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Purpose – To describe the evolution of an integrated ‘lean’ and ‘agile’ supply chain process that employed Just‐in‐time (JIT) lean manufacturing approaches at an electronics company. Design/methodology/approach – A case study was designed to examine the links between specific efficiencies and cost savings that derived from transitions in the evolution of the integrated lean and agile supply chain. The case study focused on the company's supply chain management innovations that led to specific improvements in production processes that in turn resulted in enhanced financial outcomes. Findings – The data revealed how specific quality enhancing and lean manufacturing components evolved over a period of seven years in a two stage transition from a ‘lean’ supply chain to one that represented an integrated lean and agile paradigm based on the decoupling point approach (Christopher & Towill, 2001). Research limitations/implications – A single site case study limits the generalizability of the findings. Additional research is necessary to replicate the findings in other firms/industries. Practical implications – By incorporating improvements in production processes in the supply chain, managers can determine how inefficiencies in the supply chain process can be tracked and eliminated to improve a firm's financial performance. Originality/value – Research that documents links between different managerial functions, e.g. supply chain management, improved manufacturing processes, and accounting issues (e.g. cost reduction and improved profitability), is particularly useful.

Although leanness is certainly not a new concept it is doubtless still relevant. Interestingly, newly developed manufacturing paradigms and systems are always examined in relation to leanness. In other words, leanness serves in most cases as the landmark paradigm with which comparisons are being drawn between the latter and recently pioneered approaches. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the evolutional orbit that leanness has followed over the years and serve as a herald of the current state of this evolution, which will be discussed further, in a separate paper.

A great part of this paper is devoted to highlighting the misconceptions surrounding issues such as what leanness really constitutes and what are the key concepts and practices that leanness encompasses. Two successful lean transition stories are presented showing how these lean tools and techniques were implemented in the cases of two UK‐based manufacturing companies.

Because of its inherently dynamic nature, leanness has undergone and still is undergoing a process of continuous and never‐ending evolution, the current state of which is expressed in the form of the lean enterprise model. Nevertheless, despite the undiminished attention and interest for leanness, the literature has failed to keep track of this evolution. For this reason a significant proportion of the literature relies on a rather antiquated vision of leanness.

The paper reviews two major waves of literature criticising leanness with the first focusing on its social aspects and the second questioning its universality mainly with respect to its limited applicability in high variety‐low volume production systems.

Lean healthcare is used in a growing number of hospitals to increase efficiency and quality of care. However, healthcare organizations encounter problems with the implementation of change initiatives due to an implementation gap: the gap between strategy and execution. From a change management perspective, the purpose of this paper is to increase scientific knowledge regarding factors that diminish the implementation gap and make the transition from the “toolbox lean” toward an actual transformation to lean healthcare.

A cross-sectional study was executed in an operating theatre of a Dutch University Medical Centre. Transformational leadership was expected to ensure the required top-down commitment, whereas team leadership creates the required active, bottom-up behavior of employees. Furthermore, professional and functional silos and a hierarchical structure were expected to impede the workforce flexibility in adapting organizational elements and optimize the entire process flow.

The correlation and regression analyses showed positive relations between the transformational leadership and team leadership styles and lean healthcare implementation. The results also indicated a strong relation between workforce flexibility and the implementation of lean healthcare.

With the use of a recently developed change management model, the Change Competence Model, the authors suggest leadership and workforce flexibility to be part of an organization’s change capacity as crucial success factor for a sustainable transformation to lean healthcare.

This study describes how two organisations transitioned to teaching Lean online during and post Covid-19. This study aims to establish how Lean teaching and training can be designed and delivered effectively online without adverse effects on the student’s learning experience of Lean concepts.

A case study approach was used to review the design, application and results of the transition to online Lean teaching and training. Qualitative and quantitative methods were deployed to assess the results.

Online Lean learning and application were assured via the design of practical problem-based teaching environments, aided by using the virtual classroom as an obeya room and as a kaizen environment where students worked in teams. Students were enabled to learn and apply Lean tools practically and reflect on their learnings.

This study demonstrates that effective online design can ensure. Lean methods are understood without affecting the student's learning, classroom experience and grasp of concepts.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is one of the first studies on implementing Lean training and education online during COVID-19 under the lens of both a training provider and university education viewpoint. The changes validated best practices for virtual Lean education and training in the organisations under study, maintained post-COVID.

The “resource‐based view” (RBV) of firms considers that major operational and organisational advantages are created in the internal environment of a firm. The implementation of lean manufacturing represents the potential for strategic advantage over competitors, especially in craft‐based industries in developing regions of the world. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the adoption of lean manufacturing and market share and value creation of companies in the agricultural machinery and implements sector in Brazil.

The paper is based on data collected in a survey conducted across 37 firms in the agricultural machinery and implements industry in Brazil. The data were used within a model for assessing the degree of leanness to test three hypotheses using correlation, regression, analysis of variance and cluster statistical methods.

Brazilian firms and managers in this sector that have supported a transition towards the adoption (and adaptation) of lean manufacturing practices have shown a significant improvement in their business performance.

The paper presents an empirical study where lean manufacturing is investigated and tested from a “RBV” perspective. It demonstrates the application of an emergent model for measuring the degree of leanness and the extent of business improvement. The study and the model are applied to smaller, craft‐based industries and so is applicable in developing countries and regions, in comparison with most literature on lean production in advanced economies. It provides a useful perspective for firms to corroborate and understand the potential benefits that lean manufacturing can bring if adopted.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a step‐by‐step implementation framework for lean product development (LPD), from the marketing research on product development process, product design to the launch of final production.

The research approach taken in this paper is built around the primary industry cases, practical approaches and partial solutions available within the existing literature.

The most recent improvement of LPD, from the authors' perspective, focuses on tools and implementation for LPD. In this paper, a detailed step‐by‐step implementation is given after the framework is introduced. Led by value and waste analysis in product development, different tools and techniques which can be used to eliminate wastes were discussed briefly, and then the implementation from Doing the Right Thing to Doing the Right Thing for company transition to lean were proposed elaborately.

Due to time and economic environment limitations, the authors have not covered and implemented this approach in all existing different environments to ensure that it is robust.

The approach described here seeks to overcome other frameworks' weaknesses in terms of the realistic aspect and feasibility, and combines more existing best practice from industry, consultancy and academia into a step‐by‐step framework for the achievement of effective LPD.

The importance of networks in effecting the outcomes of change processes is well‐established in the literature. Whilst extant literature focuses predominantly on the structural properties of networks, our purpose is to explore the dynamics of network emergence that give rise to the outcomes of process improvement interventions. Through the use of actor‐network theory (ANT), the purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics in the implementation of a process improvement methodology in the complex organisational setting of a UK National Health Service Trust. The paper illustrates the utility of ANT in articulating the dynamic nature of networks underpinning socio‐technical change, and our analysis provides insights for the management process change initiatives.

This is a rich qualitative study in the Pathology Unit of a UK National Health Service Trust, using ANT as the theoretical lens for tracking the emergence and transformation of networks of individuals over the course of a management intervention to promote “Lean thinking” for process performance improvements.

ANT is useful for explicitly tracking how organisational players shift their positions and network allegiances over time, and for identifying objects and actions that are effective in engaging individuals in networks which enable transition to a Lean process. It is important to attend to the dynamics of the process of change and devise appropriate timely interventions enabling actors to shift their own positions towards a desired outcome.

The paper makes the case for using theoretical frameworks developed outside the operations management to develop insights for designing process interventions.

By understanding the role of shifting networks managers can use timely interventions during the process implementation to facilitate the transition to Lean processes, e.g. using demonstrable senior leadership commitment and visual communication.

Discusses the importance of achieving alignment between buyers and sellers, with specific emphasis on efforts by buyers to improve the performance of their suppliers. Describes common barriers and presents strategies and methods that were successful in educating and developing suppliers’ capabilities in lean production across multiple tiers. Presents supporting activities that can help facilitate implementation and ensure that lean production does not become another “flavour of the month”.

There is compelling evidence that demonstrates that organisations are failing to reap the full benefits of lean initiatives. While much work has been conducted on what factors are critical to the success of lean initiatives, there is a dearth of empirical evidence relating to whether team leaders implement critical success factors (CSFs) in practice. Therefore, this study aims to explore the extent to which functional team leaders implement lean practices focussing on the role of leadership, empowerment and culture.

The research analysed team leaders in a single-site manufacturing organisation. A state-of-the-art analysis was conducted to isolate relevant themes and an instrument was developed to capture data. Empirical data was collected and analysed from 34 team leaders in engineering, quality and manufacturing.

The study found that while many good managerial practices to support lean is implemented, there remain significant challenges relating to cultural issues which must be addressed. The findings illuminate a latent gap in commitment and communication from senior management, as well as an underlying discrepancy in time and resource allocation.

The study’s findings provide new knowledge concerning the extent to which CSFs are implemented by functional team leaders in a real-world environment. The enquiry makes a valuable departure from previous research that focusses on leadership at a senior and middle manager level. It bridges the gap between academia and practice and provides tangible and concise results to management on how CSFs relating to leadership, empowerment and culture impact team leaders to drive lean methodologies.

Sustainable improvement is likely to be hampered by ambiguous objectives and uncertain cause-effect relations in care processes (the organization’s decision-making context). Lean management can improve implementation results because it decreases ambiguity and uncertainties. But does it succeed? Many quality improvement (QI) initiatives are appropriate improvement strategies in organizational contexts characterized by low ambiguity and uncertainty. However, most care settings do not fit this context. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a Lean-inspired change program changed the organization’s decision-making context, making it more amenable for QI initiatives.

In 2014, 12 professionals from a Dutch radiotherapy institute were interviewed regarding their perceptions of a Lean program in their organization and the perceived ambiguous objectives and uncertain cause-effect relations in their clinical processes. A survey (25 questions), addressing the same concepts, was conducted among the interviewees in 2011 and 2014. The structured interviews were analyzed using a deductive approach. Quantitative data were analyzed using appropriate statistics.

Interviewees experienced improved shared visions and the number of uncertain cause-effect relations decreased. Overall, more positive (99) than negative Lean effects (18) were expressed. The surveys revealed enhanced process predictability and standardization, and improved shared visions.

Lean implementation has shown to lead to greater transparency and increased shared visions.

Lean management decreased ambiguous objectives and reduced uncertainties in clinical process cause-effect relations. Therefore, decision making benefitted from Lean increasing QI’s sustainability.