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Lean distributed manufacturing (LDM) is being considered as an enabler of achieving sustainability and resilience in manufacturing and supply chain operations. The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of how LDM characteristics affect the resilience of manufacturing companies by drawing upon the experience of food manufacturing companies operating in the UK.

The paper develops a conceptual model to analyse the impact of LDM on the operational resilience of food manufacturing companies. A triangulation research methodology (secondary data analysis, field observations and structured interviews) is used in this study. In a first step, LDM enablers and resilience elements are identified from literature. In a second step, empirical evidence is collected from six food sub-sectors aimed at identifying LDM enablers being practised in companies.

The analysis reveals that LDM enablers can improve the resilience capabilities of manufacturing companies at different stages of resilience action cycle, whereas the application status of different LDM enablers varies in food manufacturing companies. The findings include the development of a conceptual model (based on literature) and a relationship matrix between LDM enablers and resilience elements.

The developed relationship matrix is helpful for food manufacturing companies to assess their resilience capability in terms of LDM characteristics and then formulate action plans to incorporate relevant LDM enablers to enhance operational resilience.

Based on the literature review, no studies exist that investigate the effects of LDM on factory’s resilience, despite many research studies suggesting distributed manufacturing as an enabler of sustainability and resilience.

This paper seeks to document an approach to reduce scrap losses using the root cause analysis technique in a lean manufacturing environment.

The study uses lean manufacturing root cause problem solving (RCPS) technique. The study starts with the collection phase, followed by the analysis phase and ends with the solution phase. Supporting data are presented using a Pareto chart to prioritise wastage in order to be more focused for improvement. The Toyota Production System's 5‐whys analysis is performed to analyse the cause of wastages, to formulate and implement corrective actions.

The application of the 5‐whys analysis in a manufacturing industry (XYZ Corporation) provides a fact‐based and structured approach to problem identification and correction that not only reduces, but also totally eliminates defects. Corrective action has permanently eliminated the top defect, which is the “last piece material scratch” and this results in zero scrap thereafter. In this study it was also proven that with sound understanding of manufacturing coupled with possible solutions using the 5‐whys analysis the authors were not only able to eliminate waste, but also to do it with zero‐cost.

The approach documented in the paper can be extended to other areas in the manufacturing industry to help improve overall equipment efficiency, breakdown, time loss, customer complaints, etc.

The study, grounded on the social cognitive career theory, seeks to analyze the upshot of psychological empowerment on career satisfaction via affective commitment. The study also aims to examine the impact of the interplay among affective commitment and resilience on the career satisfaction of Indian service industry professionals.

In this study, the data has been collected from 277 employees using standardized measures from the North Indian service industry. To test the proposed model, Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) (Hayes, 2013) was utilized.

The outcomes of the study offered substantial support for the theorized link between psychological empowerment, affective commitment, resilience and career satisfaction. The outcomes confirmed an affirmative association concerning psychological empowerment and career satisfaction through affective commitment as a mediator and resilience as a moderator. The study concludes that the workforce with extraordinary resilience will perceive a stronger influence of psychological empowerment on career satisfaction.

The study offers a few pertinent inputs for the organizations operating in high-power distance culture to comprehend the role of psychological empowerment and “resilient attributes” of personality in developing a sense of career satisfaction amongst Indian service sector employees.

The present research examines the association between psychological empowerment, affective commitment, resilience and career satisfaction for the first time as mediated moderation model and the same has neither been examined theoretically or empirically.

Over the last several months, the cries to become lean and low cost have echoed all the way from the halls of government to the smallest company's back room. In times of severe economic challenge, the natural reaction is to make decisions that can make an organization become as lean and focused as possible. This paper aims to address these issues.

This paper discusses the benefits and pitfalls associated with lean manufacturing management starting from the kernel idea that pleasing the customer should be at the root of all effort leading through the ravages of overzealous application of “lean to the max.” Elements of lean discussed in this paper address organizational waste, human resources, distributed design, supply chain management, customer management, and the financial system.

Potential solutions and recommendations are made to help organizations become lean yet remain committed to being centered on the ultimate goal of customer satisfaction. These benefits and pitfalls may be seen as outcomes based on the degree to which lean is implemented.

This paper reviews the popular lean manufacturing environment and makes practical recommendations to new adopters to avoid failures due to the improper application of “lean” to their organization.

The purpose of this paper is to report a pilot study on lean awareness and implementation using the survey data collected from about 32 industries situated in western and eastern region of India.

A survey instrument containing 45 statements was designed to assess respondents’ attitude and awareness toward lean practices and to explore the level of lean implementation in the organization. The instrument was distributed personally or through mail to the employees of 32 industries and they were supported for any query about the questions. Descriptive statistical analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis and ANOVA were used to analyze the data with SPSS statistical software.

The research uncovers the fact that the current status of lean implementation and awareness in Indian industries is not so encouraging and the reason for that is, the human-related issues are not tackled properly. Quality and process technology, are the two key areas where industries are indicating inadequate efforts and poor insight.

The study conducted was limited to 32 industries situated in the eastern and western region of India. The data collected for few industries rely on only one respondent.

The study identifies the lean implementation status based on nine lean assessment key areas and uncovers the major roadblocks for lean practices in Indian industries. It provides key insights to lean practicing industries and lean practitioner about the major barriers and key areas for the improvement.

The paper reports comprehensive insights on current awareness and implementation of lean manufacturing (LM) in India. It also highlights the initiatives taken by Government of India to increase the competitiveness of the Indian industries, specifically of manufacturing sector, through the adoption of LM techniques. This would provide a platform for carrying out a detailed research in LM in Indian context.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine lean manufacturing (LM) practices and to quantify their impact on business performance (BP), with particular emphasis on the mediating role of operational performance (OP) in deriving the BP benefits commonly linked with LM. It also seeks to identify those lean practices most appropriate for application.

Empirical data on LM practices were collected using a structured survey questionnaire. The sampling frame was Jordanian companies registered and listed by the Amman Chamber of Commerce. In total, 500 questionnaires were distributed among 300 companies and a total of 249 completed questionnaires were eligible for statistical processing, a response rate of 49.8 percent. Invalid questionnaires were eliminated, leaving 228 usable. The theoretical relations were tested by structural equation modeling.

Although the results of the statistical analysis indicate a positive and significant impact of implementing LM practices on both OP and BP, they also show that the various LM practices did not receive equal recognition among the organizations surveyed. The most commonly adopted lean principles were found to be total preventive maintenance, statistical process control and housekeeping 5S.

Other lean practices have not been considered as a dimension in this study. However, it opens new avenues of investigation relevant to lean practices.

The most significant implication of the study is that managers in manufacturing firms should place more emphasis on LM practices when developing strategies for leveraging performance. The study shows that the LM approach contributes to BP when LM practices are simultaneously implemented.

The originality of this study lies in the new context in which it was conducted. The study adds value by investigating the implementation of LM practices which have been transferred from developed to developing countries and by empirically examining their impact on key performance indicators within the Jordanian manufacturing sector.

Several off‐site manufacturing companies in Sweden have attempted to apply lean management to improve process effectiveness and efficiency. A state of continuous improvement is a key goal of lean management, as described in, e.g. Likers 4P model. The aim of this study is to test a method to measure the degree to which lean management principles have been adopted by companies that base their production on off‐site manufacturing, as a prerequisite for a sustainable approach to continuous improvement.

A survey is applied as research method, using a questionnaire based on the authors' perceptions of best practices corresponding to each lean management principle. Two questionnaires were distributed to both management and factory production personnel in two off‐site manufacturing firms in Sweden.

The Likert scores regarding the degree to which lean principles have been applied in the two studied companies showed similar patterns (and similar differences between the management and production personnel's responses), indicating that the results can be generalised within an off‐site construction context. The study shows that continuous improvements must emerge and evolve simultaneously with a focus on processes, people and long‐term thinking.

In order to obtain more generalised and detailed results a more extensive survey covering several companies, as well as more detailed case studies and more questions regarding each principle, are needed. A multivariate analysis will also scan the material for further dependences.

The paper highlights several aspects that are important for management to be aware of when aiming for continuous improvements in off‐site manufacturing.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate lean tools correlation, interactions and implementation in manufacturing industry at multinational corporation and its impact on operational performance.

This paper used a survey questionnaire based on previous work done in the US industry. The questionnaire was distributed to 340 firms in 11 countries in the MENA region. These firms are multinational companies operating in this region post-2001, i.e. Greenfield manufacturing facilities. Total usable responses were 139 from 340 contacted by emails and phone, whereas 15 were face-to-face. The survey included 139 companies of which 66 companies were from North America, 40 from Europe and the rest were from South-East Asia (mainly Japan and South Korea).

Multinational manufacturing companies in MENA region are at an advanced level of lean implementation. Results present a detailed analysis of the top 16 lean practices and their impact on 15 operational performance metrics. In addition, the results also reveal a correlation and grouping/bundling of the 16 lean tools and their direct influence on the top 8 operational metrics.

Because the sample size only includes multinational companies operating in MENA region, the countries’ social, economic and political issues will directly influence them. For example, some of the countries have no or very weak unions, whereas other countries give the power to the organizations to force restrictions and guidelines that cannot be followed by other organizations. Therefore, the results need to be considered with caution.

Research about lean implementation in MENA region is rare, although few companies implemented lean since day one of their establishment. This research paper provides operations managers and practitioners with a guide that links lean tools implementation to operational performance metrics objectives with more depth and breadth in comparison with previous empirical studies on the topic.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze lean strategic practices being implemented in manufacturing facilities throughout Pennsylvania and West Virginia and identify the difficulty in implementing those lean practices.

A skip logic questionnaire was developed into multiple sections for analysis; demographics of respondents, identification of the knowledge and practice of lean methods, interpretation of lean application, strategic direction of lean methods, measurements of expertise, and difficulties for practicing lean. The questionnaire was sent to 327 manufacturing facilities where 51 usable responses were collected for the study.

Lean manufacturing is a widely recognized and practiced business philosophy as a significant percentage of manufacturers have implemented some variation of practice. However, the extent of knowledge does not mirror awareness. The application of lean manufacturing practices is not readily appropriate for every company, but adopting the concept of customer-focussed waste reduction to maximize value can be universally applied as waste reduction was the most prominent practice pursued. Lean practitioners found that poka-yoke and installing new process equipment have the highest degree of benefits from implementation while 5S and eliminating waste were the least difficult practices to implement. In general, the management personnel of the companies have an influential effect on lean manufacturing pursuance. This is illustrated by the fact of high agreement between facilities that resistance to change from employees is the most prominent difficulty for implementation followed by limited technical knowledge of lean manufacturing at operational and conceptual levels.

The research findings are from a subset of manufacturing companies in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and may not represent all of the companies on a national level. The results must be interpreted in the context of the data acquisition approach due to the extent of the sample size involved, the procedure for how data were collected, and assuming that each lean strategic practice has the same weight to calculate the facility lean index.

The results provide insight about the effect of facility size and years of lean practicing for various lean strategic practices. The most beneficial and least difficult lean strategies, their implementation level, and the real challenges for implementing lean were also identified to help both lean practitioner and non-practitioner for the lean journey.

The research investigates current lean strategic practices pursued by manufacturers throughout Pennsylvania and West Virginia and identifies obstacles to implementation of lean practices. Lean manufacturing is widely sought after as a continuous improvement program, but success is divided. This study characterizes lean manufacturing comprehension while identifying knowledge areas of strengths and deficiencies. There lacks an established structure for lean practices to pursue. Therefore, this study provides manufacturers a measure for comparing their position for refined decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality practices of European pharmaceutical manufacturers to determine the level of readiness of this industrial sector to implement and/or sustain lean manufacturing (LM).

An assessment framework developed by Al-Najem et al. (2013) was adapted to evaluate how ready European pharmaceutical manufacturers are to implement and/or sustain LM. Therefore, the lean readiness (LR) level of these organisations was assessed through six quality practices related to LM. These included: processes, planning and control, human resources, top management and leadership, customer relations, and supplier relations. One research question and three hypotheses were formulated and tested using a combination of descriptive statistics and non-parametric Mann-Whitney tests. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire distributed to 310 European pharmaceutical manufacturers and responded by 37 of these organisations.

Overall, the results of this study indicate an inadequate level of LR for the participating firms. Simultaneously, it was concluded that factors such as company size, type of relationships with suppliers and ISO 9000 certification do not have an effect on the quality practices, and hence LR level, of European pharmaceutical manufacturing organisations.

This study provides crucial information regarding the LR level of European pharmaceutical manufacturers, which can now be aware of the areas in their practices that require further improvement towards a successful lean journey. Simultaneously, organisations in the pharmaceutical sector that intend to implement LM can consider the results of this study and evaluate their readiness level. Managers can, therefore, refer to this research and use it as a platform to take better decisions regarding what quality aspects of their operations need to be enhanced to successfully deploy or sustain a lean strategy.

This research is one of the very few studies that have focussed on evaluating whether the European pharmaceutical manufacturing industry is ready to successfully implement or sustain LM. Therefore, this research expands the limited existent body of knowledge of LM in this industry.