Leanness assessment of organizational performance: a systematic literature review

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review various themes of leanness, leanness assessment approaches, leanness assessment areas, and their evolution by a systematic literature review (SLR). Design/methodology/approach The eight types of literature review methodologies are identified and compared. The SLR is selected after critically analyzing the eight types of literature reviews. A four-phased SLR (i.e. plan, do, analyze/synthesize, and propose) has been carried out based on the peer-reviewed journal and conference articles on leanness assessment. Findings The existing literature on leanness assessment shows the lack of review-based papers on lean assessment. This study attempts to build a two-fold contribution to the field of leanness assessment: first, various types of themes, approaches, and assessment areas are identified; second, a framework for leanness assessment is proposed. The study shows that the research on leanness assessment is mainly empirical using qualitative judgment. The paper traces the changes in scope, areas, and approaches to leanness assessment. The scope of leanness assessment broadened from manufacturing process assessment to whole supply chain assessment including manufacturing process. The focus of earlier assessment was manufacturing and financial areas which now includes human resource, administration, new product development, suppliers, and customers also. Tool and technique based assessment has given way to outcome-based assessment using non-financial and qualitative parameters. Research limitations/implications One of the limitations of the study is that literature search was mainly focused on peer-reviewed articles published in English language only; therefore, some papers in others languages may have been missed. Apart from this, the SLR has been conducted for the manufacturing sector only. Practical implications The study is expected to be useful for the lean practitioners to identify the causes of reported lean failures. Moreover, the authors also expect that the conducted SLR will provide the passage to the practitioners for not only fostering the concepts on leanness assessment but also provide the vital and significant knowledge about the leanness assessment to the managers for enhancing organizational performance. Originality/value As per the authors’ knowledge, this is the first SLR on leanness assessment. It is expected that this paper will help the researchers working in the area of lean manufacturing to identify new areas of research.

Total eclipse on business performance and mass personalization: how supply chain flexibility eclipses lean production direct effect

“…Second, and maybe the most powerful contribution of this research: in presence of Supply Chain Flexibility, the direct effect of Lean Production on business performance and Mass Personalization is totally eclipsed (overshadowed). Although this finding is new in the literature, it does not contradict prior studies that found a direct effect between Lean Production and business performance (Lamming, 1996;Mason-Jones and Towill, 1999;van der Vaart et al, 2012;Negrão et al, 2017;Sangwa and Sangwan, 2017) nor those that found a direct link between Lean Production and Mass Personalization (Boynton et al, 1993;Stump and Badurdeen, 2012). On the one hand, regarding the (2020), is that LSCM and Supply Chain Flexibility would be two closely interwoven constructs as LSCM provides flexibility to the supply chain; therefore, both constructs have a similar role by overshadowing the direct effect of Lean, at an internal level, on performance.…”

“…From the business performance perspective, literature findings indicate that Lean Production implementation could enable organizations to improve their performance at all organizational levels (Womack et al, 1990;Jayaram et al, 2008;Negrão et al, 2017;Sangwa and Sangwan, 2017). Some research shows that Lean Production seeks to decreases the system's variability sources to increase business efficiency (de Treville and Antonakis, 2006;Shah and Ward, 2007;van der Vaart et al, 2012).…”

Information and digital technologies of Industry 4.0 and Lean supply chain management: a systematic literature review

“…This step is essential as, if the selected literature is inadequate, inappropriate or irrelevant, the contribution of the following phases will be amiss (Sangwa and Sangwan 2018). There are two key aspects in this stage: the choice of search engines and the choice of search word strings (Tranfield, Denyer, and Smart 2003;Denyer and Tranfield 2009).…”

Product-service system leanness assessment model: study of a UK manufacturing company

“…This index was developed based on the application of the Graph-Theoretic Approach (GTA) that can measure the degree of lean implementation according to five main lean elements (supplier interface practices, management practices, human resource practices, process practices, and customer interface) and 22 lean sub-elements. Sangwa and Sangwan (2018) presented a conceptual framework based on key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure lean performance. Seven key areas were evaluated in the framework namely: manufacturing process, new product development, human resource management, finance, administration, customer management, and supplier management.…”