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The purpose of this paper is to develop insights about the psychological factors that contribute to lean’s success as a holistic and adaptive system.

The authors use the best-selling book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” (TFAS) (2011) by Nobel-prize winner Daniel Kahneman to provide a familiar lens for readers who might not otherwise be familiar with the psychology theories that are used in this paper to study lean conceptually. With this approach, the paper sheds light on psychological factors that tie together many of the philosophies, principles and practices of lean.

The paper shows how lean’s philosophies, principles and practices provide a synergistic and self-reinforcing system that drives employee thinking and actions. TFAS characterizes thought processes as “fast System 1 thinking” that relies on intuition and “slow System 2 thinking” that is more rational and logical. Lean psychology eliminates waste and adds customer value by supporting, enhancing and taking advantage of beneficial fast thinking and motivating and imposing appropriate slow thinking.

The authors develop the concept of lean psychology to describe the relationship between psychology theories and lean. By applying lean psychology, organizations can go beyond superficially adopting a checklist of tools and techniques to more fully take advantage of lean and improve their operations performance.

This paper aims to reveal the philanthropy landscape processes for dealing with disasters and examine the influence of lean thinking in managing philanthropy for disasters. It sought to leverage continuous improvement and maximise disaster response and humanitarian logistics efficiency.

A sequential quantitative, qualitative research methods strategy was utilised involving data collection with literary analysis and two sets of online surveys with 212 NGO staff members in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In addition, in-depth key informant interviews were conducted with 23 staff members at various management levels from these countries.

The study found that lean thinking had a positive, statistically valid influence at a 95% confidence level. Community incorporation, government support and collaboration with other philanthropic organisations were critical success factors. When lean thinking tools were applied (any tools), philanthropic organisations experienced waste reduction and value addition, where waste reduction accounted for 67% variation, and value-addition accounted for 58%, respectively. These were the same benefits experienced in other industries, thus, justifying lean thinking's applicability in the non-profit sector. Lean was most helpful about the communication and duplication of efforts challenges humanitarian or philanthropic organisations face when responding to a disaster.

The study equips leaders and philanthropic organisations with suggestions to manage and respond to disasters in a lean and effective manner. The study helps philanthropy leaders rethink their funding and response models to pursue lean policies catering to humanitarian organisations and the communities they serve.

The study closes significant gaps in the literature and practice by adopting a multi-sectoral lens that borrows from business and manufacturing tools into a non-profit context. It enables documentation of processes and logistical management by philanthropy organisations for continuous improvement and elimination of waste to ensure efficiency in the philanthropic role of alleviating the impact of disasters. The study also affirms the need for philanthropic organisations to incorporate community feedback, use lean tools to collaborate with other responding organisations and work closely with the local authorities to fulfil the government's supportive role: the primary source and executor in disaster response.

Over the last several decades, lean thinking has been credited with several advancements in the practices of private sector organizations. Only recently have researchers begun to report on lean thinking as it applies to the public sector. For public procurement research, the concept remains largely unexamined. This research used the extant literature to identify preconditions that are required to successfully deploy lean thinking principles, tools, and techniques. Salient preconditions were organized into key categories. These categories provided the basis for a framework designed to assess public procurementʼs ability to adopt lean thinking, and aid in its implementation within this public sector environment. Questions suggested to guide future research, along with an approach intended to facilitate this work, are also presented.

The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance for the management of supply chains in order to increase the likelihood of lean thinking being generally adopted for the purposes of value creation, and to examine the potential role of the customer in improving supply chain performance. This study aims to address the impact of lean thinking when it is used in supply chains, then to address the relevant factors needed to enhance the entire process of chain value creation.

A survey of extant studies in the Egyptian industrial sector is undertaken here, involving a questionnaire which was distributed to all managerial levels in all departments of a number of companies. This questionnaire is divided to two main sections. The first section considers the question of value creation, while the second is related to lean thinking.

The model which is presented here is intended to examine the nature of the relationship between lean thinking and value creation in supply chains. Consequently, it could help to enhance customer satisfaction, increase internal‐customer performance and provide innovative products.

The study is based on a sample of relatively limited geographical scope (in Egypt) and the duration of the survey is limited to one year. Future research could expand the geographical coverage to other parts of the world over a longer duration.

Internal resistance is more of a barrier than external (customer or supplier) resistance to lean thinking. Thus, organizations should focus first on internal (functional) integration, and then move on to inter‐organizational integration. Furthermore, people are often critical of the role of technology in implementing lean thinking.

Little empirical research has previously been carried out into the implementation of lean thinking. Practitioners and researchers should find value in this unique comparative study.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how a performance measurement system called “the flow model” is designed to measure changes towards lean thinking in health care services.

The paper integrates literature from the health care sector and the lean production movement in order to understand whether lean thinking is applicable in healthcare and thereby identify key performance indicators that measure changes towards lean thinking in health care. The flow model is discussed in relation to this measurement framework.

The paper finds that lean thinking is applicable in health care settings, and that the flow model is a suitable tool for following up these initiatives. However, it is argued that the flow model needs to be balanced with other measurements in order to receive a complete picture of lean performance.

The paper shows that the framework of measurements may be used in empirical research of assessing changes towards lean thinking in health care settings.

The paper shows that health care practitioners may use the findings to develop measurements of the outcome of lean initiatives on existing care processes.

The paper shows analysis and discussion of the application of an industrial concept – Lean Production – in health care services.

Human Resource Practices (HRPs) have undergone a revolutionary change, with their practices being more strategic for facilitating the change process. Extant literature studies the impact of Lean Thinking Practices (LTPs) on Organizational Performance (OP). However, the role of HRP as a strategic partner in the inculcation of LTP appears to have been explored sparingly. Hence, this paper aims to identify the specific HRPs that enhance the impact of Lean Thinking on OP.

A cross-sectional survey method was adopted. A total of 528 responses from IT organizations across various levels and processes were collected. The proposed conceptual framework was tested and validated SPSS-Process Macro.

Findings revealed that the presence of HRPs as moderators is significantly impacting the relationship between LTP and OP. LTP when moderated by HRPs significantly impacts employee well-being when compared to other performance variables.

This study is a maiden attempt to study the role of HRP in the inculcation of LTP in IT organizations. Earlier studies, which have mainly concentrated on the need for Human Resource (people) involvement, have spoken and researched less about the specific HRPs in the inculcation of LTP. An empirically validated specific HRP for inculcating LTP in IT organizations is a significant contribution.

This study aims to develop a standardised instrument to measure the impact of lean thinking on supply chain value. This tool can be used to examine supply chain readiness and thus enhance overall value. It can also observe the potential role of customers, competitors and suppliers in increasing supply chain performance.

A survey of previous studies is undertaken in the Egyptian industrial sector. The study also uses a questionnaire provided across all managerial levels of Egyptian firms. This questionnaire is divided into two main sections: the first section is considered to be about lean thinking stages for waste elimination, namely muri, mura and muda, while the second section relates to the value creation dimensions.

The developed instrument accesses and analyses different types of lean thinking for identifying lean degree in supply chains. Consequently, it could lead to enhancing value creation in supply chains. This explorative study also indicates that the Egyptian industrial sector is willing to go lean.

Some limitations exist in this study. First, the survey was conducted on the Egyptian industrial sector. The applicability of the proposed scale should thus be further tested in different countries and service mixtures.

Internal resistance is more of a barrier than external (customers, suppliers or competitors) resistance to lean thinking. Thus, organisations should focus first on internal (functional) integration and then move on to interorganisational integration. Further, people are more critical than technology in implementing lean thinking.

There is little empirical research on the implementation of lean thinking. Practitioners and researchers should find value in this unique instrument.

The purpose of this paper is to define a guideline for integrating ISO 9001 and lean thinking. It seeks to cross‐reference the guideline presented with ISO 9001 requirements and to integrate parts of the standard text with lean principles and tools.

Over the past nine years, a group of consultants has been collecting data and information from 107 manufacturing companies around Europe. The companies have been chosen from different European countries and they are of different sizes. All the companies are ISO 9001 certified and at a “mature” stage of lean implementation.

It is found that in general, lean thinking implementation affects documentation such as quality manual, procedures and work instructions. Furthermore, tools and principles such as value stream mapping, lean metrics, 5S and takt time are the most used inside the 107 companies. Jidoka and total productive maintenance are those that have been more formalised into ISO 9001 documents.

Practitioners and consultants could use the guideline for future lean thinking application within a quality management system, especially analysing the impact on documentation (e.g. quality manual, procedures and work instructions). Furthermore, practitioners and academics could use parts of the presented guideline in order to discuss and propose new ways for integrating lean thinking and ISO 9001.

This is one of the first attempts to understand the impacts of lean thinking on ISO 9001 and propose a guideline for their integration. The results of the paper propose many aspects to investigate.

The application of lean thinking in the transportation industry provides opportunities to streamline operations with a value-added orientation. Prior literature shows evidence of limited application of lean thinking in the transportation operations of the pharmaceutical industry. This study aims to close this research gap by investigating the application of lean thinking for improving pharmaceutical transportation performance.

This study conducted an action research approach at an Indonesian pharmaceutical distribution company. One cycle in one year was analyzed; empirical data were collected and analyzed through direct observations, interviews and the study of company data and documentation.

The application of lean thinking in waste elimination allowed the delivered project to achieve a remarkable 40% reduction in overall transportation costs, 75% reduction in total lead time, 200% improvement in truck productivity and 100% improvement in truckload capacity utilization.

This study can guide the pharmaceutical industry toward achieving excellence in transportation operations through lean thinking implementation.

There has been limited research on this topic, and this study is the first attempt to generate new and significant evidence of a real-life application of lean thinking within the field of pharmaceutical transportation.

Although discussed for more than 20 years, information about Lean adoption in higher education institutions (HEIs) is scarce, especially in developing countries. This research aims to investigate the degree of Lean thinking adoption on administrative services of Brazilian private HEIs. The results are compared to studies from USA and UK, highlighting the maturity on enablers, principles, tools and performance measures related to Lean.

A quantitative survey research was carried out. The instrument is adapted for HEIs from the proposal of Malmbrandt and Åhlström (2013) for Lean services. Cronbach’s alpha and factor analysis were used to validate the adapted instrument. Additional data analysis was based on non-parametric tests.

No evidence of broad implementation of Lean thinking in administrative processes of Brazilian private HEIs was found, with the adoption being incipient. The results are convergent to those presented by other studies in the USA and the UK. There is a gap between the existing knowledge about Lean in the academic sphere of the HEIs and its application on their academic processes.

The effective sample size was of 47, despite contacts being sent to 2,090 institutions. This sample allows exploratory research, although further research is required. Results are adherent to those found in research from other countries.

The research presents descriptive and exploratory results regarding the adoption of Lean in Brazilian HEIs. No previous similar research was found in the literature.