Lean: A failed theory for public services?

Lean thinking: outside-in, bottom-up? The paradox of contemporary soft lean and consultant-driven lean implementation

“…However, our case study brings together and elaborates on two other well-known causes for implementation failure. First, 'hard' and technical lean at the bottom of the organisational hierarchy, founded on an efficiency logic, has been shown to lead to sub-optimisation and lack of customer value (Radnor & Johnston, 2013;Radnor & Osborne, 2013). Second, critics of management consultancy blame it for conning organisations into faddish concepts by appealing rhetoric (Alvesson, 2012;Jung & Kieser, 2012).…”

‘Lean’, new technologies and employment in public health services: employees' experiences in the National Health Service

“…Elsewhere, 'a lack of commitment from senior management' (Radnor and Osborne 2013: 269), and public sector professionals' resistance to 'attempts to make their work more predictable, transparent and standardised' (Radnor and Osborne 2013: 273) have been seen as problematic.…”

“…Similar attempts have been made to humanise the Lean agenda within public services - Radnor and Osborne (2013: 9 282) argue for Lean to be adapted away from its micro-level focus on internal processes to become 'a holistic theory of service delivery'. The suggestion here is that some elements of Lean-type approaches can be retained, while the overall focus should shift towards holistic, patient-centred care (Radnor and Osborne 2013), reflecting a broader acceptance of 'post-NPM' approaches to managing public services (Osborne 2010 Similarly, those advocating Lean-type approaches in organisations such as the NHS often seem to start from the assumption that on-going organisational problems cannot be addressed with additional investment, but rather only through managerialist reform (Jones and Mitchell 2006). There may be a fundamental disconnect here between employees, who see their work as subject to stringent resource constraints, and managers who sometimes appear neutral as to whether 'it may or may not be true that the NHS needs more resources or lacks capacity' (Jones and Mitchell 2006: 15).…”

“…Advocates of Lean have argued for the transferability (from manufacturing to public services) of its key themes of designing out over-burdened, inconsistent and wasteful operational processes (Radnor and Osborne 2013). In some public organisations, including areas of the NHS, a range of Lean interventions have been advocated, so that managers are encouraged to shoehorn techniques developed in manufacturing contexts -such as 'value steam mapping' (which involves teams systematically identifying steps in work processes that add value and eliminating wasteful ones) -into complex public services (Radnor and Boaden 2008).…”

“…It might also be argued that the more general principles and philosophy of Lean have informed a broader range of workplace and service redesign projects in the NHS (Radnor et al 2012). However, there remains debate as to the appropriateness of Lean-type approaches as a tool for improving performance and work organisation in public service organisations (Radnor and Osborne 2013). Specifically, there are concerns that, despite rhetoric suggesting that Lean can empower employees to get involved in organisational reform, many individuals report experiences of increased work intensification and reduced job quality following such reform programmes (Carter et al 2011a).…”