Purpose - This paper aims to investigate the definition of Lean Production and the methods and goals associated with the concept as well as how it differs from other popular management concepts. Methodology/Approach - The paper is based on a review of the contemporary literature on Lean Production, both journal articles and books. Findings - It is shown in the paper that there is no consensus on a definition of Lean Production between the examined authors. The authors also seem to have different opinions on which characteristics that should be associated with the concept. Overall it can be concluded that Lean Production is not clearly defined in the reviewed literature. This divergence can cause some confusion on a theoretical level, but is probably more problematic on a practical level when organizations aim to implement the concept. This paper argues that it is important for an organization to acknowledge the different variations, and to raise the awareness of the input in the implementation process. It is further argued that the organization should not accept any random variant of Lean, but make active choices and adapt the concept to suit the organization-s needs. Through this process of adaptation, the organization will be able to increase the odds of performing a predictable and successful implementation. Originality/Value - This paper provides a critical perspective on the discourse surrounding Lean Production, and gives an input to the discussion of the implementation of management models. Keywords - Lean Production, Definition, Construct Validity, Total Quality Management Paper type - Conceptual paper

https://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/033/025/ecp0803325.pdf

Defining Lean Production : Some conceptual and practical issues

The most recent trend manufacturers have embraced to seek operational performance improvements is the use of a wide range of digital technologies typically associated with Industry 4.0. However, fe...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00207543.2020.1790684

The complementary effect of lean manufacturing and digitalisation on operational performance

Production research literature and industry practice have started to pay increasing attention to the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) phenomenon. Scholars and practitioners identified a strong link between this...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00207543.2020.1821119

One-to-one relationships between Industry 4.0 technologies and Lean Production techniques: a multiple case study

The purpose of this paper is 1) to investigate the effects on the crucial Industry 40 technological innovations that interact between the real and virtual worlds and that are applied in the sustainable supply chain process; 2) to contribute to the identification of the opportunities, the challenges and the gaps that will support the new research study developments and 3) to analyze the impact of the Industry 40 technologies as facilitators of the sustainable supply chain performance in the midst of the Coronavirus (COVID-19),This research is performed through a bibliographic review in the electronic databases of the Emerald Insight, the Scopus and the Web of Science, considering the main scientific publications on the subject,The bibliographic search results in 526 articles, followed by two sequential filters for deleting the duplicate articles (resulting in 487 articles) and for selecting the most relevant articles (resulting in 150 articles),This article identifies the opportunities and the challenges focused on the emerging Industry 40 theme The opportunities can contribute to the sustainable performance of the supply chains and their territories The Industry 40 can also generate challenges like the social inequalities related to the position of the man in the labor market by replacing the human workforce with the machines Therefore, the man-machine relationship in the Industry 40 era is analyzed as a gap in the literature Therefore, as a way to fill this gap, the authors of this article suggest the exploration of the research focused on the Society 50 Also known as “super-smart society,” this recent theme appeared in Japan in April 2016 According to Fukuda (2020), in addition to the focus on the technological development, the Society 50 also aims at the quality of life and the social challenge resolutions,This article contributes to the analysis of the Industry 40 technologies as facilitators in the sustainable supply chain performance It addresses the impacts of the Industry 40 technologies applied to the supply chains in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it analyzes the research gaps and limitations found in the literature The result of this study can add value and stimulate new research studies related to the application of the Industry 40 technologies as facilitators in the supply chain sustainable performance It can encourage the studies related to the COVID-19 impacts on the sustainable supply chains, and it can promote the research development on the relationship among the man, the machine and the labor in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJPPM-03-2020-0137/full/pdf?title=applying-industry-40-technologies-in-the-covid19-sustainable-chains

Applying Industry 4.0 technologies in the COVID–19 sustainable chains

The enterprises to be competitive are constantly looking for continuous increase of productivity, quality and level of services. With the development of Industry 4.0 concept, manufacturers are more...

/pdf/towards-lean-industry-4-0-current-trends-and-future-hrhh6j2681.pdf

Towards ‘Lean Industry 4.0ʹ – Current trends and future perspectives

The aim of this study is to investigate the body of literature on lean published by the International Journal of Production Research (IJPR), which has been interested in the subject since its dawn....

How IJPR has addressed ‘lean’: a literature review using bibliometric tools

The aim of this study is to investigate the body of literature on digital twins, exploring, in particular, their role in enabling smart industrial systems. This review adopts a dynamic and quantita...

Digital twin-enabled smart industrial systems: a bibliometric review

The literature discusses data science (DS) as a very promising set of techniques and tools to support lean production (LP) practices. DS could aid manufacturing companies in transforming massive re...

Linking data science to lean production: a model to support lean practices

New, increasingly affordable smart technologies can be used to bring homes to the smart paradigm. Despite this, several studies still present varying estimates of the variables that affect users’ acceptance of these technologies. This article aims to identify key trends regarding the effect of various factors on smart home technologies acceptance. This study starts from the relations proposed in the UTAUT2 model for acceptance of new technologies and estimates these relations based on an international set of 24 studies. In addition to the main relations proposed in UTAUT2, the model proposed also moderates the effects of gender and timeline variables. The results showed ‘attitude’ and ‘performance expectation’ constructs as the most decisive for accepting the smart home technologies. The moderation by gender results indicates that gender has a significant effect on smart home adoption. Moderation concerning the timeline of the studies points out that more recent studies have lower hedonic motivation, social influence, and performance expectation effects on smart home acceptance. 

Maria Pia Ciano

Papers

One-to-one relationships between Industry 4.0 technologies and Lean Production techniques: a multiple case study

How IJPR has addressed ‘lean’: a literature review using bibliometric tools

Digital twin-enabled smart industrial systems: a bibliometric review

Linking data science to lean production: a model to support lean practices

The acceptance process of smart homes by users: a statistical meta-analysis