fulfill the customer’s customization needs while keeping production cost-effectiveness. However, in current practice, the implementation of the MC in the industrialized housing industry has not achieved an ideal level. Little effort was devoted to customer value generation and achieving lean production in a multi-disciplinary MC environment. In this concern, a highly efficient and flexible production information system is expected to capture accurately the customer’s demand and efficiently perform work planning for encouraging customer involvement and mass efficiency production.

To gain an insight into the development of the MC production information system for the housing industry and to depict the interaction among system modules, this study used a design science research methodology for a case study of customized cabinet production information system development.

A prototype of the production information system was proposed in this paper, supported by three information technologies to facilitate the MC implementation in the millwork manufacturer. A focus group discussion method was carried out for evaluating the system feasibility and the subsequent survey analysis on the virtual reality (VR) interface experiment. The evaluation process results showed that the VR interface is an effective medium for design information communication and encourages customer involvement. Most participants believed that the proposed production information system could generally benefit the MC implementation and improve production efficiency.

This study integrated lean production principles along with building information modelling, VR and discrete-event simulation in the production information system to assist the manufacturer in effectively handling variant product information and enabling quicker reactions in response to diverse customer requirements in housing industries. The coordination among system modules and the managed information flow could be a valuable reference for future MC production system development in housing industries.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of sustainable enterprise resource planning (S-ERPs) systems implementation on sustainability performance.

A 1 × 2 experiment was conducted, involving a sample of 72 professional accountants enrolled in MPA, MBA and DBA programs at two prominent Egyptian universities. Simple linear regression was used to analyze the data.

The results reveal positive relationships between the implementation of S-ERPs and economic, environmental and social sustainability performance.

Considering the research methodology used, which relies on a laboratory experiment design; nevertheless, empirical data derived from a quasi-experiment conducted in a real-world context would offer valuable insights into the existing literature.

For manufacturing sector managers, the results offer value as organizations can benefit from S-ERP adoption in the internal and external integration of sustainability functions. The findings also provide decision-makers in the manufacturing context, particularly in emerging countries, with tangible reasons to consider S-ERP adoption for holistic sustainability benefits including waste management, resource consumption reduction and management of sustainable supply chain complexities. Further, the findings provide valuable insights for ERP vendors on how they can develop their ERP packages to align with software sustainability criteria.

This study is among the few that experimentally investigates the influence of S-ERPs implementation on sustainability performance within the manufacturing sector, especially in an emerging context such as Egypt. This unique contribution provides valuable insights into the complex connection between technology adoption and sustainability outcomes.

The advent of recession at the beginning of twenty-first century forced many organizations worldwide to reduce cost and to be more responsive to customer demands. Lean Manufacturing (LM) has been widely perceived by industry as an answer to these requirements because LM reduces waste without additional requirements of resources. This led to a spurt in LM research across the globe mostly through empirical and exploratory studies which resulted in a plethora of LM definitions with divergent scopes, objectives, performance indicators, tools/techniques/methodologies, and concepts/elements. The purpose of this paper is to review LM literature and report these divergent definitions, scopes, objectives, and tools/techniques/methodologies.

This paper highlights various definitions by various researchers and practitioners. A total of 209 research papers have been reviewed for the research contribution, research methodology adopted, tools/techniques/methodologies used, type of industry, author profile, country of research, and year of publication.

There are plethora of LM definitions with divergent objectives and scope. Theory verification through empirical and exploratory studies has been the focus of research in LM. Automotive industry has been the focus of LM research but LM has also been adopted by other types of industries also. One of the critical implementation factors of LM is simultaneous adoption of leanness in supply chain. LM has become an integrated system composed of highly integrated elements and a wide variety of management practices. There is lack of standard LM implementation process/framework.

The paper reviews 209 research papers for their research contribution, research methodology, author profile, type of industry, and tools/techniques/methodology used. Various characteristics of LM definitions are also reviewed.