Towards Greater Understanding of Success and Survival of Lean Systems 2013

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Towards greater understanding of success and survivalof lean systemsAndrew Taylora, Margaret Taylora & Andrew McSweeneya

a Operations and Information Management, School of Management, University of Bradford,West Yorkshire, UK.Published online: 06 Aug 2013.

To cite this article: Andrew Taylor, Margaret Taylor & Andrew McSweeney (2013) Towards greater understandingof success and survival of lean systems, International Journal of Production Research, 51:22, 6607-6630, DOI:10.1080/00207543.2013.825382

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Towards greater understanding of success and survival of lean systems

Andrew Taylor*, Margaret Taylor and Andrew McSweeney

Operations and Information Management, School of Management, University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK

(Received 3 January 2013; final version received 26 June 2013)

The purposes of this research are to remove some of the confusion surrounding the characterisation of lean systems; todelve deeper into the human issues associated with lean; and to explore the complexity of an established lean system toidentify issues which affect its success and ongoing continuance. Using the mixed methods of literature analysis, semi-structured interviews and document analysis, we examine the lean implementation in one site of an international carmanufacturer. We claim several contributions for the work. First, we produce a literature-based taxonomy defining thecore dimensions of lean – this gives managers a clear roadmap for lean implementation. A second contribution is adetailed delineation of the human issues of lean, from which managers can follow our set of themes to guide theirmanagerial efforts. Finally, we provide insights into the inner workings of a lean system showing several examples ofthe delicate balances and tensions which exist. Perhaps none is as significant as the issue of its long term survival, whichour findings suggest may be at risk. This serves as a warning signal to managers to be on constant lookout for signs offaltering or failure.

Keywords: lean operations; human issues in lean; lean taxonomy; automotive manufacturing; case study research

1. Introduction

Lean production (LP) is regarded by many as the optimum route to competitive capability (Losonci, Demeter, and Jenei2011) to the extent that lean is sometimes described as the dominant paradigm and the gold standard of modern opera-tions (Farris et al. 2009). Despite these accolades, there are at least three aspects of lean where knowledge is lacking.The first of these concerns its definition and characterisation, where there remains confusion and imprecision: ‘It isextremely difficult … to determine what LP stands for … definitions are rather vague and confused, with various ele-ments and sub-elements put forth in various papers’ (Demeter and Matyusz 2011, 155). This reflects a widespread viewthat the essence of Japanese management practices is difficult to circumscribe (Spear and Bowen 1999; Towill 2007;Taylor and Taylor 2008).

The second aspect relates to the ‘softer’ human issues associated with lean implementations (Losonci, Demeter, andJenei 2011). While this research need was originally highlighted some years ago, it is only recently that an associatedstream of investigation has emerged, albeit that many articles remain theoretical or anecdotal rather than empirical(Farris et al. 2009). Knowledge of the ‘relationships between LP implementation activities and employee outcomes arenot fully understood, and additional research is needed to determine which lean system designs produce the most posi-tive outcomes’ (Ibid., 43). Even within published empirical studies, in most instances, the human focus has been limited(Liker and Hoseus 2010). The final knowledge gap concerns the ability of firms to harness their lean implementationsto achieve performance improvements and to sustain these gains over time, by keeping the system going forward andevolving; in other words, by maintaining its momentum through the commitment of all employees (Glover et al. 2011).Many firms which attempt to implement lean do not experience their anticipated performance results (Bhasin and Bur-cher 2006; Losonci, Demeter, and Jenei 2011). Moreover, ‘even among firms that have reported significant benefits fromtheir implementation … these gains have tended to dissipate over the years’ (Jayaram, Das, and Nicolae 2010).

This study aims to investigate these knowledge gaps using literature review and an empirical case study to addressthe following research questions: (i) What are the defining characteristics of a lean system? (ii) What are the key humanissues that should be included in any study of lean? (iii) What are the challenges in sustaining a lean system over time?The literature is currently unable to provide unequivocal responses to these questions, yet managers need the answers inorder to make sensible decisions about resource allocation for lean system development and survival.

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

International Journal of Production Research, 2013Vol. 51, No. 22, 6607–6630, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2013.825382

� 2013 Taylor & Francis

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Our research contributes to knowledge in three ways as follows. Firstly, by drawing on prior literature, the essentialfeatures of lean systems are identified and a taxonomy of lean characteristics is produced, underpinned by indicativestatements for each construct. Empirical testing of this taxonomy, on the established LP system at a UK automotiveplant, identifies areas of alignment and difference. Secondly, as access to shop-floor employees is difficult and uncom-mon, our case research at the focal plant, which investigated human issues associated with lean through interviews withsuch employees, is unusual and important. It yielded a multifaceted set of human issues, thereby responding to the callfor work examining lean systems on the shop-floor that considers workers’ feelings and perceptions, particularly of suc-cess, which are considered crucial to effective implementation (Losonci, Demeter, and Jenei 2011). Finally, the datafrom the fieldwork were used to examine the challenges associated with maintaining performance levels and sustaininglean initiatives. These contributions to knowledge are mirrored in three contributions to management practice. (i) Thelean taxonomy provides managers with a road map for lean implementation to avoid the limitations of partial implemen-tation which abound. (ii) The mapping of employee perceptions of lean provides managers with a set of themes aroundwhich to focus their managerial effort. (iii) Identification of the socio-technical aspects of sustaining lean shows manag-ers several levers which form part of a continuing capability for change management and lean transformation.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Initially, the literature is reviewed to contextualise and justifythe research questions. Thereafter, the research methodology is described and the results of the three stages of enquiryare presented. The ensuing discussion includes suggestions for future research, before conclusions summarise the contri-butions of the work.

2. Literature review

The primary focus of the literature review, which is presented in three sections to reflect the research questions, is basedaround automotive production, since this forms the context for the fieldwork.

2.1 What are the defining characteristics of a lean system?

It is approximately 35 years since the first extensive description of the Toyota Production System (TPS) was publishedin English (Sugimori et al. 1977). Subsequently, the need for deeper investigation of the TPS (and by implication, ofJapanese management practices more generally), was highlighted: ‘it is now clear that over-simplified histories and cate-gorizations do not do justice to the complexity and subtlety of the subject … we don’t really understand what the TPSis, and it is possible we never will’ (New 2007, 3546–3547). Failure to increase understanding by getting beneath thesurface of the lean phenomenon will maintain the current situation where ‘lean management is only skin-deep in mostcompanies’ and where companies continue to ‘rely excessively on consultants’, while themselves displaying an ‘inade-quate depth of knowledge’, with ‘inadequate employee involvement’ (Schonberger 2007, 417). The same author com-ments that, during study missions to Japan in the 1980s, many Western observers were blinded by their mindsets offunctional separation and silo mentality instead of being able to see Japanese Production Management (JPM) for what itwas. Reflecting similar ideas, micro-level investigation of lean is advocated in order to avoid the ‘tendency of scholarsto over-simplify resource-based view concepts, and thus squeeze away the quintessential intangibility of practice.’(Witcher, Chau, and Harding 2008, 544).

To a large degree, the difficulties in studying lean are associated with its complexity and the inter-dependence of itsconstituent elements (Saurin, Marodin, and Ribeiro 2011). Whilst, it can be envisaged as a philosophy, or a set of prin-ciples, or as a group of practices (Shah, Chandrasekaran, and Linderman 2008); the prevailing view is of a set of bun-dles of practices (Shah and Ward 2003; Narasimhan, Swink, and Kim 2006). That said, the number and constitution ofbundles remains problematic and the precise elements that constitute lean remain unresolved (Hines, Holweg, and Rich2004; Shah and Ward 2007). In early work, four bundles comprising a total of 22 items were proposed, empirically ver-ified and shown to contribute significantly to improved operational performance (Shah and Ward 2003). These werejust-in-time (JIT), total quality management (TQM), total preventive maintenance and human resource management(HRM). Subsequently, the measurement instruments used in 11 empirical studies of lean dating from 1993 to 2005 werefound to show considerable overlap but also significant dispute with several of the 25 constituent measures being usedfor different aspects of the lean system (Shah and Ward 2007). In response to this confusion, these authors used a sub-stantive empirical data-set to develop a new 10-factor and 41-item set of measures of lean. However, they subsequentlyreverted to the earlier ideas of Shah and Ward (2003), citing the general consensus that lean can be represented by fourbundles relating to quality management, pull production, preventive maintenance and HRM (Shah, Chandrasekaran, andLinderman 2008). The discord that is evident in the literature suggests that further work is needed to get closer to thedefining characteristics of lean.

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2.2 What are the key human issues that should be included in any study of lean?

The notion of one ‘best’ model of production is probably unrealistic such that ‘debate over the merits of different pro-duction systems is important’ (Adler and Cole 1994, 45). As not all automotive production stems from Japanese manu-facturing techniques (Tolliday et al. 1998), this argues for comparison with other systems. Such an evaluation ofVolvo’s human-oriented production system at Uddevalla against the functionalist Japanese lean model in the Toyota-GMjoint venture (NUMMI) drew attention to a number of human dimensions that differentiate alternative systems (Adlerand Cole 1993). Whilst, this work went on to stimulate debate about the relative merits of different systems, it alsoserved to focus attention on the human aspects of lean.

In this regard, lean manufacturing has been argued to harm workers through the stress it creates (Conti et al. 2006)and due to the methods of implementation where bullying, harassment, humiliation and fear of punishment are common-place (Mehri 2006). Mehri’s covert observation of the TPS system in an automobile company in the Toyota kereitsu inJapan particularly highlights the fundamental distinction in Japanese culture between what one believes one is supposedto feel or do (tatemae) and what one actually feels or does (honne). This difference between the public and privateviews of individuals is, Mehri argues, an essential reason why Western researchers have not grasped the true nature ofTPS and lean implementations.

Returning to those studies which have attempted to define and measure lean (Section 2.1), it is striking that there isrelatively insignificant representation of human issues in the measurement instruments that have been used. In Shah andWard (2003), only two of the 22 practices are HR-based, while in Shah and Ward (2007) only five of the 25 measuresidentified in previous studies relate to human issues. Shah and Wards’ own (2007) data yield a single human-related fac-tor comprising four items, and Shah, Chandrasekaran, and Linderman (2008) operationalise their single HRM bundleusing only one of 15 constituent practices. Other work shows a similar pattern (Jayaram, Das, and Nicolae 2010; Thun,Druke, and Grubner 2011), even to the point of asserting that HRM is not a defining characteristic of lean (Pettersen2009).

More recently, there have been some survey-based and simulation studies which recognise the role of HRM inenhancing the effectiveness of lean practices and their synergistic interactions (Liker and Hoseus 2010; Losonci, Deme-ter, and Jenei 2011). Furlan, Vinelli, and Dal Pont (2011) go further, delineating an HR bundle comprising seven items,and providing evidence that HR enhances the complementary and synergistic effects of lean bundles such as TQM andJIT, and also acts as an enabler of these interactions to the extent that without an effective bundle of human practiceslean will not work. However, they acknowledge the limitations of such quantitative approaches and recommend casestudies to shed light on the complexities of the mechanisms which lie beneath the surface.

Typical of this approach is Aoki’s (2008) investigation of the transfer of Japanese kaizen activities to plants inChina, which revealed difficulties associated with giving workers a ‘real say’ in improving their work processes in orderto develop innovative capabilities that are difficult to imitate. In Aoki’s view, such capabilities are those that encourageworker self-initiative to participate in kaizen activities by voicing matters concerning their own work; those that instildiscipline in workers to conform to company rules, work standards and practices such as 5S, and cleaning of machinesand tools; and those that facilitate knowledge creation through reducing the social distance between different categoriesof the workforce, wherein on-the-job training has a critical role. To be successful in this regard, management needs tocreate ‘a system of continuous organisational learning aiming towards innovation’ (Aoki 2008, 520). This theme isdeveloped elsewhere in an examination of the development of dynamic capabilities through the process of top executiveaudits and policy deployment (hoshin kanri) at Nissan South Africa (Witcher, Chau, and Harding 2008). A central fea-ture of hoshin kanri is that it combines the management of exploitation and exploration, effectively producing ‘an inte-grative learning system, which gives to Nissan’s organisation a dynamic capability for managing change’ (Ibid., 555).Both these case-based studies point towards learning and human development as key enablers of lean implementation.Together with the relative lack of emphasis on human issues in lean measurement studies and the calls for investigationof employee perceptions at the shop-floor level (Losonci, Demeter, and Jenei 2011), this suggests that deeper examina-tion of the human issues associated with implementing and working in a lean environment is essential.

2.3 What are the challenges in sustaining a lean system over time?

Whilst the challenges of implementing a lean system are recognised (e.g. Aoki 2008; Panizzolo et al. 2012), sustainingthe momentum of a lean programme over time is also problematic (Hines, Holweg, and Rich 2004; Turesky and Con-nell 2010). Hines, Holweg, and Rich (2004) point to the human dimensions of motivation, empowerment and respectfor people as being key to long term continuance, along with strategic thinking and alignment through policy deploy-ment. Similar issues are raised through Turesky and Connell’s (2010) study of why lean failed in a US manufacturing

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company, Bateman’s (2005) analysis of sustaining kaizen improvements and Schonberger’s (2007) major internationallongitudinal assessment of ‘leanness’. Schonberger’s data highlight low levels of lean performance, most notably amongJapanese firms, and he concludes that this might indicate a difficulty in sustaining JPM approaches despite their underly-ing simplicity. He further suggests that similar declines in leanness for the Western companies he studied could meanthat Western-enhanced JPM may also falter. Similar disquiet has been expressed elsewhere (Fine, Hansen, andRoggenhofer 2009).

Despite the range of dimensions discussed in Adler and Cole’s (1993) comparison of the lean NUMMI plant withVolvo’s Uddevalla plant and in subsequent published discourse, the crux of the debate was argued to be about which‘form of work organisation better supports the kind of sustained rapid organisational learning for world-class competi-tive performance in auto assembly’ (Berggren 1994, 46). This raises twin concerns about the survival of lean and –related to this – the central role of learning in the process of continuance. The focus on organisational learning resonateswith observations about the TPS, ‘which stimulates workers and managers to engage in the kind of experimentation thatis widely recognised as the cornerstone of a learning organisation’ (Spear and Bowen 1999, 98); and it aligns with themore recent views of Aoki (2008) and Witcher, Chau, and Harding (2008) discussed in the previous section.

It seems clear therefore that to adopt and maintain lean, an organisation must be able to learn quickly (Robinsonand Schroeder 2009) and must invest in employee training, organisational infrastructure and culture development tosupport and sustain improvements (Achanga et al. 2005; Hoyte and Greenwood 2007). Learning also implies a need toconstantly question standard processes and procedures in the ceaseless search for improvement (Turesky and Connell2010), while at the same time cultivating the discipline to capture and sustain improvements through further standardisa-tion (Brown, Collins, and McCombs 2006). The tension created by the interplay between standardisation and improve-ment almost inevitably leads to resistance to change, since employees prefer the comfort zone of the status quo and willenact significant, often hidden, forces to thwart the pressure to alter it (Bamber and Dale 2000).

Studies of lean systems have mentioned a range of ‘individual, group and organisational hurdles that threaten toderail them or impair their sustainability’ (Turesky and Connell 2010, 111). Moreover, many of these studies show thatcontext matters when implementing lean and that its essential elements must adapt and evolve as markets change overtime. In summary it would seem that the continuance of lean depends on complex interaction between a number of vari-ables. Micro-level investigation is therefore needed in order to reveal the ways in which lean’s inherent competitivecapabilities are instituted, developed and sustained. Knowledge of what organisations must do to maintain lean systemsonce implemented depends on gaining detailed understanding of the challenges associated with sustaining lean overtime.

This review of the literature points to a need for empirical evidence about the constitution and sustainability of leansystems especially with regard to the relationships between their human and organisational dimensions. It suggests thatsuch evidence should primarily derive from case-based research that examines the perceptions of direct employeesincluding shop-floor workers, and raises three research objectives which provide the focus for our fieldwork, as follows:

• To establish the defining dimensions of a successful lean system.

• To derive a detailed picture of the human aspects of lean through examination of employee perceptions.

• To identify the challenges inherent in maintaining performance levels and sustaining lean over time.

3. Research methodology

3.1 Research design

The literature has called for more in-depth, case-based study of lean (Witcher, Chau, and Harding 2008; Slomp,Bokhorst, and Germs 2009; Furlan, Vinelli, and Dal Pont 2011), and a case study approach was chosen, primarilybecause it allows detailed exploration of complex phenomena (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007) using a variety of evi-dence including artefacts, documents, observations and interviews. The research questions argue for an organisation withextensive experience in implementing lean and whose lean system is fully embedded in its operations. The selected caseis acknowledged by both academia and practice as a leading exponent of lean, and is regularly cited as the most produc-tive automotive plant in Europe. This reputation for being highly productive piqued our curiosity and was the primaryreason for its selection, since it suggests it could represent a ‘critical case’ which, according to Yin (2009), merits a sin-gle-case approach. Research access to such plants is often difficult especially when the research is exploratory andwhere respondents’ time is scarce (Laurila 1997; Okumus, Altinay, and Roper 2007). These issues seem to align withthe features of a ‘revelatory case’ which is also a rationale for a single-case design (Yin 2009). Finally, the choice was


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based on availability of access, as one of the researchers had been employed at the site prior to the study. Since thestudy was exploratory, the stages were not planned in detail in advance. Rather, they emerged as the findings unfolded,to permit ‘controlled opportunism’ i.e. the facility to make adjustments to the data collection process in the light ofemerging results (Eisenhardt 1989). With the benefit of hindsight, and for convenience of reporting, the study proceededin the three sequential stages outlined in Table 1.

3.2 Research setting and data sources

The research was conducted between 2008 and 2010 in one UK assembly plant of a global car manufacturer. At thattime, the plant produced over 300,000 cars annually and was organised around two assembly lines. It employed a totalof approximately 5000 employees, of whom around 3300 worked in manufacturing. Lean had been introduced in 1994,hence at the time of this study, it had been deployed for around 16 years. (The plant is not named due to the sensitivityof some of the findings).

In addressing our first research question, during stage 1, the aim was to isolate the core dimensions of lean. Froman initial set of over 150 articles on lean systems identified through literature review, 16 were selected for in-depth anal-ysis based on the criterion that they provided sufficient detail and coverage of the constituent dimensions of lean. Atable listing all dimensions was constructed in order to establish the degree of consensus which existed. For the sake ofsize and readability, the full table is not reproduced here but Table 2 demonstrates its form and content, where ‘Y’ indi-cates a match between a source and a dimension. (A ‘Y’ was recorded if somewhere in the article the tool/concept wasmentioned in a positive way as being part of lean on at least three occasions. The criterion of ‘at least three occasions’is arbitrary, to try to ensure that the tool/concept is not simply mentioned in passing, but is discussed as being a key partof lean). In total 63 dimensions were culled, from which consensus analysis identified eight core factors that depict arepresentative view of lean – as articulated in the results section.

Stage 2 sought to compare the focal lean system with the version generated at stage 1, and thereby to determine thedegree of fit and to identify differences. Internal documents concerning the design and implementation of the leansystem, including training materials, presentations and company reports were examined. Lengthy semi-structured inter-views were conducted with three senior executives who were responsible for the development of the lean system andwho had in-depth knowledge of its operation both locally and in sister plants. The interviewees were able to speakauthoritatively about the origins, design and development of the system. The interview protocol was informed by thefindings from stage 1 and was arranged into six distinct areas of enquiry with the plant as the unit of analysis:

• The approach to waste reduction and the role of the lean system within that.

• The organisation of the lean system including the approach to JIT supply.

• The rationale for, and methods of, including suppliers in the lean system and for their subsequent development.

• The methods for identification, rectification and prevention of defects, including standardisation, autonomationand improvement strategies.

• The approaches to managing and developing employees within the lean system and for stimulating theirinvolvement.

• The features of the lean system which have been added since its inception and also features which are uniqueto the specific plant.

Table 1. Stages in research design.

Stage Purpose Methods

1. Review of literature on empirical and conceptualstudies of lean

To delineate the core dimensions of lean productionwhich would subsequently be used to direct theempirical fieldwork

Literature reviewand consensusanalysis

2. Document analysis and interviews with company‘experts’ responsible for the development of thelean system and for the implementation of newcomponents and modifications

To understand the main dimensions of the leanimplementation in order to be able to compare it withthe core dimensions identified from the literature

Document analysisand semi-structuredinterviews

3. Interviews with shop-floor employees and supportworkers

To explore what it feels like for people to work as partof the lean system in this specific organisation and toinvestigate the human aspects of the lean system and itsinherent challenges

Semi-structuredinterviews


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Table

2.Exampleof

consensusdevelopm

entprocessfrom

literaturereview

.

Lean

dimension

Sou

rce

Wom

ack,

Jones,and

Roo

s(199

0)Liker

(200

4)Bicheno

(200

4)Dennis

(200

2)Feld

(200

1)Shing

o(198

4)Mon

den

(199

8)Ohn

o(199

8)Schonberger

(200

7)Aok

i(200

8)Mehri

(200

6)Lew

is(200

0)Cusum

ano

(199

4)

Con

tiet

al.

(200

6)

Shah

and

Ward

(200

7)

De

Treville

and

Anton

akis

(200

6)

Kaizen

YY

YY

YY

YY

YY

YY

YY

YY

Kanban

YY

YY

YY

YY

YY

YY

YY

TPM

YY

YY

YY

YY

Roo

tcause

analysis

YY

YY

YY

Value

stream

mapping

YY

YY

Y

SPC

YY

YY

YY

YY

Auton

omation

YY

YY

YY

YPolicy

Deploym

ent

YY

YY

Y

Sup

plier

invo

lvem

ent

YY

YY

YY

YY

YY

Y

Pok

aYok

eY

YY

YY

YY

YY

YSet

uptim

eredu

ction

YY

YY

YY

YY

YY

YY


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To ensure consistency, one researcher carried out all interviews and used audio-recording, supplemented by note-tak-ing, to record the responses. Written transcripts were produced and sent back to the respondents for verification. Thetext was subsequently analysed in two steps. Firstly, a table was constructed for comparison of the focal system withthe dimensions in the literature-derived view of lean. The analysis involved manual coding of the transcripts using cate-gory headings from the literature-derived view, followed by the assignment of the text to sub-categories associated witheach heading. Secondly, the transcripts were re-examined to identify unassigned portions of text. These were scrutinisedand further manual coding facilitated the extraction of additional themes. All of these results are presented in the nextsection.

Stage 3 sought insights into employee perceptions of the lean system as a working environment. Open questionswere used as the basis for semi-structured interviews, each lasting approximately an hour. The respondents were a mixof direct and support staff from one final assembly area of the factory. The choice was based on getting access to work-ers who had direct experience of working on the continuously moving assembly line in a lean environment. Other areasof the factory would not have provided access to large numbers of such workers because of the levels of automation.Specifically the questions asked for employees’ views of working within the lean system, their opinions as to why theplant was so successful and their perceptions of the challenges associated with maintaining performance levels and sus-taining the lean system. Pilot-testing of the questions with other employees from the same factory area ensured that themeaning was clear and the wording was unambiguous. The resulting transcripts were validated in the same way as thosefor stage 2. Radnor’s six-stage technique was used for data coding, analysis and interpretation (Radnor 2002), whichcomprises (i) topic ordering, (ii) constructing categories, (iii) reading for content, (iv) completing coded sheets, (v) gen-erating coded transcripts and (vi) moving from analysis to interpretation. Two members of the research team scrutinisedeach of the interview recordings independently. Thereafter, the third researcher examined both sets of results to checkfor consistency and accuracy (Lockström et al. 2010). Where conflicts arose, the audio-recordings were used for clarifi-cation. This approach produced a set of topics and sub-topics from the data which are depicted in Figures 1–3.

4. Results

4.1 Core dimensions of lean

With many different views on the constituent elements of a lean system, it will always be difficult to identify a consen-sus. However, from our literature review and analysis of the initial 63 dimensions, eight core dimensions emerged.These were the topics most frequently appearing in the 16 papers; their names are representative of those used in thesource papers and the indicative statements for each derive directly from these sources. These form our proposed viewof the dimensions of lean, as shown in column 1 of Table 3.

Each of the core dimensions was associated with indicative statements (shown in column 2 of Table 3) to completethe taxonomy, and to aid with their operationalisation in the fieldwork. This exercise confirmed the paucity of emphasison human aspects of lean beyond common mention of employee training, multi-skilling and job rotation, and employeeinvolvement in problem-solving teams and improvement programmes. Whether or not this is sufficient to encapsulatethe human contribution to a lean system is a moot point, and one which the second stage of the investigation sought toexplore in more detail.

4.2 Comparison of focal lean system with core dimensions

These results compare the literature-derived view of lean with its manifestation in the focal organisation, in order toestablish to what extent it reflects the ‘theoretical’ profile. Table 3 summarises this analysis, with the rightmost columnproviding evidence and examples from the interviews for each core dimension.

These results indicate that the practical system aligns fairly closely with the synthesised lean framework, with excep-tions associated with three of the eight core dimensions, viz.

• Customer focus and co-operation: this is a manufacturing plant where customer contact is indirect, throughmarketing and sales, and dealerships. Nonetheless customer feedback on performance is fed into the plant, asare sales forecasts and other demand data.

• Statistical Process Control: this is not as much in evidence as might have been expected.

• Kanban-based production control: these visual triggers which are typical of many lean systems are replaced bya computer-based scheduling system which reflects the same basic principle of aligning all activity with thedemands of the customer/order schedule (Liker 2004).


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The analysis also identified portions of commentary in the transcripts which did not map onto the eight dimensionsof the framework. These have been categorised under the following themes: (i) Work Standardisation; (ii) Capturing andSharing Improvements; (iii) Operator Responsibility and Autonomy; (iv) Performance objectives, performance measure-ment and KPIs. Table 4 presents evidence from the interviews for each one.

4.3 Employee perceptions of the lean system

Figures 1–3 and Tables 5–7 have been prepared as summaries of the findings following analysis of the stage 3 inter-views. The figures are freeform diagrams that capture the richness of the data following its iterative analysis process(Radnor 2002) during which different themes emerged relating to the three primary areas of enquiry. The items whichsurround the emerging themes in each figure were raised by respondents and ascribed to the relevant theme by theresearch team using Radnor’s six-stage process. The numbers in these figures represent the percentage of respondentswho mentioned each issue. The details of the data analysis are provided in the corresponding tables where we discussthe items that emerged from the interviews relating to each theme. Unattributed direct quotes from individual respon-dents are included in the tables to illustrate the discussion.

Thus, Figure 1 and Table 5 show how employee’s perceptions of working within the lean system fell into five mainthemes relating to the working environment, labour management, rewards and recognition, opportunities for personaldevelopment and the means by which the workers have a voice.

Similarly, Figure 2 and Table 6 provide details of the factors which our respondents believe facilitate the plant’s suc-cess. Here, the ideas were categorised into the themes of corporate systems infrastructure, workforce attributes and atti-tudes, and top management leadership.

Finally, Figure 3 and its corresponding Table 7 present the interview findings about employee’s views on the chal-lenges of maintaining performance levels and sustaining the lean system. Five key themes emerged which were catego-rised as the quality of staff, attitudes to change, appetite for change, maintaining momentum and sustaining engagement.

Opportunities for personal development

Reward and Recognition

system

Effective Labour

management

The Working EnvironmentRelentless

Line Speed0.90

Team-based rewards

0.86

Pension scheme

0.67

Private health

scheme0.62

Supervisor-worker

relations0.86

Demanding targets

0.90

Relevant training

0.81

Regular appraisal

0.95

Personal development

planning0.57

Discipline for

standards0.86

Team ethos0.81

Highly responsive

0.67

Focused on Health &

Safety0.52

Promotion prospects

0.67

Succession planning

0.57

Job security0.76

Monetary incentives

0.81 Non-financial

recognition0.90

Assessing attitudes &

achievements0.72

Giving workers a

voice

Listening to concerns

0.76

Union representation

0.57

Suggestion scheme

0.81

Two-way communication

0.72

Perceptions of the Lean system

Mental challenges

0.52

Demanding targets

0.72

Physically challenging

0.57

Repetitive0.86

Continually changing

0.76

Sense of achievement

0.52

Employee involvement

0.95

Flat management

structure0.62

High potential fast-track

0.62

Appropriate training

methods0.76

Open management

style0.62

Figure 1. What is it like to work within the lean system?


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5. Discussion

What are the defining characteristics of a lean system? What are the human issues that should be included in any studyof lean? What are the challenges in sustaining a lean system over time? These were the questions that this research setout to address through an exploratory study consisting of literature review and examination of the lean system in ahighly productive UK car manufacturing plant. The discussion deals initially with the first question before jointly con-sidering the other two.

Leadership from top

management

Corporate Systems

Infrastructure

Upbringing0.57

Workforce Attributes

and Attitudes

Industrial Heritage

0.52

Flexibility adaptability

0.90

Commitment, loyalty

0.67

Pride, Work ethic

0.72

Clear direction

0.57

Credibility0.76

Personally involved

0.81

Clear performance expectations

0.52

Inter-plantlearning

0.57

Director-level responsibility

0.86

Local oversight & development

0.62

Continual review & improvement

0.95

Plant success

Failure not countenanced

0.86

Fast response

0.67

Re-launch and re-energise

0.52

Belief that Lean works

0.81

Vision & forward looking

0.72

Best-practice sharing

0.90

Adapting Lean to context

0.86

Figure 2. Why is the plant so successful?

ChangeManagement proficiency

Appetite for Change

0.81

Attitudes to Change

0.95

Quality of staff0.67

Maintaining momentum

0.76

Sustaining engagement

0.57

Figure 3. What are the challenges of maintaining performance levels and sustaining the lean system?


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Table

3.Com

parisonof

focallean

system

with

core

lean

dimension

sfrom

literature.

Dim

ension

oflean

system

sSub

-dim

ension

/indicativ

estatem

ent

Evidencefrom

plantinterviews

Customer

focusand

co-operatio

nDevelop

ingandmaintaining

regu

lar,closecontact

with

custom

ers

Being

amanufacturing

plantthecontactwith

custom

ersisindirect,throug

hthecorporate

marketin

gandsalesfunctio

nandthroug

hdealerships.The

TQM

processplaces

custom

ersatisfactionat

thecore

ofqu

ality

activ

ities.Itiscriticalto

only

manufacture

forthecustom

erwhathe

iswillingto

payfor,hencebu

ild-to-order

Activelyseekingcustom

erfeedback

onprod

uct,

serviceanddeliv

eryperformance

Allcustom

erconcerns

arelogg

edby

dealerson

adatabase

which

isaccessible

intheplant.

Thisinclud

eseveryconcernat

pre-deliv

eryinspectio

nandeverywarrantyconcern.

This

prov

ides

trendinform

ationwhich

isbrok

endo

wnby

mod

el,by

marketandby

mileage

Regularly

invo

lvingcustom

ersin

theprod

uct

developm

entprocess

Being

amanufacturing

plantthecontactwith

custom


hthecorporate

marketin

gandsalesfunctio

nandthroug

hdealerships

Encou

raging

custom

ersto

sharedemandforecastsand

salesdata

forim

prov

edplanning

andschedu

ling

Being

amanufacturing

plantthecontactwith

custom


hthecorporate

marketin

gandsalesfunctio

nandthroug

hdealerships.Sales

predictio

nsarefedinto

theplant

from

marketin

gandthisin

turn

determ

ines

manning

levels

Layou

tforCon

tinuo

usProdu

ctandProcess

flow

Plant

layo

utisshaped

andinfluenced

bytheprod

uct

andmod

elmix

Mod

elsdeterm

inethefactorylayo

utbasedon

twoflow

lines.Eachlin

eissm

oothed

asmuch

aspo

ssible

arou

ndthecustom

erdemandschedu

le.The

lines

aremulti-mod

elso

smoo

thing

hasto

accoun

tformod

elsas

wellas

variantsof

each

mod

elPlant

andequipm

entlayo

utisdo

newith

theaim

ofachievingcontinuo

usflow

Equ

ipmentisgrou

pedin

shop

sforpressing

,paintin

gandbo

dyworkprod

uctio

n.Itisno

tqu

iteacontinuo

usflow

butnevertheless

theprod

uctio

nisbasedon

thepu

llph

ilosoph

yGroup

ingprod

uctsaccordingto

theirprocessing

requ

irem

ents

Process

flow

ismappedbasedon

valuestream

mapping

techniqu

esto

identifyandelim

inate

wastesin

term

sof

inventorylevelsandlead

times.Evenwith

inthestandard

lines

thelayo

utiscontinually

changing

asfurtherim

prov

ementsareidentified

throug

hprocessmapping

activ

ities

Classifying

andordering

prod

uctsaccordingto

their

routingrequ

irem

ents

Mod

elsareschedu

ledsuch

that,where

possible,everything

isprod

ucingto

asynchron

ised

scenario

butwith

inthebatchshop

sthisisno

talwayspo

ssible

andsometim

esstockisbu

iltup

tohave

avarietyof

partsreadyforassembly

Set

UpTim

eim

prov

ementand

SMED

Providing

regu

lartraining

andsupp

ortto

facilitate

sustainedredu

ctions

insetup

time

Employ

eesaretrainedon

setup

sandsupp

ortedthroug

him

prov

edergo

nomics,low

cost

automationandliftin

gdevices

Makingsetup

timeredu

ctionaspecificprod

uctio

nandperformance

objective

The

plantiscontinuo

usly

look

ingat

waysto

improv

eworkflow

sandto

redu

ceset-up

times

Sup

plierRelationships

Develop

ingandmaintaining

regu

lar,closecontact

with

keysupp

liers

With

inthefirsttiersupp

lychainthereisasupp

ortfunctio

nforsupp

liers

calledtheAlliance

Sup

plierIm

prov

ementProgram

me.

Onsite

supp

liers

canutilise

training

prog

rammes

andgain

access

tostandard

operations

procedures

andbasicLeantools

Ensuringthat

supp

liers

receiveregu

laranddetailed

feedback

ontheirperformance

Allsupp

liers

receiveregu

larfeedback

onperformance

basedon

quality,deliv

eryandcost.It

isan

essentialpartof

thecontinuo

usim

prov

ementetho

sto

prov

idethem

with

relevant

data

which

they

areexpected

touseto

driveim

prov

ement

Plann

ingforlong

-term

relatio

nships

with

asmany

supp

liers

aspo

ssible

Alotof

supp

liers

have

been

engagedforalong

timebu

tnew

supp

liers

comealon

gallthe

time,

particularly

with

new

mod

elswhich

requ

irenew

processes,andnew

design

features.

(Con

tinued)


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Table

3.(Con

tinued).

Dim

ension

oflean

system

sSub-dim

ension/in

dicativ

estatem

ent

Evidencefrom

plantinterviews

Makingvisitsto

supp

liersitesandinvitin

gsupp

liers

totheplant.

AnAlliance

Sup

plierIm

prov

ementteam

goes

into

supp

liers

andhelpsthem

meettheir

productiv

itytargets,im

provetheirprocessesanddevelopproducts.With

inASIP

they

map

theirfullprocessinclud

ingvaluestream

mapping

andflow

chartin

gRegularly

invo

lvingkeysupp

liers

intheprod

uct

developm

entprocess

Thisisseen

ascrucial.Allsupp

liers

areinvo

lved

innew

mod

eldevelopm

entfrom

avery

earlystage.

There

isadesign

stagecalledS-Lot

which

invo

lves

supp

liers

Operatin

gsystem

atic

suppliercertificatio

nprog

rammes

accordingto

publishedcriteria

There

isrobu

stsupp

lierselectionandmon

itoring

byway

ofsupp

lierselectionauditsbased

onTS60949andscorecards,plus

rigorous

capabilityaudits

Sup

plierim

prov

ement

anddevelopm

ent

Working

with

supp

liers

toachieveyear-on-year

cost

redu

ctions

Sup

pliers

have

tocommitto

costredu

ctionbu

titisno

tjustdemandedfrom

them

;team

sgo

into

help

them

achieveitas

well

Evaluatingsupp

lierperformance

onthebasisof

total

cost

Total

Delivered

Costisakeymeasure

andsupp

liers

have

acrucialinfluenceon

it.Teams

help

them

toidentifycostredu

ctionop

portun

ities

whether

itbe

regardinglin

ebalancing,

purchasing

orho

wthey

build

-to-order.For

high

costitemswhich

areshippedfrom

other

partsof

theworld

effortsaremadeto

source

them

locally

Devolving

therespon

sibilityformanaginginventory

tokeysupp

liers

Inventoryisow

nedby

supp

liers

until

itisbo

oked

inon

site.Nomorethan

2ho

ursinventory

isheld

in-plant.Theyhave

arespon

sibilityto

meetthedeliv

eryschedu

lesof

thefocalplant

Sup

plierredu

ctionprog

rammes

basedon

performance

andcapability

The

focusisless

onredu

cing

thenu

mberof

supp

liers

andmoreon

increasing

thecapabilities

ofexistin

gsupp

liers

andworking

with

them

toredu

cecostsandto

improv

equ

ality

and

prod

uctiv

ityEncou

raging

supp

liers

tore-locateto

becloser

tothe

plantor

on-site

Sup

pliers

areencouraged

tomov

eon

site.Aswellas

thesatellite

supp

lierpark

arou

ndthe

site

therearealso

0.5tiersupp

liers

who

areliterally

atlin

eside.Theymanufacture

compo

nentsin

sequ

ence

justin

time.

Maintaining

anddeveloping

effectivecommunication

with

supp

liers

onstrategicissues

Purchasingteam

svisitsupp

liers

todiscusswhatthey

need

toprod

uceandwhatmustbe

done

todeliv

erit

SPC

Makingconsiderable

useof

statistical

techniqu

esand

SPCto

understand

andredu

ceprocessvariance

SPC

isused

arou

ndtheplantforvariou

sthings,mainlycontrolof

machinesandchecking

that

they

arewith

inspecificatio

nsandthat

everything

isworking

.A

new

processhasbeen

introd

uced

calledV-U

p(value

up)which

islik

esixsigm

aUsing

7qu

ality

toolsto

identifytheroot

causes

ofquality

problems

All7tradition

alqu

ality

toolsareused

extensivelyandregu

larlywith

intheprod

uctio

nareas

Providing

visual

feedback

onshop

floo

rabou

tdefect

ratesandprod

uctio

nperformance

Objectiv

edeploy

mentbo

ards

areused

across

theshop

floo

r.Feedb

ackon

defect

ratesispart

oftheinform

ationmadeavailableto

shop

-floo

rem

ploy

ees.Theyareno

tnecessarily

SPC

chartsas

such

Kanban-basedprod

uctio

ncontrol

Various

form

sof

Kanbanareused

forprod

uctio

ncontrol

Kanbans

areno

tused

anyw

here

intheplant.The

compu

ter-basedschedu

lingsystem

with

intheDou

kiSeisansystem

synchron

ises

everything

accordingto

custom

erorders

Produ

ctionat

machinesor

workcentresistriggeredby

demandat

thenext

workstationin

thesequ

ence

Evenin

thepressshop

,bo

dyshop

andpaintshop

,allarepu

lling

inthesamedirection–itis

notapu

shsystem

.Eachkn

owswhattheircustom

errequ

ires

interm

sof

deliv

ery,

quality

requ

irem

entsetc

The

deliv

eryandorderrequ

irem

entsof

finished

good

spu

llsprod

uctio

nthroug

htheplant

The

philo

soph

yof

build

-to-ordermeans

that

allprod

uctio

nispu

lledby

custom

erorders.

There

isaphilo

sophyof

anever-ending

questto

synchronisewith

thecustom

er

(Con

tinued)


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Table

3.(Con

tinued).

Dim

ension

oflean

system

sSub

-dim

ension

/indicativ

estatem

ent

Evidencefrom

plantinterviews

Requiring

supp

liers

todeliv

eron

lyon

thebasisof

JIT

whereverpo

ssible

Key

supp

liers

makefrequent

deliv

eries,justin

timeeither

assequ

encedpartscomingfrom

localsatellite

supp

liers

orelse

from

variou

splaces

arou

ndtheworld

buton

lydeliv

ered

infrom

localwarehou

ses.Mostdeliv

eriesareon

aJITbasis

HRM

Issues

Develop

ingem

ploy

eesto

have

cross-functio

nal

capability

Cross-skilling

iskeyto

improv

ingtheworkflow

s.The

policyisthat

each

operator

shou

ldbe

able

toworkat

aminim

umof

threeworkstations

andeveryworkstatio

nshou

ldbe

able

tobe

operated

byaminim

umof

threeop

erators

Encou

raging

employ

eeinvo

lvem

entin

prob

lem

solvingteam

sSho

p-floo

rem

ploy

eesworkon

thesm

allerim

prov

ementsgenerally.Ifthereisabigg

erissue

then

they

wou

ldbe

invo

lved

inaQCStory

alon

gwith

team

leadersandsupervisors.Many

oftheim

prov

ementideascomefrom

shop

-floo

rem

ploy

eesbu

tbecauseof

overtim

eetcmost

oftheim

prov

ementworkcomes

from

team

leadersandsupervisors

Devolving

respon

sibilityforim

prov

ementto

shop

floo

rperson

nel

Sho

p-floo

rem

ploy

eesareinvo

lved

in2-ho

urand2-dayKaizenactiv

ities

andalso

working

inprob

lem

solvingteam

son

QC

Stories

which

aresimilarto

quality

circlesusingaPDCA

protocol.The

mainfocusof

employ

eeinvo

lvem

entison

improv

ingtheirworkcells

and

workzones.Theyarealso

invo

lved

incrossfunctio

nalim

prov

ementteam

swhich

aregiven

respon

sibilityto

makeim

prov

ementsin

certainareas

Stim

ulatingor

mandatin

gem

ploy

eesto

identify

sugg

estio

nsforim

prov

ement

There

isaform

alsugg

estio

nschemewith

clearob

jectives

that

everyperson

hasto

makea

specificnumberof

suggestio

ns,butithasto

bere-launchedperiodically


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5.1 Defining characteristics of lean

Analysis of the literature identified eight core defining characteristics of lean which, together with 33 indicative state-ments, form a lean taxonomy (Table 3). This was used to analyse the focal plant’s lean implementation, wherein it waspossible to uncover empirical evidence which mapped onto most of the statements, suggesting that it could be regardedas a reasonably representative site for the study of lean.

Whilst there was a good level of fit between the plant’s lean system and the literature-based view of lean, three areasof disparity were highlighted. Firstly, since intermediaries such as dealerships form the next downstream stage in thesupply chain, there is no direct customer interface between the plant and its customers. So, whilst the literature-basedview of lean incorporates customer focus and co-operation, the reality at this plant involves indirect linkages. Since thiscould apply to many manufacturing contexts we argue that the taxonomy should be enriched to allow for this possibil-ity. Of course the notion of customer focus within lean also extends to internal supplier–customer relationships. Ourfindings suggest that the workers in the factory recognise the value of getting to know their internal customers.

Table 4. Additional dimensions of lean from interviews.

Dimension of lean system Sub-dimension/indicative statement

Work standardisationJobs and tasks are specified in standard operating procedures and have standard workingmethodologiesThe 5S methodology is used for standardising workplace organisationNon-production areas also have SOPs called Indirect Operations SheetsStandard processes also exist for how to instruct operators and how to write training documentationJob observation is used to confirm that the operator is doing what he is meant to be doing,confirming that the operation is exactly the same as the standard operation, confirming that it is thebest method, and making sure there aren’t any risks or any safety concerns

Capturing and sharingimprovements

Results of all Kaizen activities within the plant are logged on to a database to log and share theresults internallyThere is a separate system to share ideas and best practices throughout the global organisationVisits are encouraged to sister plants to study each other’s Lean implementation and to compareagainst each otherGlobal competitions are used for Kaizen events and other improvement activities to stimulate andmaintain interest and to reward success

Operator responsibility andautonomy

Since components go directly onto the assembly line from suppliers, the operators are responsiblefor noticing anything odd about the appearance or the functionality of the partsThere is a system of neighbourhood checks where the next operator checks to see that the part hasbeen fitted correctly and/or is functioning properlyAt the end of every zone is an operator who rotates with other team members and who checks allthe components fitted by his team membersShop-floor employees can pull Andon cords to signal a concern on the assembly line (but this doesnot stop the line). They can only stop the line for a safety issue

Performance objectives,measures and KPIs

Hoshin Kanri is used for the deployment of policy and strategies and the identification of keybusiness objectivesThere is a daily measure of the delivery schedule time achievement ratio (DSTAR) with a target of98% and a tolerance of plus or minus 2 hoursProductivity is measured using a design standard time ratio (DSTR) which compares the time itshould take to build a vehicle with the time which it actually tookThere is a manufacturing diagnosis system which measures how capable you are at manufacturinga product. This can be applied to suppliers tooEngineers are involved in an integrated factory automation system whereby they take an overviewof production shops to improve kitting or use of AGVs to reduce headcount and improveproductivity and DSTR


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Table 5. Employees perceptions of what it is like to work within the lean system.

Theme Issues raised at the interviews (with illustrative quotes)

The working environment • Relentless line speed and demanding targets that push staff to their physical andmental limits: … ‘we won’t turn down the line speed just because it’s the nightshift or it’s early morning to allow people to wake up – it’s relentless but that’swhat this place is built upon’

• Specified operating procedures and defined standards for everything mean that theenvironment is regimental and disciplined, with no place for individuals to deviate

• Some acceptance of the above challenges because they help the plant to respondwith agility to market changes and provide a sense of achievement at performingsuccessfully in a tough setting

• Tensions evident between the need to adhere to set methods and the temptation tocut corners when changes in customer demand required agility and responsiveness‘you might say we’re not going to apply Gemba Kanri to this line balance becausethe market is screaming for more cars, so there is always the temptation to takeshort cuts but you can’t do that’

• Environment of continual change due to the underlying ethos of continuousimprovement resulting in revised working standards. Need for employees to learnnew methods which pertain until they change again

Effective labour management • Everyone is pushed to their limits in ‘the pressure cooker of the production line’

• Demanding targets not welcomed but accepted for the sake of maintaining compet-itiveness and jobs

• Flat management structure with few formal protocols and easy access to top man-agement if required Good supervisor–worker relationships crucial for effectiveoperation and development of teams

• Employee involvement enacted primarily through teams e.g. for group based prob-lem solving via kaizen or quality circle activities; inter-team competitions recognis-ing the best ideas and improvement projects

• Teams primarily defined through natural boundaries associated with sections of theassembly lines, and the focus of such teams lies principally on improving their‘local’ situation ‘Even if you save one step or two steps, when you make 300 carsit saves a lot of walking in a day. They try to involve you in your job, how tomake it easier, rather than in something that’s got nothing to do with you’

• Employee involvement in weekly behavioural audits to ensure localised adherenceto procedures, premised on the basis that staff are most likely to notice any prob-lems in their own work areas

• Use of visual performance feedback to ensure effective communication thatincludes employees

• Management concern for Health and Safety (H & S) demonstrated through theadoption of a H & S approach developed at Dupont that had yielded a significantfall in reported incidents

Reward and recognition system • Reward and recognition for attitudes as well as achievements with considerableemphasis on the adoption of appropriate mindsets e.g. frugality and cross-func-tional orientation

• Less need for reward and recognition in earlier times of higher job security andbetter benefits, e.g. private health care/pensions: ‘In those days morale and rewarddidn’t come from pay rises but from the long-term job security. When I joinedhere 20 years ago I felt I had a job for life and that’s what all my family thoughttoo. Now the healthcare is being taken away and the pension scheme has beenchanged but it’s about staying in business’

• Clear understanding that the external environment had become tougher,a and ofextensive internal inter-plant competition for building new models – both of whichhad eroded job security

• Rewards are primarily team-based e.g. for good performance in quality circleactivities. Rewards such as a fridge or microwave for rest areas, or cinema/sportingevent tickets: ‘It’s not like Japan where you might get 10% of the savings from an

(Continued)


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Table 5. (Continued).


improvement project and you’d be rich. We’re here to do a job; improvement ispart of the deal and you’ll get recognition in other ways for good ideas’

• Non-financial recognition of teams and individuals through publicity in the com-pany magazine/intranet, issue of certificates/team photograph

• Some recognition of individual performance via a merit award system within theformal appraisal process linked to promotion and financial incentive within a sal-ary band: but ‘once you’re up at the top of your band, that’s it – you’re stuck’

Opportunities for personal development • Organisation-wide annual appraisal that records positive and negative aspects ofperformance (positive appraisal may result in merit awards) and identifies personaldevelopment opportunities

• Fast-tracking through inter-department movement for high-potential employees todevelop business acumen, lean proficiency and product knowledge

• Company preference for internal appointments/promotion (respondents citing theEuropean Vice President who started out as an assembly line team leader)

• Extensive succession planning incorporating potential candidates filling temporaryor permanent vacancies as an opportunity to ‘stand up’ for a period of time fortrial and assessment

• Training is integral to the system:

� 21-day training programme for new recruits followed by expectation of job com-petence after 10–15 shifts for assembly line employees

� Extensive training for all employees following appraisal and in association withthe launch of new plant initiatives

� training of supervisors to write standard operations documents with subsequentissue of a ‘standard operations licence’ lasting 3 years before requiring re-accred-itation

• Offline, classroom training is common when the plant is not busy, i.e. whendemand is low. This was often regarded negatively, e.g. respondents do not seethemselves as classroom-orientated and often get no chance to apply such learning.Some training was described as ‘just reading and copying off the screen’; othersquestioned its relevance and one described how employees ‘stuff the training fold-ers into our lockers and never open them again’. There was a view that trainingshould be delivered by people with direct assembly line experience and that itshould focus on how to make employees’ jobs easier by relating to practical issuesthat concern them

Giving workers a voice (e.g. onimprovements /concerns & grievances) • Open management style that creates a culture to encourage and welcome the

worker voice

• Facilitation of two-way communication through e.g. half-yearly canteen-basedcommunication sessions with ‘bite-sized’ groups of the workforce

• Effective top-down communication of plans (long and medium term) and companygoals; with proficiency in translating these into clear objectives for, and expecta-tions of, individuals

• Effective use of visual communication regarded as crucial for employee ownershipand buy-in e.g. objective deployment boards in work areas: ‘the question is alwaysasked about the messages in the deployment boards – what does that mean to theguy sitting round the bench having his lunch, what does that actually tell him? Ifit is in a language he doesn’t understand or there’s a high level concept that’s overhis head then we will change it’

• Active encouragement of improvement suggestions from employees – both for-mally and informally. Despite the acknowledged communications success and highquality of ideas emanating from the assembly line concerns about suggestions thatare not implemented: ‘A lot of suggestions get turned down for ridiculous reasonsin my opinion – a stubborn designer or politics – they’ll give us some patheticreason why the idea was never implemented’

(Continued)


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Secondly, our plant did not make extensive use of SPC, relying instead on more advanced and more stringent statisticalapproaches such as Six Sigma. Thus, the taxonomy fails to capture some of the reality at this plant and we argue thatmore widespread testing may find this to be the case elsewhere and could suggest the need to change the taxonomy. Weacknowledge that the emphasis on SPC (as opposed to more recent statistical approaches) may be a reflection of theinherent time lag in published work (MingNan and Jung 2009; Vinodh, Gautham, and Ramiya 2011). Finally, kanbanusage emerged as the archetypal production control method in lean whereas, in the plant, a sophisticated informationsystem is used to match production with customer orders in a six-day scheduling window (so called D-6 scheduling).

This is an interesting finding since the kanban is widely regarded as a fundamental component of lean implementa-tions (Hopp and Spearman 2004; Schonberger 2007), given its role in operationalising JIT supply (Lewandrowski andMertins 1999; Adamides et al. 2008). It is the case, however, that the scheduling system in the plant reflects the sameunderlying principle of pull production, being driven only by downstream customer requirements. More widespread test-ing of the taxonomy may reveal interesting derivations of similar principles but operationalised either as kanbans orusing bespoke systems. Apart from the areas of difference, four categories emerged from the fieldwork that did not fea-ture prominently in the literature review. All have been mentioned by some writers in the past, so there is no claim fortheir novelty per se, but it is noteworthy that they were not discussed in the majority of articles reviewed.

Of these, work standardisation is perhaps the most quintessentially lean dimension. The associated practices that wefound concerning the standardisation of operations in non-production areas, the standardisation of instructional methodsand processes for producing training material, and observational audit to ensure adherence to procedures, have lessprominence in extant literature and represent useful insights. The second category, capturing and sharing improvements,also provides insight into the methods associated with nurturing and capitalising upon improvement ideas both withinthe plant and globally across the rest of the organisation. It supports the literature advocating more focus on organisa-tional learning (Robinson and Schroeder 2009) within lean systems and the development of communities of practice(Aoki 2008). The discussion of this theme will be developed in Section 5.2.

The third category concerns the responsibility and autonomy given to operators within the lean system. It has oftenbeen argued that lean systems reduce operator autonomy compared to other work settings, since they have little choiceabout when or how to carry out their work (Jackson and Mullarkey 2000). Employee autonomy is a big topic in its ownright. We base our interpretation and use of the term on the work of De Treville and Antonakis (2006) who quote ‘tradi-tional’ definitions of autonomy as freedom concerning work procedures and timing, in which case they point out thatworkers in lean systems have almost no freedom about scheduling their work (due to short cycle times and flow-basedlayout) or the procedures to be used (due to process standardisation). However, De Treville and Antonakis argue in detailthat autonomy consists of two components – choice autonomy (freedom concerning work procedures and timing) andresponsible autonomy (which is about increased accountability, arising from decentralisation of authority, e.g. for inspec-tion and equipment maintenance and participation in decision making). They argue that in lean environments choiceautonomy is reduced but responsible autonomy is increased. Our evidence supports this viewpoint. First, if we considersome of the comments in Table 5, it is clear that choice autonomy is low. Second, in terms of the third area of disparitybetween the literature-based view of lean and our interviews about the focal plant’s lean system, responsible autonomyappears to be high. We called this area of disparity ‘responsibility and autonomy’ in Table 4. It is depicted using fourexamples from our fieldwork, concerning (i) operators being responsible for checking parts coming straight to the line,(ii) operators having responsibility for checking team members’ work as the next step in the process, (iii) operatorscarrying out end of zone checks, (iv) operators having the responsibility for pulling Andon cords and stopping the line.



• A system that encourages supervisors and team leaders to listen to the concerns ofemployees is only partially effective: ‘We had a bit of bad news from a survey ofemployees conducted by Hays International, the personnel people. Their survey toldus that the guys don’t feel we listen to them. We’ve clearly got a big job to do there’

• Direct interaction between employees and management seems more prevalent thanthat through union representatives. The union is not involved in wage negotiations,and employees question the point of paying membership subscriptions. A Com-pany Council, with elected shop-floor members, has replaced much of the Union’straditional role

aAt the time of these interviews two of the plant’s main rivals had shut down for a number of weeks because of a downturn in demand caused byeconomic recession.


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Table 6. Employees’ views of the reasons for the plant’s success.


Corporate systeminfrastructure

The system infrastructure is designed to ensure that the lean system functions effectively and continues toevolve/improve:

• Corporate lean system is regarded as a framework with boundaries within which every plantmust operate

• The scope that allows for adaptation of the system to suit local contexts, e.g.

� This plant’s development of its own unique 8-step Quality Circle problem solving approachas a variant of the ‘standard’ 11-step version

� This plant’s unique use of a computerised Improvement Diagnosis System (IDS), which logsthe use of problem solving tools and associated results, so that these can be shared across theplant

• Global use of an ‘e-room’ which shares ideas and best practice across the entire organisationthrough the capture of improvement projects company-wide. Despite inter-plant competition e.g.for new models, the e-room system is used extensively in a spirit of openness and willingness tolearn from other departments and plants

• Management infrastructure which involves local oversight, and with responsibility cascadingdownwards from director level through steering committees, steering groups and working levelgroups which meet regularly to share best practices and to review performance

• Systematic process to audit all installed improvements to check that they are still in place andto assess any scope for further development

• Periodic re-launch of aspects of the system, e.g. the formal suggestion scheme and the TQMprocess, whenever they are felt not to be being used correctly: ‘We’ve had Gemba Kanri diag-nosis for 15 years but it has evolved over the 15 years and we have re-launched and repackagedit only 6 months ago. The same has happened with 5S – we have operated a 3S system formany years and we have recently introduced 5S and then had to re-introduce it and reinforce itto ensure that it becomes habitual and engrained in everyone’s mindset’

Workforce attributes andattitudes

A strong belief in the strengths of the workforce:

• Pride in the determination, commitment and loyalty of workers which was sometimes linked tothe region’s strong industrial heritage and work ethic: ‘This area has always been like this withshipbuilding and the pits; their families have always worked very hard and it’s bred into you,all the way down the line’

• Perceptions of workforce flexibility/adaptability to achieve what often seem like unrealistic tar-gets e.g. significant increases in production volumes at short notice. The concept of non-deliv-ery/failure is not countenanced

• A belief that this plant is better than sister plants and external competitors: ‘The Rovers and theFords are a million miles away from us, even now. They can’t adapt like we do; they work at adifferent pace’

• Proud talk of the tangible evidence of success e.g. high productivity, sustained customer ordersdespite a sharp economic downturn, and examples of direct competitors having extended shut-downs whilst this plant was not

• Strong belief in the role of the lean system in achieving success and faith in its principles: ‘Youneed to believe in it and know that it will work; you need to be passionate about it to be honestand that’s the single most important thing of all’

Leadership from topmanagement

Top management leadership is crucial in setting performance expectations/clear direction, and for makingdecisions quickly:

• Effective leadership with the credibility to make difficult decisions, particularly that of theChairman and CEO whose name was raised, unprompted, by several respondents: ‘When theCEO took over we were facing a near death experience as we now affectionately call it but hetook the tough decisions and took out costs, cut out the deadwood and set a new direction,giving design more prominence and more focus on the customer’

(Continued)


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Finally, we have found evidence to suggest that ‘performance objectives, measures and KPIs’ should be added as anexplicit component of the taxonomy. Whilst many articles about lean have treated performance as a dependent variable(Fullerton and Wempe 2009; Meade, Kumar, and White 2010), it has generally not featured as a core element, asidefrom measuring and providing feedback on shop-floor performance (Niepce and Molleman 1998; Mehta and Shah2005). Conversely, in this case it appears that performance measurement and objective deployment is an intrinsic part ofthe lean system demonstrating a deep-rooted embedding of measurement and feedback in the culture and practices todrive continuous improvement. Adding these categories from Table 4 to the taxonomy of Table 3 results in a synthes-ised view of lean that is based on the literature and an exemplar lean implementation. It comprises 12 core dimensionsand 51 indicative statements. The successful use of the taxonomy at this plant suggests that it has wider utility in theanalysis of practical lean implementations. We acknowledge that further testing elsewhere will assess its value moregenerally.

This approach to identifying the defining characteristics of lean adopted a ‘tools’ approach as a consequence of thepredominant method in the existing literature. This was purely a pragmatic first step in our overall research plan to seewhat the existing literature could tell us. We would not argue that a tools approach is the right way or the best way todo it. Indeed, opposing viewpoints to what some would call a superficial tool orientation must be recognised, e.g. ‘I donot believe lean tools or Six Sigma tools or a marriage of the two will get a company to a lean learning enterprise’(Liker 2004, 296).

5.2 Human issues in lean and continuance of the lean system

Whilst the findings from the first two work stages allowed us to answer our first research question, they also hinted atissues that would help us to address the remaining questions. For instance, the literature review revealed that whilstrecent articles have demonstrated a growing recognition of the importance of human issues, there has been relativelylittle attention paid to these apart from token mention of practices such as job rotation and multi-skilling. The thirdstage, which investigated employees’ perceptions, provided a much more detailed view of human issues within lean. Itallowed us to develop a richer picture than is typically found in the literature, aside from debate about the stressfuleffects of lean (Conti et al. 2006), and the insider account by Mehri (2006).

The employee interviews yielded detailed insights into perceptions of working life on the assembly line, revealingcomplex and multi-faceted images of what it feels like to be a part of the system. They also provide further evidence insupport of the new dimensions proposed for the lean taxonomy. Given the relentless line speed and the highly competi-tive external environment there were indicators of tensions and contradictions between the need for consistency andstandardisation on the one hand, and the ongoing drive for improvement and change on the other. There were similartensions between the need for standardisation of methods and procedures and the need to be flexible and responsive,while not cutting corners. We believe that the overall picture of the lean system is one which is demanding, with targetswhich are not welcomed by employees, but are nevertheless accepted for the sake of keeping their jobs and for thelong-term job security that this has provided. Moreover, while the employees mentioned the relentless line speed anddemanding targets with everyone being pushed to their limits, they did not talk about this in terms of unwelcome orunhealthy levels of stress. Conversely, the demanding environment was talked about with pride in achieving unrealistictargets which none of the competitors could do. For examples, see the section in Table 6 on workforce attributes andattitudes. Thus, while there might be apparent contradictions in some of the detailed evidence we have presented, itneeds to be read as a whole.

Knowledge creation and innovation was facilitated by the culture which was open and encouraging with a verystrong focus on employee involvement methods. It is also noteworthy that there is widespread willingness to share andto learn from each other and from other plants, despite the high level of internal competition for new business.



• Personal involvement of top management in all aspects of the business at all levels

• Top management’s vision and forward-looking approach which has encouraged a culture of cus-tomer focus in employees: ‘Now since the new CEO came in it’s all much more customerfocused on what the customer wants. We don’t make anything now that the customer won’t payfor and we don’t make cars for stock to sit out in a field and rust anymore’


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Table 7. Employee perceptions of the challenges of maintaining performance levels and sustaining the lean system.


Quality of staff The need to recruit and retain the correct calibre of staff:

• As the plant’s pay and conditions have become less competitive relative to other local employers inrecent years new employees are less willing to take on extra tasks ‘The culture now in this companyis that if I’m not getting paid for it I’m not doing it. It’s not just this company. The mentality of peo-ple has changed. It’s a different class of person. It’s hard to get them to do it’

• Need for recruits who can meet the physical demands of the job; and the psychological consequences‘The first 2 or 3 weeks I worked here, when I went home to sleep I was hearing the buzzers in mysleep; I was waking up in the night thinking I was moving with the assembly track’

• Despite the rigour of the recruitment process there is still a percentage fall-out of those who cannotcope with the demands

Attitudes to change The attitudes that derive from the strong tension which exists between the needs for continuous improvementand for standardisation and operating procedures:

• A natural desire for stability in the face of demands associated with continually changing workingprocedures in response to improvement ideas

• As new working procedures are internalised and rhythm develops the status quo can run like clock-work to achieve maximum output levels. Hence questions about the need for change, ‘The lines runvery smoothly, in a robotic way, so if you try to change something after six months people say holdon, not more change, can’t we just leave things as they are?’As new ways of doing things becomecustom and practice, negativity and resistance often follows requests for change

Appetite for change A sense of change fatigue:

• Reluctance to do tasks that used to be done willingly and voluntarily, indicating reduced motivation

• Considerable mention of weariness and reluctance to change as a consequence of the continual pro-cess of change over time

• Lack of buy-in to change even by team leaders/supervisors ‘There are a lot of things I disagree withnow, but I have to just try to persuade people that it’s right, even if I don’t believe it’s right myself’

• Reduced levels of job satisfaction reported by experienced employees ‘For many years I enjoyedworking here, but now I’m just ticking over – I’ve lost some of the enjoyment’

Maintainingmomentum

The need to maintain momentum during change implementation:

• The constant need to convince people that change is for the better results in challenges associated withkeeping change initiatives going

• Despite the clear economic imperatives, it is progressively more difficult to persuade staff of the bene-fits of change: ‘It’s a really difficult balancing act to keep it all moving forward, the continuousimprovement, kaizen and all of that. On the one hand the employees have a bit of resentment that thecompany pushes them so hard, but on the other hand they know that the rewards are there – we’ve agood chance of keeping a job for life’

Sustainingengagement

The need to keep the workforce engaged in the principles of the lean system and with improvement initiativesto ensure their continued collaboration and cooperation

• Difficulties in engaging staff: ‘Employee relations has become increasingly more important andincreasingly challenging – trying to find ways to engage the staff and to avoid a “them and us” situa-tion where we’re not working together effectively’

• Evidence of lack of engagement such as employees regarding the 5S methodology to be a chore thatis not part of their jobs and not being willing to stay behind after their shifts to clean their work-spaces

• Many employees seem happy to do their jobs but not to be developed further


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Operators are given considerable amounts of devolved responsibility not simply for suggestions and team-basedimprovement activity, but also for involvement in things like weekly behavioural audits. Similarly, it was interesting tolearn that the plant is able to modify global practices such as the 11-step problem-solving methodology and even tointroduce its own system (IDS) for capturing and sharing improvements which is not done in any other plant. Asregards employee training and development, the systematic appraisal system seemed powerful and effective with anadditional fast-track to recognise and nurture high-potential employees within a succession planning framework. How-ever, there is evidence of concerns about the relevance of some training and about the methods of delivery.

When asking employees why the plant is so successful we did not expect a single ‘silver bullet’ answer. However,the pride and commitment of the workforce certainly shines through all of the interview transcripts, as does the emphasison innovation. It is interesting that, of the themes which emerged from the responses, aside from the corporate systemsinfrastructure, the other two were about human issues. The employees’ perceptions of the challenges of maintaining per-formance levels and of sustaining the lean system also strongly linked to human issues. With increased competition forgood quality staff in a tough labour market, it will be interesting to see what can be done to make the work more attrac-tive to potential recruits so that the plant can enlist the quality of worker that it needs. This seems resonant with the expe-rience of Volvo in the 1980s when they introduced the human-centred production system at Uddevalla.

One could also recognise the negative reactions brought about by the drive for continuous improvement when setagainst the employees’ expressed need for standardised operating procedures, so that they could work at full speed. Fre-quent changes to work procedures are inevitably going to be unwelcome at times, despite being for the common good.Respondents also expressed this resistance to change in a more extreme manner when they talked about being weary ofchange and unwilling to give their full commitment any more. The existence of such change fatigue is not uncommon(Hoyte and Greenwood 2007; Fine, Hansen, and Roggenhofer 2009), but is perhaps an indicator which needs to be con-sidered carefully in relation to the demands of the workplace and the rewards which are provided. Without an effectivechange management capability the plant is unlikely to be able to adapt its production model to changing labour markets,business cycles, macroeconomic conditions and the development of new technologies (Boyer et al. 1998).

The ongoing survival of lean systems has been a recurring theme in the literature with the following comment beingparticularly apposite: ‘Lean should be regarded as more than a set of mechanistic hard tools and techniques and thehuman dimensions of motivation, empowerment and respect for people are … key to the long-term sustainability of anylean programme’ (Hines, Holweg, and Rich 2004, 999–1000). Yet, curiously, in almost all of this fieldwork, motivationdid not feature prominently; the rewards which were mentioned were about extrinsic issues such as job security, a meritaward or a new fridge or microwave for the team. Respondents were silent about any intrinsic motivation pertaining tothe work itself. Indeed, the literature on the intrinsic motivational potential of lean systems is fragmented and conflicting(Niepce and Molleman 1998). There remains a need to understand the kinds of motivational effects which are engen-dered by lean systems and to what extent these effects and their outcomes vary, depending on the methods and effec-tiveness of implementation. In other words, in lean environments, does worker behaviour result only from increasedmanagement control or do the workers increase their effort because of the characteristics of the task itself (De Trevilleand Antonakis 2006)? Respondents reported that many of the systems within the lean implementation needed to bere-launched at regular intervals in order to keep them effective. Moreover, they pointed to the growing opinion that thedisciplines of 5S were an unwelcome chore, and that new recruits were reluctant to stay behind to sweep and tidy theirwork areas. When taken together with comments about employee suggestions not being implemented, and examples ofchange weariness, the nature of the challenge that exists behind the scenes to ensure that momentum and employeeengagement are preserved becomes evident.

5.3 Methodological reflections

This work was based upon a three-stage methodology utilising a range of methods including literature analysis, docu-ment evaluation and two phases of semi-structured interviews. As a research design, it follows best-practice advice toemploy multiple methods for triangulation. The driving force for the research design was repeated calls for micro-levelinvestigation to get under the surface of this complex phenomenon; thus, a single case study was chosen using an emer-gent approach where each stage of investigation informed the next one. Although case studies are relatively common inoperations research generally, they have not been used extensively in the study of lean systems. The investigation beganwith a predominantly ‘tools focus’ to the topic, subsequently evolving to adopt a greater emphasis on human andorganisational issues in a socio-technical sense. This was intended to overcome the limited perspectives of extantmethodologies which have relied heavily on survey methods. Our methodology included access to shop-floor employeeswhich is unusual and important; in the OM tradition it is usually managers who are surveyed or interviewed, sinceaccess to shop-floor workers is difficult and uncommon.


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It is also important to recognise the limitations of this work. The first relates to the limitations of any single casestudy, including the inability to generalise the findings and conclusions, and the lack of opportunity to compare eventsand data across cases. Generalisability is further constrained by having access to only one area of the factory, albeit onewhich we believe is typical of its lean implementation. It would also have been desirable to collect a larger data-set byconducting more interviews. Nonetheless, the degree of consensus reflected in the findings is encouraging and providesfine-grained insights into the operational deployment of lean. Finally, the literature review and fieldwork could havebeen strengthened through an increased focus on the cultural aspects of lean, since the cultural dimension of change is acentral element in the implementation of lean (Meier 2006; Barabel, Le Boulch, and Meier 2008). The empirical find-ings pointed to a few aspects of culture in the focal organisation such as the focus on measurement and feedback, andits open and encouraging character. However, there were also some negative indications of tensions between workersand management and resistance to change such that there is even more scope for investigation through a cultural lens.

6. Conclusions

This exploratory study has investigated the lean phenomenon through literature review and an in-depth case study com-prising semi-structured interviews with senior executives and shop-floor employees in one automotive company. Itmakes a number of contributions to theory and practice, as follows:

6.1 Implications for research

Firstly, the taxonomy of lean that has been developed, which incorporates core dimensions and indicative statements foreach, is an addition to knowledge in its own right. Its process of development was unusual in that the findings deriveddirectly from consensus in the literature rather than through the more common route of surveys which tend to have anarrower focus. The value of the taxonomy comes in part from its broader perspective. Its use as a means for analysinglean implementations in practice has been demonstrated through a case study and we propose that future research shouldtest and refine it in a variety of settings.

Secondly, the paper delineates the human issues associated with lean systems in a fine-grained way that conveys therich and multifaceted landscape that exists. Few, if any, studies of lean have been able to produce this level of detail;this demonstrates one of the advantages of the single-case research design. Thirdly, the case study has revealed a set ofinsights into the dynamics of an established lean system. The interactions between the operational deployment of leanand the associated human issues are often hidden facets of such socio-technical systems. The case analysis has uncov-ered subtle tensions, interplays and reactions which ebb and flow as the system continues to evolve. These, in turn,point to the issue of the system’s long term survival for which we identify a number of levers which may be central forthe company’s ongoing proficiency in change management and lean transformation.

These findings suggest several additional avenues for further research:

(1) To explore how the voice of the customer may be brought into settings such as this one where there is no directcustomer interface.

(2) To study the effectiveness of the learning and knowledge creation mechanisms such as the Improvement Diagno-sis System and the Global e-room, and to see how they support and stimulate Communities of Practice.

(3) To undertake a longitudinal study of this lean implementation to observe the effectiveness of the change manage-ment capability and the continuance of the system.

(4) To investigate the motivational potential of the lean system in more depth to see whether or not there is anintrinsic motivational element, and if so, how it works.

(5) To extend the literature review and fieldwork to take a more direct focus on the cultural dimension of lean.(6) To test the developed lean taxonomy in a range of other settings.(7) To undertake a comparative study of the issues raised through this study, in organisations representing different

stages in their adoption and experiences of lean from beginners, through intermediate to experienced.

6.2 Implications for practice

The research also has implications for management practice. Firstly, the taxonomy demonstrates the multi-faceted natureof lean and it highlights the need for managers to focus attention on lean implementations in order to nurture andencourage the many interactions and relationships which make it work effectively. The taxonomy underpinsSchonberger’s (2007) warning that managers’ understanding of lean is too superficial in most organisations and that


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implementation is much more than a set of mechanistic activities. The taxonomy can be used by managers as a check-list or aide-memoire to ensure that they are attending to all the necessary facets of their lean system. In the same regard,the taxonomy could form a framework for organisational self-assessment of lean implementation to avoid the limitationsof partial implementation which are prevalent (Done, Voss, and Rytter 2011).

Secondly, the findings from the employee interviews demonstrate the reality of working within a lean system. Thissignals to managers that it is vital to seek out the views and feelings of employees in order to bring their concerns tothe surface where they can be addressed. While many managers would acknowledge that a focus on human aspects oflean is de rigueur, the richness of such a focus has rarely been spelled out in any detail. Our findings emphasise theneed for managers to concentrate on the perceptions of employees around the themes and sub-themes we haveidentified.

Finally, just as Schonberger (2007) found wavering signs for many lean implementations, our research suggests thatit seems difficult to sustain. This finding is an alert to managers to guard against complacency. Even when a lean systemappears to be functioning well and delivering expected levels of performance, there are factors which can cause it to fal-ter and even fail. These include existing performance-management systems, employee mindsets and an underestimationof the level of senior management involvement (Fine, Hansen, and Roggenhofer 2009). Suitable managerial attention toall of these factors is essential to keep the lean process moving forward and thriving.

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Towards Greater Understanding of Success and Survival of Lean Systems 2013