Developing A Strategy to Enact Lean

Abstract

This paper explains the strategy employed by a case study company to implement lean across the business, and to reflect on the success of this approach so other companies may consider this learning and how it might be useful to them. The strategy to enact lean in the case study company was based on creating a number of standard tools/ways of working. These tools can be considered to be standardised work for key aspects of the construction process that the company undertakes. The aim of the tools was to ensure that critical tasks would be carried out to the correct standard (quality, time, cost, health and safety) every time, across the business. Achievement of this is expected to lead to improved performance and elimination of variation (waste). To implement this strategy of using standardised work to eliminate variation and lead to improved performance, a step-by-step process was developed to create the tools/standardised work. The paper describes the process that was undertaken and how it aimed to not only produce a number of tools/standardised work, but also to involve people and managers from across the business such that lean philosophy and thinking might also begin to become embedded. The paper will firstly explain, with reference to the relevant literature, how and why the strategy to implement standardised work was chosen, the process that was defined to develop the standardised work, and what happened when that process was put into practice. The findings of the paper show that whilst the completed tools delivered business benefits, the development of the tools did not follow the planned process. The paper discusses how people within the business responded to this strategy and how the process had to be continuously adapted to cope with the current business environment and path dependencies, further evidencing that lean implementations need to be tailored to suit the needs of the individual firm, rather than there being a one size fits all solution. Further, the conclusions will be set in the context of what lean has become to mean to the case study organisation, and how this sits in the wider debate of whether lean is an all encompassing philosophy or a set of prescriptive tools and techniques.

Achieving Excellence in Lean Implementation at Construction Companies - A Case Study From Brazil

“…Among them, a good example comes from Bygballe and Swärd (2014 p. 11), which practice perspective reveals the lean journey is an ongoing effort, "being refined and adapted to the context in which it was used, a process which never really finished". As Morrey et al (2011) confirm, lean implementation needs to be based on adaptation theory.…”

“…Many academic studies comment on barriers to lean implementation, most of which are related to organisational difficulties to expose the errors and learn from them (Morrey et al 2011;Poshdar et al 2019;Wandahl 2014). After a detailed examination of relevant literature, Demirkesen et al (2019) identified and categorised 27 common implementation barriers into seven groups, as follows; political, economical, technical, workforce, cultural, managerial, and communication barriers.…”

“…All of them can be associated particularly with the political, cultural and managerial barriers described above. Morrey et al (2011) focus on social barriers, especially employee involvement and empowerment during the lean journey. They also discuss the challenge of "reinventing the [lean implementation] approach until it works within that organisation" (Morrey et al 2011 p. 8).…”

Development of a Framework for a Lean based Water and Energy Efficiency Assessment Tool

“…The team will collectively assess the current situation and will be involved in developing the future state map, as they are the process owners and will have to ensure the long term sustainability of the proposed improvements. The theme of employee involvement and empowerment is one that is fundamental to Lean thinking (Nicholas, 2010;Morrey, Pasquire and Dainty, 2013; Van der Merwe, 2011) and this creates a culture where respect for people is created.…”

Explaining the Evolution of Performance Measures - A Dual Case-Study Approach

“…The link between PMS and strategy is powerful if achieved, creating alignment between the two components will provide information on whether the strategy is being implemented and encourage behaviours consistent with it (Neely, 1999). Thus, PM do not operate in a vacuum; rather, PM are heavily influenced by the strategic context of an organisation that is inherently dynamic (Bourne et al, 2000;Morrey et al, 2013). Within a given PMS, there are measures that are indeed indispensable.…”