Service supply chain management

Abstract

PurposeLean has long been developed and utilised in the manufacturing setting. Today, lean seems to be applicable in all organisational settings; and recently, lean has been applied in the municipal sector. The purpose of this paper is to investigate lean practices in the municipal sector in a service supply chain management (SCM) context.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyses lean implementation in Danish municipalities through the use of two sets of questionnaire surveys from 2008 to 2009. Furthermore, data based on three confirmative case studies of lean implementations are included.FindingsThe paper outlines a model that illustrates under which conditions lean is deemed most appropriate according to the type of service delivered. The surveys and case studies show that lean is mainly implemented as “toolbox lean,” such as with value stream mapping, kaizen and information boards. In addition, the analyses show that the lean philosophy can be used by the public sector to be more effective in terms of cost reduction and service improvements if the assumptions for implementing lean exist.Research limitations/implicationsFrom a supply chain perspective, data are collected only from a focal firm perspective (municipalities). Future research must investigate lean applications in public service supply chains from interorganisational perspectives.Practical implicationsThis paper provides guidance on the concept of lean and on under which circumstances it may be applied in a public service SCM context. Furthermore, it stresses the importance of defining the customers and clarifying their demands in terms of value requirements.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to study the lean philosophy in the public sector from a service supply chain perspective.

Lean in the Public Sector : Possibilities and Limitations

“…The pattern looks quite similar when looking at the public sector outside of healthcare, although the research on Lean implementations in this context is far less developed, but there are many speculations of the benefits (Bagley and Lewis, 2008;Bhatia and Drew, 2006;Krings et al, 2006) or case studies of implementations (Arlbjørn et al, 2011;Barraza et al, 2009;Hines et al, 2008;Radnor et al, 2006;Radnor, 2010a). Still, there is a need for an overview of the research on Lean in public sectors outside of healthcare, with more connection to other theory fields than just conceptual representations of Lean (Brännmark, 2012).…”

“…In line with the doctrines of new public management (NPM), the focus of public management theory has been on the efficiency of internal administrative processes (Hood, 1991;Osborne et al, 2013). As a consequence, there has been a trend to use concepts from research conducted in manufacturing contexts, of which Lean is one of the most well-known and used (Arlbjørn et al, 2011). The customer is seen as a passive receiver of the services, rather than an active part of the process, since the processes in public service organizations are managed in the same way as manufacturing processes, rather than as service processes .…”

Change management lessons learned for Lean IT implementations

“…Lean IT aims at systematic management of continuous improvement by reducing waste and variability as well as enhancing value and flexibility in all functions of an IT department [24]. Using that definition, we follow Arlbjörn et al's [25] conceptualization of LM for production organizations, in terms of philosophy, principles, and tools, and transfer it to IT departments [cf. 24].…”

A comprehensive insight into Lean management: Literature review and trends

“…Includes impact of lean on organizational performance including operational performance, financial performance etc. (Bhasin, 2008;Fullerton & Wempe, 2009;Belekoukias, Garza-Reyes & Kumar, 2014;Uhrin, Bruque-Camara & Moyano-Fuentes, 2017;Negrão et al, 2017) Leanness Includes research papers that discuss leanness assessment or measurement (Papadopoulou & Özbayrak, 2005;Singh, Garg & Sharma, 2010;Vinodh & Kumar-Chintha, 2011;Ram-Matawale, Datta & Sankar-Mahapatra, 2014) Lean supply Chain Includes papers that discuss adoption of lean principles, concepts, tools and techniques throughout the entire supply chain aimed at elimination of waste and non-value-added activities from the overall value stream in the supply chain (Stentoft-Arlbjørn, Vagn-Freytag & de Haas, 2011;Ma, Wang & Xu, 2011;Jasti & Kodali, 2015a;Tortorella, Miorando & Tlapa, 2017) Lean and other value creation tools Includes papers which discuss lean and other process improvement methodologies like TQM, Six sigma, Agile (Dahlgaard & Dahlgaard Park, 2006;Naslund, 2008;De Koeijer, Paauwe & -Huijsman, 2014;Mehrsai, Thoben & Scholz-Reiter, 2014) Lean Epistemology…”