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The purpose of this research is to provide an introduction into Hoshin Kanri and how it has been used with other methodologies and frameworks. Additionally, factors that impact successful Hoshin Kanri implementation and future research opportunities are explored.

A systematic literature review was conducted to determine the methodologies and frameworks that have previously been explored and identify factors that lead to successful Hoshin Kanri implementation as it relates in the Western world.

Even though Hoshin Kanri has been used to a limited extent for decades in the West, there is still relatively little published research on the topic. In the period reviewed most published research was performed in the UK or USA. In addition, most years had less than two publications (the exception being five in 2020).

This literature review was primarily focused on the manufacturing sector, publications from 1990–2021, and available in English.

Current practitioners may use the research in this review to improve their current Hoshin Kanri practices using the techniques mentioned as a means of continuous improvement or to build a new framework for their own needs.

This paper makes an important contribution to the study of Hoshin Kanri as it provides: (1) an updated literature review regarding the study and application of Hoshin Kanri, (2) a qualitative analysis of alternative methodologies and frameworks to traditional Hoshin Kanri and (3) success factors when considering implementation of Hoshin Kanri within an organization and researchers with potential ideas for future research.

This study aims to analyze lean wastes for the poultry sector in Turkey and link lean tools to this study, focusing on identifying each lean waste that affects poultry production and proposing solutions for preventing these lean wastes in the sector. The proposed solutions aim to improve processes by suggesting different lean tools and their applications for the poultry sector.

The study consists of two different applications. First, the waste relationship matrix (WRM) was created to reveal the relationship between seven lean wastes and their importance order. Then, after determining lean tools for eliminating lean wastes, the optimum weight ranking and consistency ratio of the most suitable lean tools were calculated for these wastes and ranked with the best-worst method (BWM).

Results showed that overproduction is the most critical waste that impacts other wastes, followed by defect waste. Due to the nature of the sector, these wastes not only result in economic loss for the company but also in food waste and loss and issues related to animal welfare. Furthermore, the Kaizen approach and 5S implementation are the methods to eliminate these wastes. Detailed discussion on the link between lean tools and lean wastes is provided for the poultry sector.

This is the first study that theoretically and empirically identifies the potential lean waste affecting the poultry sector and provides lean tools for eliminating these wastes. Sector-specific explanations and discussions are presented in the study to show the applicability of lean approaches in the poultry sector to eliminate waste. In addition, this study is the first to integrate the WRM and BWM.

Being acquainted with both lean and action learning in theory and in practice, this study finds that the theoretical complementarity of these two research streams has traditionally been underexploited. In this conceptual paper, this study aims to advance the theoretical understanding of lean by exploring the complementarity of lean thinking and action learning leading to a proposed integrated theory of these two research streams. Target audience is the operations management research community.

By deliberately adopting a process of theorising, this paper explores, reflects upon and combines individual experiences of researching, teaching and engaging in lean and action learning as operations management scholars.

Having taken a gemba walk through the literature and practices of lean and action learning, this study views and notices a systematic and complementary relationship between the two domains. The overlapping theoretical and practical complementarities of lean and action learning suggest that these two research streams are ripe for synthesis into an integrated theory. This finding provides an opportunity to (1) progress towards an integrative design of interventions leading to more sustainable lean system adoptions and (2) add new depth to our theoretical explanation of the success and failures of lean system adoptions.

This paper contributes an original integrated theory perspective on lean and action learning.

This paper aims to propose a methodology to support public managers' adaptation of the Hoshin Kanri (HK) strategy deployment approach in the context of lean thinking (LT), considering strategic alignment and consensus reaching when prioritizing a vital few of the organization's continuous improvement (CI) projects.

The methodology incorporates the A3 problem-solving report into the HK approach to identify and outline CI projects. The priority and deployment of the projects are weighted by a composite score for impact and innovation using the Delphi method. The proposed methodology was applied in one Norwegian police district as part of action research.

The obtained results indicate that the proposed methodology provides an intuitive and systematic approach to weigh the importance and ensure alignment of CI projects with the organization's strategy and goals. Consequently, this minimizes the possibility of strategy deployment priorities being weighted by decision bias and siloed decision-making.

The literature on strategy deployment in the context of LT in police services is significantly limited and this study aids in fixing this gap. The adapted HK approach can support the implementation of LT as an integral part of a comprehensive strategic management system, thereby enabling knowledge sharing and exploration of the extendibility of implemented best practices and improvement ideas to problems arising across the organization.

The aim of this paper is to explore the implementation of an integrated lean and ISO 14001 approach in meat industry for environmental performance and examine a proposed conceptual framework by capturing insights from lean and ISO 14001 experts in New Zealand (NZ).

Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with a group of consultants (lean and ISO 14001) to evaluate the suitability of an integrated lean and ISO 14001 approach in the meat industry for environmental performance. A conceptual framework from literature has guided this study leading to its further development based on the empirical evidence collected.

Findings have illustrated a synergistic positive impact of lean and ISO 14001 implementation as an integrated approach for sustaining environmental performance in the meat industry. A joint implementation program provides more clarity in aligning ISO 14001 operational procedures with lean tools and techniques for an enhanced environmental performance outcome.

The application of an integrated lean and ISO 14001 framework is proposed in this paper, which can help industry practitioners and academia in developing a joint implementation strategy and conducting future research.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to assess the effective implementation of lean and ISO 14001 as an integrated approach in the NZ meat industry.

This study explores how Lean was deployed in several hospitals in the Apulia region in Italy over 3.5 years.

An exploratory qualitative design was drawn up based on semi-structured interviews.

The drivers of Lean in hospitals were to increase patient satisfaction and improve workplace well-being by eliminating non-value-add waste. The participants highlighted three key elements of the pivotal implementation stages of Lean: introduction, spontaneous and informal dissemination and strategic level implementation and highlighted critical success and failure factors that emerged for each of these stages. During the introduction, training and coaching from an external consultant were among the most impactful factors in the success of pilot projects, while time constraints and the adoption of process analysis tools were the main barriers to implementation. The experiences of the Lean teams strongly influence the process of spontaneous dissemination aided by the celebration of project results and the commitment of the departmental hospital heads.

Lean culture can spread to allow many projects be conducted spontaneously, but the Lean paradigm can struggle to be adopted strategically. Lean in healthcare can fail because of the lack of alignment of Lean with leadership in healthcare and with their strategic vision, a lack of employees' project management skills and crucially the absence of a Lean steering committee.

The absence of managerial expertise and a will to support Lean implementation do not allow for systemic adoption of Lean. This is one of the first and largest long-term case studies on a Lean cross-regional multi-hospital application in healthcare.

The paper tests if and to what extent lean management system adoption generates abnormal profitability, and how it accrues over time. Configurational approaches to lean management systems and “S-curve” effects in lean implementation are used to ground the paper's hypotheses and interpret its findings.

Using the emerging view of lean as enterprise-wide management systems, this quasi-experimental study uses a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the abnormal profitability (ROIC) attributable to lean management system adoption. The paper leverages a unique data set of lean adopters nested in a panel data set (19 years) of 2,088 industrial firms matched by industry and firm size. It applies a variety of regression methods (two-way fixed effect panel estimator, propensity score matching, instrumental variable two-stage-least squares) to estimate the size of the abnormal profitability attributable to lean management systems, addressing endogeneity issues related to non-random sampling, omitted variable bias and reverse causation. It also analyzes the cross-firm variability of such abnormal profitability and how it accrues over time.

For the average non-adopter in the sample (44.3 million euro revenues), lean adoption generates abnormal ROIC ranging from 1.4% to 3.9%. These results come into effect approximately three years after starting lean adoption and peak after eight years. While the average abnormal profitability attributable to lean adoption is sizable, it varies significantly across firms and over time. This significant variation is compatible with firms' diverse ability to understand the complex inner workings of lean systems, and to design and implement them so that they improve profitability.

The conceptualization of lean as enterprise-wide management system can be further refined to more effectively categorize the components of lean systems and investigate the nature of their relationships. Lean system adoption measurement can be fine-tuned to better capture cross-firm and longitudinal heterogeneity. Future work can explore other dependent variables of interest to different stakeholders including shareholders' value, employment and environmental and social sustainability.

The financial benefits of adopting lean can be reaped to the extent to which managers embrace lean as a philosophy and implement it pervasively in the organization. A firm can use the study's estimates as a basis for making calculations about the returns of investment in lean adoption. The paper also shows that “getting the lean system right” makes a significant difference in terms of abnormal profitability, which is twice as large for the best lean adopters..

Compared with the promises of many lean proponents and supporters, the paper provides a more realistic view of what to expect from lean adoption in terms of profitability. Adopting lean as a comprehensive, enterprise-wide management system is not a universal panacea, but a complex endeavor, characterized by multiple complex decisions that require considerable capabilities, coordinated efforts and consistency of action.

Differently from extant research, this study does not study the correlation between the adoption of lean operation practices and financial performance but focuses on the abnormal profitability generated by the adoption of lean as a pervasive, enterprise-wide management system. Its research design allows to identify the differential profitability attributable to lean adoption and documents that it accrues non-linearly.

Previous research has managed to clearly define lean technical competencies. However, the behavioral competencies remain underestimated, and the roles of lean experts are not clearly stated: are they teachers, facilitators or technical experts? The present paper investigates lean behavioral competencies and their relationship to lean experts' roles.

This article serves as an exploratory study built on interviews, observations and focus groups conducted during a three-year longitudinal study accompanied by a three-year follow-up. The case takes place in an international automotive company in partnership with Toyota in which lean adoption was part of a consistent strategy over a period of 20 years.

The study clarifies lean behavioral competencies related to organizational efficiency (nominal management, improvement management and respect for people) and relational efficiency (problem resolution, competencies development and systemic interactions). The study helped create a typology of lean experts' roles related to the maturity level of the environment in which they intervened. Moreover, Lean experts' roles in congruence with the environment seem to positively influence the creation of emerging human relationships that are beneficial to process improvement and competencies development.

This paper is the first to clarify behavioral competencies with respect to lean experts' roles and to study the temporality of the introduction of lean practices. The findings recommend that researchers better acknowledge the influence of lean behavioral competencies during lean adoption and their relationship to contextual factors and organizational performance. A practical methodology is proposed to measure the necessary behavioral adjustments of lean experts or employees.

This paper aims to further our understanding of policy–practice gaps in organizations from an organizational learning perspective. The authors conceptualize and analyze policy–practice gaps in terms of what they label the dual challenge of organizational learning, i.e. the organizational tasks of both adapting ongoing practices to prescribed policy demands and adapting the policy itself to the needs of practice. Specifically, the authors address how this dual challenge can be understood in terms of organizational learning and how an organization can be managed to successfully resolve the dual learning challenge and, thereby, bridge policy–practice gaps in organizations.

This paper draws on existing literature to explore the gap between policy and practice. Through a synthesis of theories and an illustrative practical example, this paper highlights key conceptual underpinnings.

In the analysis of the dual challenge of organizational learning, this study provides a conceptual framework that emphasizes the important role of tensions and contradictions between policy and practice and their role as drivers of organizational learning. To bridge policy–practice gaps in organizations, this paper proposes five key principles that aim to resolve the dual challenge and accommodate both deployment and discovery in organizations.

Because this is a conceptual study, empirical research is called for to explore further and test the findings and conclusions of the study. Several avenues of possible future research are proposed.

This paper primarily contributes by introducing and elaborating on a conceptual framework that offers novel perspectives on the dual challenges of facilitating both discovery and deployment processes within organizations.

Operational excellence (OpEx) is a proven philosophy focusing on continuous improvement in processes and systems for superior performance and efficiency. It plays a crucial role in the energy sector, acting as a catalyst for safety, customer satisfaction, sustainability and competitiveness. This research aims to assess OpEx methodologies in Oman’s energy sector, examining methods, approaches, motivations and sustainability.

This study applies qualitative analysis methodology, involving interviews with 18 industry experts, from the energy sector in a sizeable energy country.

The analysis revealed a growing demand, particularly, in the oil and gas industry, driven by emerging business needs. Qualitative data analysis has identified 10 themes such as implemented methodologies, motivation drivers, deployment approaches, sustainability factors, benefits and challenges. Additionally, new themes emerged, including influencers to start OpEx, resource requirements, enablers for successful OpEx and systems.

This research was limited to Oman and the findings drawn from Omani energy companies may have limited applicability to energy companies in other regions. Therefore, if these findings were to be used, the validation of the findings in relation to other countries should be conducted, to ensure the validity of the context and outcome.

These findings contribute to understanding OpEx dynamics in the Omani energy sector, offering valuable insights for effective utilisation and organisational goal achievement. Furthermore, the study offers valuable insights on how to effectively employ OpEx initiatives in the energy sector to achieve their goals and create value. It addresses the lack of knowledge, offers a framework for successful OpEx implementation, bridges the theory-practice gap and provides insights for optimal utilisation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study on assessing OpEx methodologies in the energy sector, and therefore it serves as a foundation for many future studies. The study provides a theoretical foundation for the OpEx methodologies in terms of organisational readiness for successful OpEx implementation.