Performance of Lean in large organisations

The paper focuses upon an in depth investigation to decipher whether larger organisations embracing Lean as a philosophy were indeed more successful. Achievement was measured by the impact an organisation's Lean journey had on its financial and operational efficiency levels.An adapted balance scorecard was utilised which embraced strategic, operational and indices focused towards the organisation's future performance. The methodology principally analysed primary data meticulously captured from 68 survey questionnaires undertaken in manufacturing organisations in Britain representative of small, medium and large entities. Subsequently extensive case studies were undertaken in seven companies as a comprehensive validating exercise.The results revealed that the larger organisations viewing Lean as an ideology performed better; this was exposed by applying the balance scorecard to the respective Lean implementations. Evidently concoctions of inputs were deemed essential for this situation to exist. A research limitation would noticeably invoke a natural extension by replicating the investigation in a non-manufacturing environment. The creativity value of the research demonstrates that the results suggest that whilst considerable investment is required for organisations to be deemed to be embracing Lean as an ideology; nonetheless, this does result in the respective organisation benefiting from greater levels of efficiency.

► Larger organisations operate Lean across the value chain involving suppliers and recognise organisations’ distinctive problems and constraints.
► The Lean benefits are not always obvious since the connection between financial and non-financial measures is fragile.
► The supporting cultural considerations need to be in place as there does not exist a unique recipe which does guarantee Lean success.
► Lean success does not come from targeting opportunities in a haphazard manner whilst using only a few of the Lean tools.
► Often absent from Lean implementations are the organisational development aspects that act as a mechanism to hold things together.