TQM Journal

The TQM Journal
Volume 21, Issue 2, 2009, pp.105-215 Articles
The quality of life as attribute of sustainability Alain Lepage (pp. 105-115) Keywords: Economic sustainability, Measurement, Political systems, Quality of life ArticleType: Research paper Criteria requirements of the European business excellence model: a suggested approach Evanthia P. Vorria, George A. Bohoris (pp. 116-126) Keywords: Best practice, Business excellence, European quality model, Total quality management ArticleType: Viewpoint Defining lean production: some conceptual and practical issues Jostein Pettersen (pp. 127-142) Keywords: Lean production, Total quality management ArticleType: Conceptual paper Lean-kaizen public service: an empirical approach in Spanish local governments Manuel F. Suarez Barraza, Tricia Smith, Su Mi Dahlgaard-Park (pp. 143-167) Keywords: Continuous improvement, Lean production, Local government, Service improvements, Spain ArticleType: Case study What does GRI-reporting tell us about corporate sustainability? Raine Isaksson, Ulrich Steimle (pp. 168-181) Keywords: Business excellence, Construction industry, Economic sustainability, Reports, Stakeholder analysis ArticleType: Research paper Quality engineering for early stage of environmentally conscious design Tomohiko Sakao (pp. 182-193) Keywords: Communication, Customers, Design management, Economic sustainability, Quality concepts ArticleType: Research paper Towards a stakeholder methodology: experiences from public eldercare sa Wreder, Peter Johansson, Rickard Garvare (pp. 194-202) Keywords: Customer orientation, Elderly people, Patients, Research methods, Stakeholder analysis, Sweden ArticleType: Research paper Exploring process management: are there any widespread models and definitions? Klara Palmberg (pp. 203-215) Keywords: Literature, Organizations, Process management, Quality concepts ArticleType: Research paper
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1754-2731.htm
Dening lean production: some conceptual and practical issues

Jostein Pettersen
Division of Quality Technology and Management and Helix VINN Excellence Centre, Linkoping University, Linkoping, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the denition of lean production and the methods and goals associated with the concept as well as how it differs from other popular management concepts. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a review of the contemporary literature on lean production, both journal articles and books. Findings It is shown in the paper that there is no consensus on a denition of lean production between the examined authors. The authors also seem to have different opinions on which characteristics should be associated with the concept. Overall it can be concluded that lean production is not clearly dened in the reviewed literature. This divergence can cause some confusion on a theoretical level, but is probably more problematic on a practical level when organizations aim to implement the concept. This paper argues that it is important for an organization to acknowledge the different variations, and to raise the awareness of the input in the implementation process. It is further argued that the organization should not accept any random variant of lean, but make active choices and adapt the concept to suit the organizations needs. Through this process of adaptation, the organization will be able to increase the odds of performing a predictable and successful implementation. Originality/value This paper provides a critical perspective on the discourse surrounding lean production, and gives an input to the discussion of the implementation of management models. Keywords Lean production, Total quality management Paper type Conceptual paper
Dening lean production
127
Introduction When initiating research concerning the concept of lean production (LP) one line of questions naturally comes to mind: What is lean? How is lean dened? How does lean relate to other management concepts? What does lean have in common with other management concepts? What discriminates lean from other management concepts? Seeking answers to these questions, will lead to the realization that they are exceedingly hard to nd. It seems logical that a management concept as popular as lean should have a clear and concise denition. Much disappointingly, the denition of lean production is highly elusive. Some authors have made attempts to dene the concept (e.g. Lewis, 2000; Hines et al., 2004; Shah and Ward, 2007), while others have raised the question of whether the concept is clearly dened (see Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2006; Engstrom et al., 1996; Lewis, 2000). A justied question is whether the convergent validity of lean actually makes any difference does it matter how we dene lean? There are various opinions on the effects of this. The absence of a clear denition has a number of consequences for practitioners seeking to implement lean as well as researchers trying to capture the essence of the
The TQM Journal Vol. 21 No. 2, 2009 pp. 127-142 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1754-2731 DOI 10.1108/17542730910938137
TQM 21,2
128
concept. These issues have been addressed by a number of researchers. The lack of a denition will lead to communication difculties (Dale and Plunkett, 1991 in Boaden, 1997). It will complicate education on the subject (Boaden, 1997). Researching the subject will be difcult (Godfrey et al., 1997; Parker, 2003) although Boaden (1997) states that this is not essential. There will also be difculties in dening overall goals of the concept (Andersson et al., 2006). Parker (2003) states that the multitude of interpretations on what lean really is makes it harder to make claims towards the effects of lean, thus increasing the requirements that researchers specify exactly what they are researching. Karlsson and Ahlstrom (1996) point out that the lack of a precise denition also will lead to difculties in determining whether changes made in an organization are consistent with LP or not, and consequently difculties in evaluating the effectiveness of the concept itself. Purpose of the article The main purpose of this article is to give a presentation of what lean production is. This will be done through a review of contemporary literature on lean and summary of practices associated with lean as well as the stated purpose of the concept. Based on this, an evaluation of the construct validity of lean will be made. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the practical implications of the construct validity of lean. Research approach Hackman and Wageman (1995) reviewed the TQM concept and raised the question of whether there really is such a thing as TQM or whether it has become mainly a banner under which a potpourri of essentially unrelated organizational changes are undertaken. This is a valid question for any construct similar to TQM, and the concept of lean production is no exception. Following the reasoning of Hackman and Wageman, this question calls for the evaluation of the concepts convergent and discriminant validity. Hackman and Wageman (1995) describe the two kinds of validity as follows:
Convergent validity reects the degree to which [different] versions [of the concept] [. . .] share a common set of assumptions and prescriptions. [. . .] Discriminant validity refers to the degree to which [the concept] can be reliably distinguished from other strategies for organizational improvement (Hackman and Wageman, 1995).
In other words, the discriminant validity tells us whether or not a concept carries any news value compared to other existing concepts, whereas the convergent validity, strictly speaking, tells us whether or not the concept itself really exists. For this article, the two major citation databases ISI and Scopus have been searched for articles containing the terms lean production or lean manufacturing in the topic, abstract or keywords. The 20 most cited articles from each database were selected for further study. Through reading these and other articles on the subject, the most inuential books were identied. This list was veried through using the citation analysis software publish or perish.
The reviewed literature will be compared by listing the characteristics of lean presented by each author. The idea is that a method, tool or goal that is central to lean will be mentioned by every author on the topic. The purpose or goal of lean should logically be the same for all authors. Concurrence among the authors will signify a high convergent validity. If lean passes this convergent validity criterion, an evaluation of the discriminant validity can be made, based on a comparison with TQM. Hackman and Wageman (1995) concluded that TQM passed the tests of both convergent and discriminant validity, making it a good concept to compare against lean production. Literature review The two database searches produced a total of 37 articles (see Appendix), of which 12 of them contained presentations of techniques and/or overall goals associated with LP, thus contributing to a conceptual discussion. The 12 articles that are deemed suitable for a further analysis are Krafcik (1988), Oliver et al. (1996), Sanchez and Perez (2001), Lewis (2000), Mumford (1994), James-Moore and Gibbons (1997), MacDufe et al. (1996), Dankbaar (1997), White and Prybutok (2001), Hayes and Pisano (1994), Jagdev and Browne (1998) and Cusumano (1994). A number of books turned up in the literature search. An investigation of the books citation rankings led to a ltering process with 13 books remaining. These are Womack et al. (1990), Womack and Jones (2003), Bicheno (2004), Ohno (1988), Monden (1998), Liker (2004), Feld (2001), Dennis (2002), Schonberger (1982), Shingo (1984), Rother and Shook (1998), Jones and Womack (2002) and Smalley (2004). The publications by the Lean Enterprise Institute (Rother and Shook, 1998; Jones and Womack, 2002; Smalley, 2004) are very specic on certain tools (mainly value stream mapping), and were not deemed suitable for a conceptual discussion about lean in general. An overview of lean characteristics Table I is a presentation of the most frequently mentioned characteristics of lean in the reviewed books. Characteristics that have been discussed by less than three authors have been excluded from the presentation. The characteristics in the table are sorted based on frequency of discussion in the reviewed literature. Looking at the table reveals some interesting aspects about the ideas surrounding lean. The only two characteristics that all authors discuss are setup time reduction and continuous improvement, indicating that these are central to the concept. On the condition that pull production can be seen as a special case of just-in-time production, all authors lift this characteristic as well. Failure prevention ( poka yoke) and production leveling (heijunka) also seem to be central characteristics of lean production. Analysis Convergent validity of lean The characteristics listed in Table I have some relation to one another, motivating an afnity analysis. One way of grouping these characteristics is presented in Table II. Through grouping the characteristics a more homogeneous image of the lean characteristics arises. For all but three of the groups all authors have discussed at least
129
130
TQM 21,2
Kaizen/continuous improvement Setup time reduction Just in time production Kanban/pull system Poka yoke Production leveling (Heijunka) Standardized work Visual control and management 5S/housekeeping Andon Small lot production Time/work studies Waste elimination Inventory reduction Supplier involvement Takted production TPM/preventive maintenance Autonomation (Jidoka) ()
Table I. A presentation of characteristics associated with lean production. The characteristics are sorted by accumulated frequency Goal Customer focus (high quality, low cost, short time) Dennis Feld Ohno Monden Eliminate Improve waste and Robust quality and reduce production Cost productivity costs operation reduction Schonberger Cost reduction through waste elimination Shingo (continued)
Reduce Make products waste and with fewer defects to precise One-piece improve value customer desires ow (Womack and Jones and Womack et al.) Liker Bicheno
Goal Customer focus (high quality, low cost, short time) Dennis () () Feld Ohno Monden Schonberger Shingo Eliminate Improve waste and Robust quality and reduce production Cost productivity costs operation reduction Cost reduction through waste elimination
Reduce Make products waste and with fewer defects to precise One-piece improve value customer desires ow (Womack and Jones and Womack et al.) Liker Bicheno () NO!
Statistical quality control (SQC) Teamwork Work force reduction 100% inspection Layout adjustments Policy deployment (Hoshin kanri) Improvement circles Root cause analysis (5 why) Value stream mapping/owcharting Education/cross training (OJT) Employee involvement Lead time reduction Multi-manning Process synchronization Cellular manufacturing
131
Table I.
TQM 21,2
Collective term Just in time practices (100%)
Specic characteristics Production leveling (heijunka) Pull system (kanban) Takted production Process synchronization Small lot production Waste elimination Setup time reduction Lead time reduction Inventory reduction Team organization Cross training Employee involvement Improvement circles Continuous improvement (kaizen) Root cause analysis (5 why) Autonomation (jidoka) Failure prevention (poka yoke) 100% inspection Line stop (andon) Value stream mapping/owcharting Supplier involvement Housekeeping (5S) Standardized work Visual control and management Policy deployment (hoshin kanri) Time/work studies Multi manning Work force reduction Layout adjustments Cellular manufacturing Statistical quality control (SQC) TPM/preventive maintenance
132
Resource reduction (100%)
Human relations management (78%) Improvement strategies (100%) Defects control (100%)
Supply chain management (78%) Standardization (100%) Scientic management (100%)
Table II. A suggestion for a grouping of lean characteristics
Bundled techniques (56%, 67%)
Note: The gures in parentheses indicate the percentage of the authors that have discussed at least one of the characteristics in the group
one of the characteristics in the group. In the group labeled as human resource management none of the characteristics are discussed by authors Bicheno and Shingo. The authors Ohno and Schonberger have not discussed any of the characteristics in the group labeled as supply chain management. Furthermore, the bundled techniques have slightly lower gures. This indicates that the two groups human relations management and supply chain management are not denable characteristics of lean, contrary to the ndings of Shah and Ward (2003). However, the scores are quite high, indicating that they are important (although not vital) parts of the lean concept. Looking at the goals presented by the reviewed authors (Table I) raises some questions towards the convergent validity of lean. The general opinion that the purpose of lean is to reduce waste does not seem to hold, although some authors (Bicheno, 2004; Monden, 1998; Shingo, 1984) argue for this. As discussed above there are two main traditions of lean; toolbox lean and lean thinking. This is also evident
in the differences of goals in the reviewed literature. Generally speaking, there are two different types of goals, internally focused (Liker, 2004; Feld, 2001; Ohno, 1988; Monden, 1998; Schonberger, 1982; Shingo, 1984) and externally focused (Womack et al., 1990; Womack and Jones, 2003; Bicheno, 2004; Dennis, 2002; Schonberger, 1982). One could argue that the differences in formulation of purpose are very small thus making it a minor issue. However, an internally focused cost reduction initiative will differ substantially from an externally focused initiative to improve customer satisfaction. The division of lean production in the two parts discussed above has led to discussions of which one is more correct. A common statement is that lean is more than a set of tools (Bicheno, 2004), arguing for a more philosophical approach to lean. However, there is also another position that argues for a more practical and project based approach to lean and that lean is a collection of waste reduction tools. This kind of statement is hard to nd explicitly in academic texts, but very common among certain practitioners. Neither of the positions are more correct than the other, since lean exists at both levels, having both strategic and operational dimensions (Hines et al., 2004). In addition, lean can be seen as having both a philosophical as well as a practical orientation (Shah and Ward, 2007). Through adapting and combining the four approaches to lean suggested by Hines et al. (2004) and Shah and Ward (2007) respectively, lean can be characterized in four different ways. The terms practical and philosophical are substituted by the terms performative and ostensive. The terms operational and strategic are substituted by the terms discrete and continuous. In Table III four different approaches to lean production are presented. The term ostensive signies a shift of focus from general philosophy towards issues that can only be dened by examples, whereas performative and practical focus on the things that are done. The term discrete signies a focus on isolated events, such as individual improvement projects using the lean toolbox (see Bicheno, 2004; Nicholas and Soni, 2006), or the nal state of leanness (see Krafcik, 1988). As a contrast, the term continuous signies a process oriented perspective, focusing on the continuous efforts; the philosophy of lean thinking or the Toyota way (see Womack and Jones, 2003; Liker, 2004) or the process of becoming lean (see Liker, 1998; Karlsson andAhlstrom, 1996). Although the score is not perfect, lean seems to be a reasonably consistent concept comprising just in time practices, resource reduction, improvement strategies, defects control, standardization and scientic management techniques. However, it is hard to formulate a clear denition that captures all the elements of lean and integrates the various goals in the reviewed literature. In other words, lean can be said to (barely)
Discrete (Operational) Ostensive (Philosophical) Performative (Practical) Leanness Toolbox lean Continuous (Strategic) Lean thinking Becoming lean
133
Note: The terms in parentheses are the ones suggested by Hines et al. (2004) and Shah and Ward (2007) respectively
Table III. An illustration of the four denable approaches to lean production
TQM 21,2
pass the convergent validity test, although there is no clear agreement among the authors as to the overall purpose of the concept. Discriminant validity of lean So what is then the difference between TQM and lean production? In the following section Lean and TQM are compared based on the analysis made by Hackman and Wageman (1995). The discussion is done with three different aspects; basic assumptions, change principles and interventions: (1) Basic assumptions: . Quality. In lean, quality does not receive the same amount of attention as in the TQM literature. The main focus in the lean literature is on just-in-time (JIT) production. JIT is assumed to decrease total cost, as well as highlight problems. This is done through reducing the resources in the system, so that buffers do not cover up the problems that arise. In the short-term perspective, the reduction of resources implies a direct reduction of cost. In the long run, the reduction and subsequent elimination of buffers is assumed to highlight the problems that exist in production, thus being a vital source of continuous improvement (e.g. Shingo, 1984; Ohno, 1988; Krafcik, 1988). A common opinion is that the purpose of lean is waste elimination. The literature review does not show support for this being the very purpose, but waste elimination is denitely an important aspect of the concept. Some authors argue that waste is reduced in order to increase the value for the customer (e.g. Dennis, 2002; Bicheno, 2004), whereas others argue that it is a strategy for reducing cost (e.g. Ohno, 1988; Monden, 1998). Reducing waste is also a signicant part of TQM, but under the banner of poor-quality-costs (see Hackman and Wageman, 1995; Sorqvist, 1998). A major difference between TQM and lean in this aspect is the precision in dening waste. In the majority of the lean literature, waste or muda is based on the seven forms[1] dened by Ohno (1988), whereas TQM has a very general denition of poor-quality-costs, including everything that could be eliminated through improvement (Sorqvist, 1998). . Employees and the quality of their work. One major critique of the lean concept is that it is generally weak concerning the employees perspective. The proponents of lean production usually have a strong instrumental and managerial perspective, discussing employees in terms of components in the production system (see Kamata, 1982; Berggren, 1992, 1993). The extensive discussion about jidoka and poka yoke in the lean literature suggests that employees cannot be trusted to produce good quality, thus creating a necessity for removing the possibility of human error from the system. . Organizations as systems. One thing that lean and TQM have in common is seeing the organization as a system (see Womack and Jones, 2003; Bicheno, 2004). But there is a slight difference in perspective between the two concepts. Whereas TQM has a strong focus on the internal structure and integration of departments within the organization, lean stresses a supply chain perspective, seeing the internal production operations as a part of a
134
value stream from the sub-suppliers to the end customer (e.g. Rother and Shook, 1998; Jones and Womack, 2002). . Quality is the responsibility of senior management. This is another perspective that lean and TQM share, but again with some differences. TQM-managers should create structures that support the employees in producing products of high quality (Deming, 1986; Hackman and Wageman, 1995). The idea is the same in lean, but the rationale for doing this seems to be centered around eliminating the human factor from the system through jidoka and poka yoke. Using the terminology of McGregor, one could argue that TQM seems to be based on theory Y, whereas lean seems to be based on theory X (see Ezzamel et al., 2001). (2) Change principles: . Focus on processes. Within the lean concept the term value stream is usually preferred (Womack and Jones, 2003). The term process is usually used at a lower level of abstraction that TQM theorists would call sub-processes or activities (see Riley, 1998). The conception that management should analyze and improve the processes and train the employees is also shared by the two concepts. . Management by fact. The literature on lean does not really stress the management by facts explicitly. However, this is implicit in the description of lean practices, many of which are analytical tools designed to help achieve JIT production. Although this is a shared perspective between lean and TQM, there is a difference. Within TQM the analysis of variability through using statistical tools is a central concept (Hackman and Wageman, 1995). In the lean tradition, this is not seen as equally important. In fact, some authors argue against the use of statistical tools for analyzing production performance, recommending alternative tools such as increased inspection and visualization of problems (e.g. Dennis, 2002; Liker, 2004). . Learning and continuous improvement. In the words of Hackman and Wageman (1995) TQM is pro-learning, with a vengeance (p. 330). The learning aspects are not emphasized as much in literature on lean. As discussed above, the lean literature is generally weaker on the human behavior side, focusing more on instrumental techniques for improving system performance. There is a clear focus on continuous improvement, which implies that some form of learning is required. However, the question is who is learning. TQM is focused on stimulating creativity and individual efforts for improvement (Hackman and Wageman, 1995), whereas lean places strong emphasis on the standardization of work and collective learning (Niepce and Molleman, 1998; Thompson and Wallace, 1996). (3) Interventions: . Analysis of customer requirements. Customer focus is one of the hallmarks of TQM, where every improvement should be based on an investigation of the customers requirements, whether the customer is internal or external. The lean concept does not emphasize customer interests. Some authors argue that the very purpose of lean is to please the customer (e.g. Dennis, 2002), but
135
TQM 21,2
.
136
.
methods for analyzing customer requirements are extremely rare in the reviewed literature, suggesting this is not a typical lean intervention. Supplier partnerships. The suppliers are seen as important in both lean and TQM. Both concept stress the point that long term partnerships should be made with suppliers and that improvements should be done in collaboration with them. Although this matter is not discussed by all authors in this analysis, the majority of them do (see Table I). Improvement teams. Quality circles have a central role in much of the TQM literature, and can be put to use in problem solving or improvement activities. In the lean literature, improvement teams are explicitly discussed by just about half of the reviewed authors. However, they are often implicated in discussions about improvement activities. Scientic methods for performance measurement and improvement. Both TQM and lean employ various scientic methods for analysis and evaluation of performance. However, these methods differ signicantly, and the tools associated with one concept are generally not mentioned in literature on the other one. The purpose of measurements also differs. In TQM measurements are done in order to identify problems and to document improvement, whereas lean theorists argue that measurements should be made for planning and synchronization purposes;, e.g. for setting production rate (see Ohno, 1988; Bicheno, 2004). Process management techniques. As discussed above, the term process is used in slightly different ways by authors on TQM and lean. In the lean literature, different techniques are presented for both overall process level and individual activities. At an organizational level value stream mapping (VSM) can be used for highlighting several kinds of problems in the processes (Rother and Shook, 1998). At a more operational level, different time/work study techniques are discussed, e.g. so-called spaghetti charts (e.g. Bicheno, 2004).
Lean and TQM same but different At a philosophical level, lean and TQM have many ideas in common, in particular concerning continuous improvement and the systems perspective. However, at a more operational level, the two concepts differ signicantly. The fundamental values of the two concepts are also quite different, especially regarding humanistic values. Conclusions There is no agreed upon denition of lean that could be found in the reviewed literature, and the formulations of the overall purpose of the concept are divergent. Discomforting as this may seem for lean proponents, there seems to be quite good agreement on the characteristics that dene the concept, leading to the conclusion that the concept is dened in operational terms alone. Formulating a denition that captures all the dimensions of lean is a formidable challenge. According to Hines et al. (2004) lean is constantly evolving, implying that any denition of the concept will only be a still image of a moving target, only being valid in a certain point in time. This may be an explanation to the apparent differences
between authors on the subject. Based on this, it is hard not to raise the question of whether a consistent denition of lean is possible to produce. Also, one can question whether a denition will be useful at all, regarding the ever changing nature of the type of constructs that management concepts such as TQM and lean are. Nonetheless, attempts have been made in this article to present the essentials of lean production and convey its most salient philosophical elements, hopefully clearing up some of the confusion that surrounds the concept. Lean is also signicantly different from its closest relative TQM, leading to the conclusion that lean is a management concept of its own. The conclusion from Shah and Ward (2003) that TQM and other bundles are parts of lean is not supported by this study. Womack et al. (1990) argue that the lean principles are applicable to any industry. If this is correct, then the Japanese should logically have distributed the knowledge of these principles throughout all domestic Japanese industry. This does not seem to be the case. The only true lean producers in Japan are conned to the automobile industry, represented by, e.g. Toyota, Honda and Mazda, whereas other areas of industry are performing at the same level as (or worse than) western competitors[2]. This was pointed out more than 20 years ago by Keys and Miller (1984), implying that the principles constituting LP have not received any wide-spread attention outside the auto-industry. Cooney (2002) argues that the possibility to become lean (through JIT in particular) is highly dependent upon business conditions that are not always met, thus limiting the universality of the concept. When embarking on a journey towards lean, it is important to acknowledge the different perspectives that the concept comprises. Raising the awareness of these differences may help make the message clearer and avoid conicting opinions on which concept the organization is implementing. The obvious fallibility of the claimed universality of lean should help motivate an adaptational approach to implementing the concept, aiming to nd a production concept that agrees with the contextual factors and previous production practices that exist within the organization. Making active choices with regard to values and techniques should increase the odds of succeeding in the improvement of the production system.
Notes 1. Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Overprocessing, Defects. 2. Shu Yamada, University of Tsukuba Seminar at Linkoping University, 2007. References Adler, P.S. and Cole, R.E. (1993), Designed for learning a tale of 2 auto plants, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 85-94. Andersson, R., Eriksson, H. and Torstensson, H. (2006), Similarities and differences between TQM, six sigma and lean, The TQM Magazine, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 282-96. Benders, J. and Van Bijsterveld, M. (2000), Leaning on lean: the reception of a management fashion in Germany, New Technology, Work and Employment, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 50-64. Berggren, C. (1992), Alternatives to Lean Production: Work Organization in the Swedish Auto Industry, ILR Press, New York, NY.
137
TQM 21,2
138
Berggren, C. (1993), Lean production the end of history, Work Employment and Society, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 163-88. Bicheno, J. (2004), The New Lean Toolbox: Towards Fast, Flexible Flow, 3rd ed., PICSIE Books, Buckingham. Boaden, R. (1997), What is total quality management. . .and does it matter?, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 153-71. Cappelli, P. and Rogovsky, N. (1998), Employee involvement and organizational citizenship: Implications for labor law reform and lean production, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 51 No. 4, pp. 633-53. Cooney, R. (2002), Is lean a universal production system? Batch production in the automotive industry, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 22 No. 10, pp. 1130-47. Cusumano, M.A. (1994), The limits of lean, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 27-32. Cutchergershenfeld, J., Nitta, M., Barrett, B., Belhedi, N., Bullard, J. and Coutchie, C. (1994), Japanese team-based work systems in North America explaining the diversity, California Management Review, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 42-64. Dahlgaard, J.J. and Dahlgaard-Park, S.M. (2006), Lean production, six sigma quality, TQM and company culture, The TQM Magazine, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 263-81. Dankbaar, B. (1997), Lean production: denial, conrmation or extension of sociotechnical systems design?, Human Relations, Vol. 50 No. 5, pp. 567-83. Delbridge, R., Lowe, J. and Oliver, N. (2000), Shopoor responsibilities under lean teamworking, Human Relations, Vol. 53 No. 11, pp. 1459-79. Deming, W.E. (1986), Out of the Crisis, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Dennis, P. (2002), Lean Production Simplied: A Plain Language Guide to the Worlds Most Powerful Production System, Productivity Press, New York, NY. Dyer, J.H. (1994), Dedicated assets Japan manufacturing edge, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 72 No. 6, pp. 174-8. Engstrom, T., Jonsson, D. and Medbo, L. (1996), Production model discourse and experiences from the Swedish automotive industry, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 141-58. Ezzamel, M., Willmott, H. and Worthington, F. (2001), Power, control and resistance in the factory that time forgot, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 38 No. 8, pp. 1053-79. Feld, W.M. (2001), Lean Manufacturing: Tools, Techniques, and How to Use Them, St Lucie Press, Boca Raton, FL. Godfrey, G., Dale, B., Marchington, M. and Wilkinson, A. (1997), Control: a contested concept in TQM research, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 17 No. 6, pp. 558-73. Hackman, J.R. and Wageman, R. (1995), Total quality management: empirical, conceptual, and practical issues, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 40 No. 2. Hayes, R.H. and Pisano, G.P. (1994), Beyond world-class the new manufacturing strategy, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 72 No. 1, pp. 77-86. Hines, P., Holweg, M. and Rich, N. (2004), Learning to evolve: a review of contemporary lean thinking, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 24 No. 10, pp. 994-1011. Jagdev, H.S. and Browne, J. (1998), The extended enterprise a context for manufacturing, Production Planning & Control, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 216-29.
James-Moore, S.M. and Gibbons, A. (1997), Is lean manufacture universally relevant? An investigative methodology, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 17 No. 9, pp. 899-911. Jones, D.T. and Womack, J.P. (2002), Seeing the Whole, Lean Enterprise Institute, Brookline, MA. Kamata, S. (1982), Japan in the Passing Lane: An Insiders Account of Life in a Japanese Auto Factory, Pantheon Books, New York, NY. Karlsson, C. and Ahlstrom, P. (1996), Assessing changes towards lean production, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 24-41. Karlsson, C. and Ahlstrom, P. (1997), A lean and global smaller rm?, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 17 No. 10, pp. 940-52. Keys, J.B. and Miller, T.R. (1984), The Japanese management theory jungle, The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 342-53. King, A.A. and Lenox, M.J. (2001), Lean and green? an empirical examination of the relationship between lean production and environmental performance, Production and Operations Management, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 244-56. Krafcik, J.F. (1988), Triumph of the lean production system, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 41-51. Lamming, R. (1996), Squaring lean supply with supply chain management, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 183-96. Lewis, M.A. (2000), Lean production and sustainable competitive advantage, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 20 No. 8, pp. 959-78. Liker, J.K. (1998), Becoming Lean: Inside Stories of US Manufacturers, Productivity Press, New York, NY. Liker, J.K. (2004), The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the Worlds Greatest Manufacturer, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Lowe, J., Delbridge, R. and Oliver, N. (1997), High-performance manufacturing: evidence from the automotive components industry, Organization Studies, Vol. 18 No. 5, pp. 783-98. MacDufe, J.P. and Helper, S. (1997), Creating lean suppliers: diffusing lean production throughout the supply chain, California Management Review, Vol. 39 No. 4, pp. 118-19. MacDufe, J.P., Sethuraman, K. and Fisher, M.L. (1997), Product variety and manufacturing performance: evidence from the international automotive assembly plant study, Management Science, Vol. 42 No. 3, pp. 350-69. Mason-Jones, R. and Towill, D.R. (1997), Information enrichment: designing the supply chain for competitive advantage, Supply Chain Management, Vol. 2 No. 4, pp. 137-48. Monden, Y. (1998), Toyota Production System: An Integrated Approach to just-in-time, 2nd ed., Chapman & Hall, London. Mueller, F. (1994), Societal effect, organizational effect and globalization, Organization Studies, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 407-28. Mumford, E. (1994), New treatments or old remedies: is business process reengineering really socio-technical design?, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 313-26. Naylor, J.B., Naim, M.M. and Berry, D. (1999), Leagility: integrating the lean and agile manufacturing paradigms in the total supply chain, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 62 Nos 1-2, pp. 107-18. Nicholas, J. and Soni, A. (2006), The Portal to Lean Production: Principles and Practices for Doing More with Less, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
139
TQM 21,2
140
Niepce, W. and Molleman, E. (1998), Work design issues in lean production from a sociotechnical systems perspective: neo-Taylorism or the next step in sociotechnical design?, Human Relations, Vol. 51 No. 3, pp. 259-86. Ohno, T. (1988), Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-scale Production, Productivity Press, Portland, OR. Oliver, N., Delbridge, R. and Lowe, J. (1996), Lean production practices: international comparisons in the auto components industry, British Journal of Management, Vol. 7 (special issue). Parker, S.K. (2003), Longitudinal effects of lean production on employee outcomes and the mediating role of work characteristics, The Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 88 No. 4, pp. 620-34. Riley, J.F. (1998), Process management, in Juran, J.M. and Godfrey, A.B. (Eds), Jurans Quality Handbook, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Rother, M. and Shook, J. (1998), Learning to See: Value Stream Mapping to Create Value and Eliminate Muda, Lean Enterprise Institute, Brookline, MA. Sanchez, A.M. and Perez, M.P. (2001), Lean indicators and manufacturing strategies, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 21 No. 11, pp. 1433-51. Scarbrough, H. (1998), The unmaking of management? Change and continuity in British management in the 1990s, Human Relations, Vol. 51 No. 6, pp. 691-715. Schonberger, R.J. (1982), Japanese Manufacturing Techniques: Nine Hidden Lessons in Simplicity, Free Press, New York, NY. Shah, R. and Ward, P.T. (2003), Lean manufacturing: context, practice bundles, and performance, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 129-49. Shah, R. and Ward, P.T. (2007), Dening and developing measures of lean production, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 785-805. Shaiken, H., Lopez, S. and Mankita, I. (1997), Two routes to team production: Saturn and Chrysler compared, Industrial Relations, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 17-45. Shingo, S. (1984), A Study of the Toyota Production System from an Industrial Engineering Viewpoint, Japan Management Association, Tokyo. Smalley, A. (2004), Creating Level Pull, Lean Enterprise Institute, Brookline, MA. Sorqvist, L. (1998), Poor Quality Costing, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. Thompson, P. and Wallace, T. (1996), Redesigning production through teamworking case studies from the Volvo Truck Corporation, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 103-18. Weinberg, G.M. (1992), Quality Software Management, Vol. 1: Systems Thinking, Dorset House Publishing Co., New York, NY. White, R.E. and Prybutok, V. (2001), The relationship between JIT practices and type of production system, Omega, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 113-24. Williams, K., Haslam, C., Williams, J., Cutler, T., Adcroft, A. and Johal, S. (1992), Against lean production, Economy and Society, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 321-54. Womack, J.P. and Jones, D.T. (1994), From lean production to the lean enterprise, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 72 No. 2, pp. 93-103. Womack, J.P. and Jones, D.T. (2003), Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Free Press, New York, NY. Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T. and Roos, D. (1990), The Machine that Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production, Rawson Associates, New York, NY.
Wood, S. (1999), Human resource management and performance, International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 1 No. 4, pp. 367-413. Zhu, Q.H. and Sarkis, J. (2004), Relationships between operational practices and performance among early adopters of green supply chain management practices in Chinese manufacturing enterprises, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 265-89. Further reading Conti, R., Angelis, J., Cooper, C., Faragher, B. and Gill, C. (2006), The effects of lean production on worker job stress, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 26 No. 9, pp. 1013-38. Appendix The works shown are the result of the literature search and the details may be found in the reference list: Adler and Cole (1993). Benders and Van Bijsterveld (2000),. Berggren (1993). Cappelli and Rogovsky (1998). Cusumano (1994). Cutchergershenfeld et al. (1994). Dankbaar (1997). Delbridge et al. (2000). Dyer (1994). Ezzamel et al. (2001). Godfrey et al. (1997). Hayes and Pisano (1994). Jagdev and Browne (1998). James-Moore and Gibbons (1997). Karlsson andAhlstrom (1997). King and Lenox (2001). Krafcik (1988). Lamming (1996). Lewis (2000). Lowe et al. (1997). MacDufe and Helper (1997). MacDufe et al. (1996). Mason-Jones and Towill (1997). Mueller (1994). Mumford (1994). Naylor et al. (1999). Niepce and Molleman (1998). Oliver et al. (1996).
141
TQM 21,2
142
Sanchez and Perez (2001). Scarbrough (1998). Shah and Ward (2003). Shaiken et al. (1997). Thompson and Wallace (1996). Weinberg (1992). White and Prybutok (2001). Williams et al. (1992). Womack and Jones (1994). Wood (1999). Zhu and Sarkis (2004).
About the author Jostein Pettersen has a MSc with specialization in Quality Management. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Quality Technology and Management as well as the HELIX VINN Excellence Centre at Linkoping University. His research is directed towards the dissemination and implementation of lean production. Jostein Pettersen can be contacted at: jostein.pettersen@liu.se
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1754-2731.htm
Lean-kaizen public service: an empirical approach in Spanish local governments

Manuel F. Suarez Barraza
Graduate School of Business Administration and Leadership (EGADE), Technologico de Monterrey at Toluca, Toluca, Mexico
Lean-kaizen public service
143
Tricia Smith
ESADE Graduate School, Barcelona, Spain, and
Su Mi Dahlgaard-Park
Institute for Service Management, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose Recently, the operations management academic literature has seen articles focusing on the transfer of lean thinking or kaizen concept from the private to the public sector. In Spain, during the last 15 years, some local councils have also followed similar improvement initiatives sometimes under the umbrella of global quality programmes trying to support continuous process and service improvement. The research question for this article is: How is lean-kaizen applied in local councils in Spain? The aim is to shed light on how lean thinking is applied in order to improve those services provided to the public by local councils by describing empirical studies in specic Spanish contexts. Design/methodology/approach The case study approach was adopted in this research. The research design conducted was of the longitudinal and retrospective type. Findings The results of the empirical evidence show that three techniques related to lean-kaizen have a direct effect on the processes and management systems in local councils. The three techniques are: 5S, gemba kaizen workshops and process mapping. These techniques improved the processes and quality of public services provided by the councils. These results suggest the rst indications of documented lean-kaizen public service. Originality/value A review of the academic literature of lean thinking and kaizen concept indicates that the managerial application of the techniques in the public sector are few and far between and have been barely explored at the empirical level. The paper makes a contribution to the deeper understanding of the usefulness of applying lean-kaizen in local government in order to improve the processes and services provided to the public the emergence of lean-kaizen public service. Keywords Continuous improvement, Service improvements, Local government, Lean production, Spain Paper type Case study
1. Introduction The term lean thinking, or lean production (Womack et al., 1990; Womack and Jones, 1996), was rst introduced into the eld of operations management in the well-known book by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones called The Machine that Changed the World (Womack et al., 1990). Lean thinking can be considered as a methodology that has its origins in the Toyota Production System (TPS) and whose principal objective is the creation of low-cost improvements based on the reduction of muda (waste) (Takeyuki, 1995; Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2006). In the same theoretical line, the concept of kaizen (or continuous improvement) has received much attention as a
The TQM Journal Vol. 21 No. 2, 2009 pp. 143-167 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1754-2731 DOI 10.1108/17542730910938146
TQM 21,2
144
key to Japans competitive success (Imai, 1986). Various numbers of studies, which have focused on the Toyota Production System or lean thinking, have showed the fundamental importance of kaizen (Oliver and Wilkinson, 2002; Lindberg and Berger, 1997; Dahlgaard-Park, 1999; Bateman and David, 2002; Liker, 2004; Aoki, 2008). Imai (2006) claimed that kaizen is often underlying principles of lean production and Total Quality Management. The literature on lean thinking and Japanese kaizen concept centres mostly on the automotive industry where it started (Imai, 1986; Womack and Jones, 1996; Bicheno, 1999; Hines, 1999; Bateman and David, 2002; Liker, 2004). Because of the possible documented benets of both concepts in the literature, such as improved customer focus, improvements in quality which reduce process cycle time, cut production costs and were likely to improve delivery performance and customer satisfaction (Sohal, 1996; Standard and Davis, 2000; Taylor and Brunt, 2001; Nyusten, 2002; Liker, 2004; Manufacturing Foundation, 2004), other types of organisations such as the public services sector have recently taken up the concept of lean thinking and Japanese kaizen in order to introduce these techniques to their own management activities (Yasin et al., 2001; Suarez-Barraza, 2001; Vonk, 2005; Radnor et al., 2006; Radnor and Walley, 2008). However, in the literature reviewed on lean thinking and kaizen concept, very few empirical research studies of the applications of both concepts to public services have been identied, particularly in relation to local councils, whose role is to serve the public good the council is the locus of the interface between the community and the services provided to the public through local government policies. This paper, then, presents empirical ndings from research undertaken in three local councils in Spain who applied certain elements of lean thinking and kaizen concept with the overt intention of improving their processes and levels of service to the communities they served: in other words, they applied the concept of lean-kaizen public service. We set out to answer the question: How is lean-kaizen applied in local councils in Spain? The empirical ndings are based on three case studies in which three techniques of lean-kaizen were applied by Spanish local councils: 5S, gemba-kaizen workshops and process mapping (Imai, 1986; Convis, 2001; Liker, 2004). 2. Existing research 2.1 Lean-kaizen: concept, principles and techniques Today there is a considerable body of academic literature about lean thinking or lean production and the concepts have changed from being exclusively related to production and manufacturing to becoming associated with a more general view of the rm, as in the company as a lean enterprise (Womack and Jones, 1994), or as a management philosophy (Krizner, 2001; Bhasin and Burcher, 2006). Various writers have identied the Toyota Production System (TPS) as the origin of the concept of lean thinking developed by Taiichi Ohno in the 1950s in the Toyota Motor Company (Monden, 1998; Bendell, 2006; Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2006). However, the concept lean production was rstly coined by the IMVP (International Motor Vehicle Program, established at MIT in 1985) researcher John Krafcik (Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2006). The invention of the term lean production was a result of the worlds most comprehensive benchmarking
study ever seen among various automobile assembly plans all over the world in order to understand the differences in quality and productivity. The results of this ve-year-long benchmarking study was rstly published in The Machine that Changed the World (Womack et al., 1990), and the word lean was suggested here because the best assembly plants (Toyota plants) used less of everything half the human efforts in the factory, half the manufacturing space, half the investments in tools, half the engineering hours to develop a new product, far less than half the needed inventory on site. In a second publication, Womack and Jones (1996) describe lean thinking as the perfect antidote to muda or waste elimination. They mean the concept can be understood as the systematic attempt to search out activities that add value by the elimination of muda (waste) in all activities of the processes in an organisation. Womack et al. (1990, p. 13) put it like this:
Mass-producers set a limited goal for talks themselves good enough, which translates into an acceptable number of defects, a maximum acceptable level of inventories, a narrow range standardized products. To do better, they argue, would cost too much or exceed inherent human capabilities. Lean producers, on the other hand, set their sights explicitly on perfection: continually declining costs, zero defects, zero inventories, and endless product variety. Of course, no lean producer has ever reached this Promised Land and perhaps none ever will, but the endless quest for perfection continues to generate surprising twists.
145
Similarly, Womack (2002) identies ve key guiding principles in organisations that apply lean thinking: (1) Specify the value desired by the customer. (2) Identify the value stream for each product providing that value and challenge all of the waste (or muda). (3) Make the product ow continuously. (4) Introduce pull between all steps where continuous ow is impossible. (5) Manage toward perfection so that the number of steps and the amount of time and information needed to serve the customer continually falls. To achieve these principles, various authors have proposed a combination of techniques that are necessary to be able to implement lean thinking in organisations (Sohal and Eggleston, 1994; Monden, 1998; Lewis, 2000; Liker, 2004; Bicheno, 1999; Hines et al., 2004; Bhasin and Burcher, 2006; Radnor and Walley, 2008). On the basis of the literature reviewed, the following is a list of those techniques (if not all of them, at least the majority) deemed to be necessary for the successful application of lean thinking: (1) Pull production-kanban. A system of cascading production delivery instructions from downstream to upstream activities in which upstream supplier does not produce until the downstream customer signals a need (kanban system). (2) Streamlined layout. A layout designed according to optimum operational sequence or ow. (3) Total productive maintenance (TPM). The mechanism needed to maintain the reliable functioning of the machinery in the workshop (Ohno, 1978).
TQM 21,2
146
(4) 5S and visual control. Represent the foundations of continuous improvement while preserving a working atmosphere of order, cleanliness and safety (Ho and Cicmil, 1996). (5) Single minute exchange of dies (SMED). The mechanisms necessary to reduce lead time and which make sure there is a continuous ow in the processes for the change-over times on machines. (6) Supplier development. This requires working closely with the suppliers to develop mutual understanding and trust. (Henderson et al., 1999). (7) One piece ow. This requires a consistent ow of work process so as to avoid scrap and backows without interruptions. (8) Cell design. Work processes are designed to form work cells which are located close to each other with the object of cutting down on unneeded transport and waiting times. (9) Process mapping and value stream mapping. This means to search out and understand the ways the organisation works from the point of view of an integrated and inter-related system, for which it is necessary to analyse and document all the work processes undertaken in the organisation. As mentioned above, muda or waste elimination is the main target of lean thinking. In that sense, according to the literature to apply the lean thinking approach we need a very basic idea of Japanese management system, the kaizen or continuous improvement concept, because kaizen activities are implemented through the identication and elimination of muda at every time, every moment and for every one in the shop oor (gemba in the Japanese term) (Imai, 1986, 1997; Wittenberg, 1994; Brunet, 2000). For Ohno (1978, p. 42), the Founder of TPS, states, improvement is both eternal and innite. This suggests that the concept of kaizen is not a program with a limited time frame, but a process of activities that are implemented continuously (Sawada, 1995). According to Ohno (1978), improving the operating efciency can be done through the elimination of the seven types of waste, namely waste of overproduction, waste of time on hand, waste in transportation, waste of processing itself, waste of stock on hand, waste of movement and waste of making defective products. The lean thinking techniques and tools used to implement and/or apply lean system in order to eliminate and minimize muda are some time referred to as kaizen building blocks (Imai, 1997; Bateman and David, 2002). In fact, according to Imai (1986) and another authors, some of this lean-kaizen techniques and tools such as 5S, muda elimination and standardization can be considered as the basic pillars to apply lean thinking approach in an organization (Imai, 1986, Nemoto, 1987; Gondhalekar et al. 1995; Bateman and Brander, 2000; Brunet and New, 2003; Suarez-Barraza, 2007). In other words, the journey toward lean can be initiated in implementing a kaizen effort using this building block techniques and tools. The literature of continuous improvement refers two main approaches to implement the kaizen efforts (Aoki, 2008). Each of them is according to the length of time over which the improvement activity is focused; the longer one is kaizen based in traditional Japanese Quality Management system (Imai, 1986, 1997, Cheser, 1998; Brunet and New, 2003; Suarez-Barraza, 2007; Aoki, 2008). In the case of process improvement (kaikaku or
kairyo in Japanese term), short-term (one or two weeks) projects that consist of break through kaizen events are implemented in a focused area. The literature knows them as a kaizen blitz (a bombardment of improvements), quick kaizen events or gemba-kaizen workshops (Sheridan, 1997; Melnyck and Calanton, 1998; Bateman and David, 2002; Montabon, 2005). Nevertheless, both approaches are considered in the literature as a rst attempt in order to implement further rened, useful lean thinking techniques and tools such as JIT manufacturing (producing to transferring to the next customer only what is needed when is needed), kanban, poka-yoke (error-proong), andom (visual display boards and lights), SMED, TPM, and heijunka (to level production batch size and variety) (Lewis, 2000; Bateman and David, 2002; Bateman and Rich, 2003; Bateman, 2005; Imai, 2006). The main aim for this kind of improvement effort is to following lean thinking principles such as specify value by specic product, identify the value stream for each product, make the value ow without interruptions and let the customer pull value from the producer (Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2006). Therefore, some authors consider this kaizen journey to a lean enterprise as a lean-kaizen approach (Bodek, 2004; Alukal and Manos, 2006; Manos, 2007). 2.2 Lean-kaizen applications in the public sector As mentioned in the introduction, nearly all the literature on lean-kaizen has been centred on its applications in the private sector, in manufacturing, and mainly in large and multinational rms (Radnor and Boaden, 2008). However, some authors have proposed that similar methodologies might be transferred to other, non-manufacturing contexts such as restaurants, hotels, education, administrative companies, hospitals and health-care rms, among others (Bowen and Youngdahl, 1998; Spear, 2005; Collins and Muthusamy, 2007; Suarez-Barraza, 2001, 2008). Having said that, and based on a review of the relevant literature, there is very little evidence of the application of lean-kaizen in the public sector with the purpose of improving public services. However, very recently there has been some research that begins to touch on this area. One of the rst articles on this theme derives from work by Yasin et al. (2001) which looks into the benets of the application of just in time (JIT) (a lean thinking principle) in public sectors but from a quantitative point of view. The conclusions were drawn that there could be a potential benet to the improvement of work processes in public services by using JIT. In the same research line, Bhatia and Drew (2006) indicate the vast operational potential of lean approach to improve productivity and customer satisfaction in local governments which process large amounts of papers and documents related to public services provided to citizens in the community. They also indicate, though, that the quality of the service varies depending on the context of the public sector whether it is in USA or in Europe. The literature review also nds a small number of papers which focus on descriptive case studies which show examples of the application of some lean-kaizen techniques in processes such as tax collection in the Connecticut Department of Labour in the USA (Hasenjager, 2006) or the case of the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, where improvements were made into the processes of police force recruitment and health services of the city (Krings et al., 2006). Thus a recent article concludes that:
There is little doubt of the applicability of lean to the public sector. . .many of the processes and services in the public sector can gain greater efciency by considering and implementing lean (Radnor et al., 2006, pp. 75-6).
147
TQM 21,2
148
Following the lead of these authors and others, there are signs that there is a growing body of evidence that indicates lean-kaizen can be implemented in whatever improvement programmes concerned with processes and operations that aim to eliminate and minimize muda (waste), improve the work-ow of the processes and the involvement of the citizen-client with processes (Furterer and Elshennawy, 2005; Radnor et al., 2006; Krings et al., 2006). The techniques that have been reported as having practical and direct application to the public sector are; value stream mapping, the 5S, process mapping, kaizen blitz or quick kaizen and six sigma (Furterer and Elshennawy, 2005; Radnor et al., 2006; Radnor and Boaden, 2008; Radnor and Walley, 2008). Some others researchers also included lean-kaizen techniques applied in public sector such as improvement or kaizen teams, process redesign methodologies (kaikaku or kairyo approach) and problem solving and quality tools (Collins and Muthusamy, 2007; Suarez-Barraza and Lingham, 2008). Finally, it is important to note that in spite of the research already described, the empirical evidence of the application of lean-kaizen in the public sector is extremely recent and the debate is ongoing as to whether it can be used at all in the public sector context (Radnor and Boaden, 2008), while there are some authors who challenge its viability or application altogether (Hines et al., 2004). 3. Methodology The research method adopted for this research was a case study analysis (Yin, 2003). The purpose of this type of methodological design is to build theory from case studies (Eisenhardt, 1989). Thus the theory is constructed through understanding the key questions of How and Why: in this case these refer to how and why the local Council worked to achieve the sustained application of lean thinking over a number of years (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995). The methodological design used one longitudinal case study and two retrospective ones (Leonard-Barton, 1990). A total of three different councils were chosen. In accordance with Leonard-Barton (1990), the combination of longitudinal and retrospective case studies allows for a reduction in the potential for statistical error when collecting data, as well as helping to identify deeply embedded codes and patterns in the data. 3.1 Data gathering The collection of the data was made using four research methods: (1) direct observation; (2) participative but non-intrusive observation; (3) documentary analysis; and (4) in-depth semi-structured interviews, in that order. While collecting the data, special attention was paid to the triangulation of the four methods to ensure they converged on the same phenomena (Eisenhardt, 1989). 3.2 Data analysis In order to analyse the data, a database was set up to capture the networks and matrices of the patterns obtained. In the same way, when the evidence had been reviewed, analysed and coded, a rst draft of each case study was made and this was shown to the main informants in each Council to seek their opinion. The revision of the
rst draft not only helped to validate the data collection process but also served to identify possible gaps and thus allowed for the collection of further data and patterns which were relevant to the study. By doing this, an iterative process of viewing and reviewing the data was developed (Pettigrew, 1997; Pettigrew et al., 2001). 4. Field study 4.1 Background and context to the cases The empirical research was undertaken in three Spanish town councils. Each of them has been making efforts to modernise and improve their public services since the end of the 1980s. These three councils have received various awards and certicates from external ofcial bodies which recognise their management achievements based on aspects of quality, improvement and excellence (see Table I). In addition, each continues, in their own ways and from their particular perspectives, to seek continuous improvements in their work processes and public services with the objective of giving satisfaction to their communities (the citizens they serve) and to other stakeholders (Suarez-Barraza and Ramis-Pujol, 2008). 4.1.1 Case study of council A. Council A is a reference point in Spain and in Europe for the application of models of quality and excellence (Parrado-Diez, 2001). This local Spanish Council is located in the metropolitan region of Barcelona, employs a staff of 296 employees who administer a town of about 46,194 inhabitants. The council is notable for its political context because it is controlled with an absolute majority by the Catalan Socialist Party the same political party as the national ruling party and has been so for its entire democratic history, which is to say since 1983. In fact, there have only been three mayors throughout its history and all of them have belonged to the same political party. The result has been not only political and organisational stability for more than 15 years but also has meant that this council, in its technical context, has been used to an organisational structure which is especially managerial in
Methodological Town/City Council focus A (Town situated in the metropolitan area of Barcelona) Longitudinal (two-year intervention) Lean-kaizen technique applied 5S Process mapping
149
Organisational characteristics Spanish Council recognised for its broad experience in management systems related to Excellence and Total Quality (more than 15 years experience). It received the Iberoamerican Quality Award Spanish Council which began to apply a Total Quality Management Programme and was a pioneer in Spain in lean thinking technique applications Spanish Council recognised for its broad experience in management systems related to Excellence, Process Improvement and Total Quality Management (more than 20 years experience)
B (Capital of the Retrospective Province of the Basque Country) C (Situated in the Retrospective Autonomous Community of Madrid)
5S Gemba-kaizen worshops Process mapping kaizen workshops Table I. Case studies selected
TQM 21,2
150
character. Beyond the political dimension, the mayor and his 21 councillors (political appointments all) occupy the managerial roles of managing director and senior staff. They are responsible for the running of the municipality, fullling the roles of managers of the various council departments. Since 1989, council A has been incorporating different kinds of improvement and quality measures, ranging from improvement teams, which have the task of problem solving, quality of service techniques like surveys, interviews with citizens and so on, to EFQM (European Foundation of Quality Management) self-assessment. In fact council A has won various national and international awards, such as the 2000 Iberoamerican Award for Quality and special recognition from the EFQM jury in 2000 for the high score achieved in its self-evaluation. Finally, council A applied process redesign techniques that transform the needs and expectations of citizens into Service Commitments (process quality standards for internal operations). Recently council A began to explore lean-kaizen techniques in order to continuously improve their processes and public service, such as 5S in the Operating Maintenance Department, and strategic mapping. 4.1.2 Case study of council B. Town council B is situated in Alava, the administrative capital of the Basque Country, and the council has some 2,200 employees. The town is famous for its green belt and quality of life and has a population of approximately 227,000. As for the political context, the council was governed by the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) from 1979 to 1999. At the time of writing, the political party in power is the Partido Popular (PP) now in its second term of ofce. The organisation of its technical departments reects the classic bureaucratic model in which there are three political macro areas (Civic Services; Town Planning, Zoning and Transport, and Administration) on which all the technical departments depend. Council B has been a pioneer in Spain in its application of lean-kaizen techniques to local government, although its rst experience was not successful (Imaz, 2005). However, since 2001, council B has been applying the 5S technique in different departments and work processes of the public organisation. For instance, they implemented 5S in the Mayors ofce, social services ofce, parks and gardens department and in the re department workshop. Using the same improvement concepts, in 2005 council B set up its rst gemba-kaizen workshop in order to improve the process of collecting capital gains tax in the taxation department by nding and eliminating muda (waste). 4.1.3 Case study of council C. In 2006, the Spanish Quality in Management Circle (Club de Excelencia de Gestion) nominated council C as one of the best town councils in Europe for its use of the citizen-as-active participant customer model, an honour shared with Liverpool Council in UK. This council C is situated in the metropolitan area of Madrid. It has some 1,140 employees who are responsible for the administration of a town with a population of just over 107,000. In the last few years, this town has seen considerable industrial development and has become a focal point for investment by private companies which have noted the potential of this active and up-and-coming town for developing their businesses. At the end of 2005, council C was awarded the Seal 500 Plus by the EFQM, a prize for excellence that recognised the strides it had made in modernisation and improvement efforts. From its rst Quality Plan to the second Quality Plan, council C applied lean-kaizen techniques such as process mapping and kaizen workshops. The
purpose was to develop what they called an Intelligent Council. In other words, council C practices continuous improvements in its processes and public services using a close-to-the-customer (customer proximity) model to serve its citizens. A summary of the cases selected is shown in Table I. 4.2 Lean-kaizen public service in local councils 4.2.1 5S application. Osada (1991) developed the original concept of 5S in the early 1980s as a result of the work in Toyota Motor Company. 5S is the acronym for ve Japanese words seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke (Hirano, 1995). When translated, these words literally mean organisation, neatness, cleanliness, standardisation and discipline, respectively. Some authors claim that 5S represent the basic pillars of lean-kaizen. In other words, implementing 5S represents the starting point of any continuous improvement efforts (Ho and Cicmil, 1996; Imai, 1997; Liker, 2004; Imai, 2006), because the 5S are the basic blocks to create improvement habits in employees (Suarez-Barraza and Ramis-Pujol, 2005). (1) 5S application in council B. Council B was a pioneer in Spain regarding the application of 5S in its management of local government. Two municipal departments were chosen as places to implement 5S: the Parks and Gardens department (the workshop) and the Social Services department (the ofce). There were ve stages in the implementation as shown in Table II. The results of the implementation of the 5Ss could be measured quantitatively after a period of four months and the direct benets in each area of application are: . Social Service Department: 7.500 kg recycled paper; 172 linear meters of shelf space was reduced which was 44 per cent of the initial space; 11.000 hanging folders were sent for recycling which was 50 per cent of the initial total; 475 ling shelves A-Z were eliminated, leaving 39, which was 8 per cent of the initial total; and savings in process work time on ling activities was 600 hours/year. . Parks and Gardens Departments: 25 per cent extra free space on shelves; 50 per cent reduction of gasoline stock; and 600 kg scrap eliminated. In addition to these results, different qualitative improvements appeared such as the ease with which materials and documents were now located, cleaning was made easier, there was a feeling of more room to move and work and an atmosphere of good-will, which positively affected the way of working in the ofce and work-shops. Overall, with better visual control of the materials and documents, inventory-keeping greatly beneted. However, the people involved in the implementation process all agreed that they encountered problems in the following ways; the standard application of the 5S techniques meant it took an excessively long time to introduce, and that certain individuals were resistant to the new system. The experience regarding the new systems in this council can be summed up in the words of the director of Social Services:
Regarding the 5S, this department had problems with inadequate space, one of our main complaints was we dont have enough room I need more cupboard space
151
TQM 21,2
Steps to apply 5S 1. Presentation of the project
Implementation of the 5S stages Prior activities to 5S implementation Project presentation with the aim of explaining the purpose of 5S implementation, the scope and main reasons. One of the main politicians, the two department directors selected for 5S application, the instructor of the consultancy company and the quality service coordinator participated in the presentation Selection of the 5S leader and coordination of the 5S team. Selection of the departments to implement 5S Activities prior to the Prior activities to 5S implementation implementation of the Held a coordination meeting with a consultancy company project and 5S Created a 5S training manual training program Established 5Ss output indicators (Example: kg. of scrap, kg. of paper, new physical space, etc.) Took current situation photos (50 in total) Initial basic 5S training for both selected departments Established visual control of the 5S implementation results Designed and established the selection criteria of ofce and workshop material Implemented 5S in Implementation of 5S two selected Seiri (Organisation): departments (Social Change in work process. In the Social Service department 13,000 duplicated Service and Parks and paper copies of les were eliminated. In the Parks and Gardens department it Gardens was decided not to store gasoline for public vehicles departments). 14 Elimination of garbage and unnecessary material in both departments sessions of 0.5 shifts Relocation and elimination of closets, shelving, computers, park equipment in in both departments order to get more physical space Seiton (Neatness): Visual document control was established in the Social Service department. Shelves, desks and boxes of the ofces were labelled with big letters and numbers. In the Parks and Gardens department new shelves and new containers on wheels were added In the Parks and Gardens department the everything on wheels criterion was established In the Social Service department a new ofce layout was designed and established and all the material was relocated according to the use and frequency Seiso (Cleanliness): Deep cleanliness of ofces and workshops was applied Floors, walls and doors were painted in both departments Unnecessary documents were eliminated in Social Service departments Parks and Gardens department utilized new garbage containers Both departments established preventitive cleanliness procedures Seiketsu (Standardization): Order point was established for ofce material in Social Service department and spare part management for Parks and Garden department Use of colour-coding in document management of each service in Social Service department Use of colour-coding for material already repaired and waiting for repair established in the Parks and Gardens department A tool panel was established in Parks and Gardens department In both departments work standards and monitoring plans were established (check list, workplace supervision, evaluation schedules, etc.) Diffusion and Post activities of 5S implementation reective process Presentation of the results to the of rest of the council by departments which had implemented 5S Implementation Post activities of 5S implementation conclusions Quarterly meetings were held in order to observe the sustainability of the improvements B council started the planning process of the next 5S implementation
152
2.
3.
4. 5.
Table II. Implementation of 5S in council B
and I felt there was far too much paper everywhere and as I am very tidy this was very vexing and then came Txus who suggested we try this new system . . .although not everyone in the section joined in because some people were resistant to the idea and anyway we couldnt cover everything. We set up a team of administrators, technical people, and managers and tried to follow the 5S to the letter. We actually didnt manage to do it exactly by the book but we managed something similar. We cleared out tons of paper, set up criteria to work better, and ended up with spare cupboards and a feeling that the places in the department where we had introduced the changes were cleaner, roomier. . . [. . .. . .].
153
(2) 5S application in council A. After having been awarded the Iberoamerican prize for Quality and a special mention by the jury of EFQM in 2000 for its management system, council A found itself at a stage where it needed to follow up new challenges that arose from their success. The general feeling was that from 2004 many of the managers and employees seemed to think that they had done it all and no further improvements were called for. To counter this attitude, the words review and rediscover began to circulate in the discourse of the managers responsible for quality in council A. Their rst action was to use their term to go back to basics. To do this they decided, together with management and senior gures in the council, to introduce the 5S in the installations units (the workshops and stores for electrics, painting and plumbing). The experience of implementing the 5S was similar to that of Council B but on a lesser scale because the processes were introduced to a smaller area of the Council. In addition, the objective was different, too, because the aim was to re-motivate and explore new alternatives that would support the previous initiatives to modernize and improve the council. An example of how this objective was perceived is given below in the words of the coordinator of quality when the moment came to set up the process of quality using the 5S:
We didnt want to say to them that their warehouse was dirty or untidy, in fact we had said how organised it was, Joan had been good at this for years, no, our message was more focused on trying to follow a philosophy of continuous improvement every day, the Japanese kaizen, here in the warehouse, separating the things which werent needed, organising and setting up the visual control systems for materials and repairs. Also to clean and maintain all the materials there. I said that if we took these actions there would be clear benets within three or four months. . .(transcription from the diary of the researcher, 24 February 2006).
As a result of the application of the 5S, in this council they threw out about two tons of materials and unneeded equipment which they found in the Installations Unit. In fact, it was thought that the amount of unnecessary equipment to dispose of would be much less at the beginning of the exercise because the employees believed that the warehouse was in good order. However, the employees learnt by direct experience that the application of 5S indeed reduced waste so thereafter the team worked better, the organisation and systems in the warehouse improved again and the nal result was an improved level of service to the citizens. Also the relationship between the management and the staff was strengthened because their objectives were in alignment: to give better service to the community.
TQM 21,2
Coordinator of the Installations Unit: I think the two initiatives joined together- as Paco said- because rst it was the Councils idea, because they knew us and then, with a bit of encouragement from them, we took it on. In fact we work with thousands of bits and pieces and if its not well organized and clean it ends up as chaos. This went well for us. Technician 2: Doing the work ourselves helped us a lot, and I think we all changed our ways a bit. Now that weve nished we have to adapt ourselves to the new system especially for small things but once you get used to where everything is everything works better. At any rate we have to keep thing in order and work as a real team and although its hard work everyone is supporting us. Coordinator of the Installations Unit: I think in the end it was very positive, we got a great result, perhaps whats missing now is dealing with the upkeep, a bit of checking, doing some routine checks, maybe thats the point, to see where we are at the moment. But if we are to carry on with this discipline we have to work on it, it isnt automatic, we have to keep on with it, and it isnt easy. (E-EL-08 September 2006).
154
During the implementation of 5S two key actions were identied that were critical in achieving the results obtained in council A. First, unlike the previous case, this Council engaged the service of an external consultant (not a company) who led the implementation process although the responsibility for the application lay with the Head of the Installations Unit. In fact he nominated a young worker who was very keen on these ideas to be the leader of the implementation team for the 5S, someone who was not in any way linked to the power structure of the council, even though the ofcial head of the project was the Unit head. Another difference in this case was the way the techniques were applied. Rather than follow the methods for manufacturing centres, which were the origin of 5S, the techniques were applied in a far more exible way and in a rhythm which adapted itself to the day-to-day work of the Installations Unit. 4.2.2 Gemba-kaizen workshops application. Gemba-kaizen workshops application in council B: in 2006 council B set up gemba-kaizen workshops specically to work in the Tax ofce. They did this in the continuing spirit of modernisation and improvement, with the help of a rm of consultants. This type of technique is characterised by the search for and elimination of muda (waste) in workshops that are run by the employees who work in the department, all looking for improvement ideas (Montabon, 2005). In the case of council B, the process where improvements were to be made was in the collection of taxable capital gains on real estate properties. This search was motivated by the fact that achieving a smooth management system and removing errors in the councils collection of this tax was a critical factor in obtaining resources for this type of organisation. The improvement objective of the gemba-kaizen workshop was to reduce the time taken to process the applications submitted in relation to capital gains tax claims. Having established the objective of the improvement, the ve-day long workshop worked on its development. The rst day (a Monday in the middle of March 2006) saw a presentation by the work-team, which was composed of the Head of the Public Management department, the tax team, and four more employees in the same area, who together had a combined work experience of 14 years. During that day, there was a brief training session on the concepts of lean thinking as well as an explanation given
by the consulting rm to the work-team regarding the objective to reach during the week, and what steps were to be taken to nd what was redundant or wasteful in their current working practices (muda). From Tuesday to Thursday that week, the employees in the work-team (who knew the processes) detected various wasteful or redundant steps in their work of tax collection, and identied a total of 17 points of waste and proposed 16 actions to improve them, one of which was rejected because of the difculty of implementing it in the public domain. Six of these represented 20 per cent of the main causes that generated 80 per cent of the disfunctionalities in the capital gains tax collection system. The work team made a Pareto diagram to help make the analysis (see Figure 1). Having identied the wasteful elements, they set up the actions needed to bring about improvements. In Table III we can see the six wasteful activities, and the actions taken to improve them in the critical process of capital gain tax collection, and the results obtained after the actions had been implemented. During the ve-day gemba-kaizen workshop, notable improvements in the elimination of wasteful and inefcient activities were achieved, principally the six most critical ones. After a further three months of applying the improvement techniques the time lag between tax application forms arriving at the ofce (inputs) and being dealt with and despatched (outputs) became less and less as time went on, conrming the clear gains to the process involved in the capital gains tax collection system, the work in process (WIP), as far as processing the requests was concerned. In the following gures we can see the analysis of the priorities regarding wasteful activities and the trends in WIP regarding the tax request forms (see Figure 2). Gemba-kaizen workshops application in council C: the second Quality Plan in council C stated in action plan number 10 that there should be kaizen workshops as part of the strategy to improve processes. The objectives for these workshops were aimed at obtaining specic benets owing from immediate improvements after completion of the workshops and to set up a work-team using the methodology of lean-kaizen based on the creativity and participation of all its members. To this end they leant on the techniques of the gemba-kaizen workshops or the kaizen blitz, which were adapted to the specic needs of this council.
155
Figure 1. Pareto analysis to establish the priorities regarding detected wasteful processes
TQM 21,2
Waste muda
Improvement actions
Results
156
(A) Lack of employees with Multi-skill matrix drawn up multi-skills in some processs A training procedure was drawn activities up following the principles of learning by doing All public technicians were trained according the multi-skill matrix
Table III. Summary of the application of gemba-kaizen workshops in council B
The public technicians learned about different types of tax on capital value activities The response to demand on services was improved, because more technicians already knew different types of process activities (capital gains tax process) (B) There was no A standard work-ow was Process work activities were pre-classication of inputs established. Some examples are: balanced to get a lean process (tax due on capital gains An employee at the front desk ow. Focus at all times on the requests). All the requests classied the requests into three multi-skill matrix chosen without any criteria groups (Easy A, Middle Grouping all the requests in the difculty B; High difculty C) same physical place saved The public technichian in charge of process time in walking capital gains tax processes needlessly distributed different requests Work-process ow was easy to following the multi-skills matrix visualize every day. All the requests were collected in the input post box in order to get a visual control of process and document ow On the main shelves of the request les, one public technichian collected three post boxes labelled in big letters A, B, C, for input requests and output requests (requests already registered) At the end of each day, one of the public technicians counted the number of nished requests (output) and entry requests (input) (C) Fax and mail documents A clear role was designed for an Delay times searching for fax and were accumulating in the employee, and standard work was mail documents were eliminated post-box without any kind of established Accumulated documents delivery criteria disappeared (D) Sales and purchase of Priorization activities were started Delay-time when searching for property certicates and for inheritance certicates; they documents was eliminated and inheritance certicates were were dealt with before dealing with also duplicated activities were not coordinated and the sales/purchase certicates eliminated organized. Employees A work standard was established wasted time looking for these for managing the sales/purchase documents certicates (E) Inadequate ofce layout Physical change to the work ofce With the new physical changes, for lean process ow station the layout was improved and the requirements tax ofce gained more space. Unnecessary walking (muda) was minimized (F) The software for taxing Some software modication was The software modication the value capital process has applied in order to get adaptability gained a lean process ow when low adaptability for the and exibility in managing the the request was captured current management process Duplicated activities were requirements eliminated
157
Figure 2. Changes in the input-output time for processing the capital gains tax collection forms
In the same way as in council B, a ve-day kaizen workshop was organised, although this time the planning and management fell to the Quality department of the council. The setting-up of the workshop consisted of contacting the relevant department wanting to participate in the workshop to nd out their particular needs, employing an external rm of consultants to support the work, and nally obtaining all the necessary infrastructure requirements for the workshop to run (class-rooms, ofce materials and stationery, computers etc). In addition, the day before the workshop was to begin, the Quality department called a meeting with the participants of the department in question to give an informative presentation that lasted 1 hour in which the contents of the workshop were explained; this was done together with the external consultants. The methodology used in the kaizen workshops was as follows. The rst two days were spent making ow diagrams of the selected processes by pinning up a large sheet of paper on the wall and sketching out the components of the processes and their linkages. The third and fourth day was spent identifying the internal clients (the other departments involved in the process) and their needs. Finally, in the last two days, time was spent on teasing out which processes did not contribute to the process (identifying wasteful activities or materials or muda) and what should be done to improve or eliminate them. It should be noted that for council C, the actions that did not add value were understood as whatever did not full the requirements both for the internal clients as well as for the external ones and especially those actions which were deemed unnecessary or caused delays. At the end of the kaizen workshops week, the department who had asked for the training was responsible for putting into place all the actions for improvements that had been identied as detracting from adding value. This plan of action was drawn up on the last day of the workshop. Similarly, during the week following the workshop, the participating department completed a report about the outcomes of the workshop which was distributed to all members in the department, whether they had attended the workshop or not, so that from that moment on the responsibility for implementing the improvements was shared by everyone equally. After six months, the Coordinating
TQM 21,2
158
Committee of council C made an assessment of the results obtained from the kaizen workshops that had run. Up to the time when council C received the Gold Seal from EFQM (the end of 2005) they had set up about 15 kaizen workshops. From these, 273 actions for improvement had been implemented which directly affected 94 micro-processes in the council. One of the most successful was the Licence Improvement Project. This involved streamlining the wide variety of papers required to grant a permit (a licence) for some public activity. In addition, there was a reduction in the time required to respond to enquiries from citizens (duration of the process cycle.) After introducing the improvements generated by the kaizen workshops a new typology for licences was set up which reduced the number to three, based on the complexity of the application and technical requirements of the permit. Thus there were now: Immediate Licence Type A, which was granted at the moment of application; and Immediate Licence Type B which was processed within three days of the application being presented and which required an appointment with some one in charge. The third type, Type 3 or Special Licence, was a unied permit which combined various permits that were needed for complex actions like building a house, or transporting materials, or setting up a business. This last type of licence required the analysis of the various stakeholders needed for signatures, or technical documents, or the types of payment terms or specic payment of taxes. By the simple fact of putting into practice this new typology, the time required for processing licences of Type A on average fell from two days to one day. For Licence Type B, the time fell to 2.8 days from six days before the improvement. These results are well below (ie far superior to) the legal minimum standard set for the delivery of the licence and embrace the commitment of good services to citizens (standards of service). 4.2.3 Process mapping application. The application of the technique known as process mapping in lean-kaizen could only be observed taking place in councils A and C. In both cases, according to the evidence found, the application of the process mapping technique was the result of experience gained through changes which were made over time to the efforts to modernise and improve using lean thinking principles. In the case of council A, the application of process mapping was put into practice after this council had gone through different stages in improvement efforts, from teams working on improvements that used a methodology of problem solving, to self-evaluation schemes based on the model of excellence EFQM, with the objective of improving the management quality of public services. As there was recognition of its usefulness by the quality coordinators of council A, process mapping enabled them to potentiate the interrelationships between work groups in the organisation from their own point of interest regarding the processes as well as the commitments of service established with the citizens. In fact, using this technique, they had identied 12 key processes to develop that in their opinion brought added value to the community (see Figure 3). This set of processes was divided into the service process, or things that transformed the needs and requirements of the citizens into Service Commitments that they had to full; the support service which facilitated the management and delivery of the services and the strategic process which underpinned the planning and strategic development of the organisation. In this way, the management system of council A used a conceptual map of the work processes it had to manage as the source of its efforts to improve those processes (see Figure 3).
159
Figure 3. Process map of Town Council A
In the case of council C, process mapping was the tool to align the operational management with the strategic management of the council. In the same way, the introduction of this lean thinking process council C had been as a direct result of various events during different stages of improvements they had tried to bring about from their early attempts to reach improvements through the management of objectives, to the conrmation of two quality improvement plans at the institutional level which were based on the self-assessment models of excellence EFQM. For council C this alignment of the strategic process with the operational process had allowed them to reduce functional silos and internal departmental barriers within the organisation. By achieving this there was a better ow of information and better communication between the departments which led to swifter and smoother work processes and public services. The process map for council C, which is shown in Figure 4, represents the reference point for all aspects of the town management as set out in the municipal plan of action or strategic plan. Finally, supported by empirical data, it can be shown that these three uses of lean-kaizen in the context of town councils have allowed us to visualise the suitability in the public sector of those techniques more often considered to belong in the private sector. The following is a synthesis of what was analysed in the eld work (see Table IV). 5. Conclusions and managerial implications The empirical results found in the three case studies show that the three local councils that we investigated were able to achieve some signicant improvements in their work processes and public services in the following areas; in the organisation and order in
TQM 21,2
160
Figure 4. Process map of town council C
their work areas, saving space and resources, reducing time of response to requests for service from the citizens and a general improvement in the public services offered to the community. From this study, some positive lessons were learnt during the conduct of the research which can be described as follows: . Some tangible and intangible impacts were observed in the management practices of the councils where lean-kaizen was applied. . The impact of the improvements in some work processes allowed these public entities to improve in certain aspects of their managerial efciency and effectiveness. . Two of them have begun to use the more systematic thinking (management system) and strategic thinking associated with lean-kaizen in process mapping leaving behind the potential mistake of only focusing in a very specic way on one tool or one technique of lean-kaizen in an environment where isolated improvement actions are temptingly easy to absorb into an organisational culture. . The application of the three techniques described of lean-kaizen in the three organisations was applied and tested for some years at different moments in time which permitted the organisations in question to learn from their experiences
Lean-kaizen Concepts Need for integration of 5S techniques in the municipal management syste MSome interdepartmental barriers between departments 5S implementation Application of public management system that Work process dened through process mapping searches out the maintenance and improvements in the work process and public service The work process improvement and management is the central axis of the municipal management system Orthodox application of 5S technique Need for integration of 5S techniques in the Reticence of some employees municipal management system Excessive time for the 5S implementation makes some employees frustrated Lessons learned from 5S application Diffusion of the 5S application to other departments Political and top management support Lack of total involvement of the participants in the kaizen workshops Lack of effective training in lean techniques Diffusion and application to other departments Change of training strategy using an internal instructor Political and top management support First evidence of improvement actions in the public management syste Development of municipal action plan (strategic plan) that links the improvement actions Need for integration of kaizen workshops in the municipal management syste Some interdepartmental barriers between departments The work process improvement and management is operated through a coordination committee using process mapping Improvement action is integrated in the municipal action plan (strategic plan) Feeling of everything done Need for complementary resources
Lean-kaizen Implementation
Lean-kaizen management system
Case A Problem There is a need to improve the organization and work standards in the warehouse Long time delays in the public service Work process fragmented Solution Application of order, organization and cleanliness actions Understanding the process ow, the relationships of the activities and standards process
Case B Problem Excess of no-value activities (muda) in the work process Long time delays in the public service Quality problems in the public service delivery Citizens dissatisfaction Solution Application of order, organization and cleanliness actions Understanding the process ow and process cycle time Frequency analysis of customer complaints Case C Problem Excess of no-value activities (muda) in the work process Long time delays in the public service Quality problems in the public service delivery Work process fragmented Solution Understanding the process ow and the relationships of the process activities Frequency analysis of customer complaints
161
Table IV. Summary of lean-kaizen applications in the case studies
TQM 21,2
.
162
.
and adapt the techniques to their own public service situation, thereby reducing probable differences when such techniques are introduced in private sector rms. In two of the cases, in councils A and C, the application of lean-kaizen changed from being a temporary project, one which was fashionable or inspired by political command, to be a consolidated effort which has become institutionalised and supported slowly but surely over time so as to become part and parcel of everyday management. The work done on the lean-kaizen techniques was undertaken by the employees of the councils themselves which facilitated their participation and commitment to the journey and effort to improve called lean-kaizen.
However, according to our empirical evidence we also found some possible barriers or inhibitors of lean-kaizen initiative during the application effort. We described our inhibitors as follows: . Some inhibitors range from errors in the application of lean-kaizen and contracting consultants who are not very sensitive to the public sector particularities, to a poor understanding and incorrect or orthodox application of lean-kaizen techniques and tools at the beginning of the improvement efforts. In the middle of the implementation, other inhibitors may appear, such as: the feeling that everything has been achieved, tiredness and jadedness on the part of the players involved (improvement program managers and some middle managers and employees). . The second signicant inhibitor was the lack of clarity and constancy in the aim to improve (Why do we need to apply lean-kaizen in public local government?) and the unfortunate consequence that local government pressures distract middle managers and employees effort as improvement is replaced with traditional public management re-ghting (identied in case B). . The third inhibitor identied was lack of consolidation and institutionalization of a close link between the strategic, operational and political public management dimensions during the implementation of the municipal management system. Therefore the main consequence of this inhibitor could be the lack of consolidated support lean-kaizen management infrastructure or the lack of integration and institutionalisation of the improvement effort into the management system of the entire city council. . In addition, external or political shocks, such as possible political changes due to a new term of ofce leading to a temporary freeze on lean-kaizen efforts, blocked and inhibited progress. . Following the public service traditional bureaucratic model fourteen interviewees (from three cases studies) identied a more serious inhibitor and proposed that not all of middle managers or technical employees (service managers) supported the lean-kaizen initiative. The poor level of internal involvement and supported attributed by the informants to result from lack of understanding, lack of communication, low levels of functional benets perceived by middle managers and the classical departmental barriers between municipal areas.
Finally, it is important to say that the three cases also show us the rst empirical evidence of certain lean-kaizen principles being applied, virtually directly, and with quantiable benets, to the public sector to work processes in public service. Thus this paper is a good example for managers and directors in public ofce who want to be or who are already involved in the implementation of specic lean-kaizen initiatives because it demonstrates that their efforts can and do have positive impacts and can be sustained over time. In fact, through these case studies we can also show that lean-kaizen public service, understood to mean a rst integrated effort of lean thinking to eliminate waste (muda) from the public work processes which most critically affect the delivery of public services to citizens, can be practicably applied in local councils. We note, however, that it is necessary to continue corroborating our ndings with more empirical case studies which will contribute to the ongoing consolidation of the theoretical concepts of this paper.
References Alukal, G. and Manos, A. (2006), Lean kaizen. A Simplied Approach to Process Improvements, American Society of Quality Press, Milwaukee, WI. Aoki, K. (2008), Transferring Japanese kaizen to overseas plants in China, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 28 No. 6, pp. 518-39. Bateman, N. (2005), Sustainability: the elusive element of process improvement, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 261-76. Bateman, N. and Brander, C. (2000), The drive for process improvement, Manufacturing Engineer, Vol. 79 No. 6, pp. 241-6. Bateman, N. and David, A. (2002), Process improvement programmes: a model for assessing sustainability, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 22 No. 5, pp. 515-26. Bateman, N. and Rich, N. (2003), Companies perceptions of inhibitors and enablers for process improvement activities, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 185-99. Bendell, T. (2006), A review and comparison of six sigma and the lean organisations, The TQM Magazine, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 255-62. Bhasin, S. and Burcher, P. (2006), Lean viewed as a philosophy, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 56-72. Bhatia, N. and Drew, J. (2006), Applying lean production to the public sector, The McKinsey Quarterly, Vol. 3, pp. 97-8. Bicheno, J. (1999), The New Lean Toolbox, Picsie, London. Bodek, N. (2004), Kaikaku, the Power and Magic of Lean. A Study of Knowledge Transfer, PCS Press, Vancouver, WA. Bowen, D.E. and Youngdahl, W.E. (1998), Lean service: in defense of a production-line approach, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 207-25. Brunet, A.P. (2000), Kaizen: From Understanding to Action, Institution of Electrical Engineers, IEE Savoy Place, London. Brunet, A.P. and New, S. (2003), Kaizen in Japan: an empirical study, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 23 No. 12, pp. 1426-46.
163
TQM 21,2
164
Cheser, R. (1998), The effect of Japanese kaizen on employee motivation in US manufacturing, The International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 197-217. Collins, K. and Muthusamy, S. (2007), Applying the Toyota production system to a healthcare organization: a case study on a rural community healthcare provider, The Quality Management Journal, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 41-52. Convis, G. (2001), Role of management in a lean manufacturing environment, Automotive Manufacturing and Production, No. 7, pp. 1-7. Dahlgaard, J.J. and Dahlgaard-Park, S.M. (2006), Lean production, six sigma quality, TQM and company culture, The TQM Magazine, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 263-81. Dahlgaard-Park, S.M. (1999), The evolution patterns of quality management: some reections on the quality movement, Total Quality Management, Vol. 10 Nos 4/5, pp. 473-80. Eisenhardt, K.M. (1989), Building theories from case study research, The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 532-50. Furterer, S. and Elshennawy, A. (2005), Implementation of TQM and lean six sigma tools in local governement: a framework and a case study, Total Quality Management, Vol. 16 No. 10, pp. 1179-91. Gondhalekar, S., Babu, S. and Godrej, N. (1995), Towards using kaizen process dynamics: a case study, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 12 No. 9, pp. 192-209. Hasenjager, J. (2006), Lean government (is not an oxymoron), Industrial Engineer, Vol. 38 No. 7, pp. 43-7. Henderson, B., Larco, J.L. and Martin, S. (1999), Lean Transformation: How to Change Your Business into a Lean Entetprise, Oaklea Press, Richmond, VA. Hines, P. (1999), Value Stream Mapping, Addison-Wesley, London. Hines, P., Holweg, M. and Rich, N. (2004), Learning to evolve. A review of contemporary lean thinking, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 24 No. 10, pp. 994-1011. Hirano, H. (1995), 5 Pillars of the Visual Workplace: The Sourcebook for 5S Implementation, Productivity Press, Tokyo. Ho, S. and Cicmill, S. (1996), Japanese 5-S practice, The TQM Magazine, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 45-53. Imai, M. (1986), Kaizen The Key to Japans Competitive Success, Random House, New York, NY. Imai, M. (1997), Gemba Kaizen, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Imai, M. (2006), What is total ow management under kaizen focus?, Three days Conference Lecture in Barcelona, Spain, 4-6 December. Imaz, T. (2005), Planes de Calidad en la Administracion Local: La Implicacion de las personas, Revista de Estudios Locales, Noviembre-Diciembre, pp. 34-40 (in Spanish). Krings, D., Levine, D. and Wall, T. (2006), The use of lean in local government, PM Public Management, Vol. 88 No. 8, pp. 12-17. Krizner, K. (2001), Manufacturers adopt a lean philosophy, Frontline Solutions, July, pp. 1-5. Leonard-Barton, D. (1990), A dual methodology for case studies: synergistic use of a longitudinal single site with replicated multiple sites, Organization Science, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 248-66. Lewis, M. (2000), Lean production and sustainable competitive advantage, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 20 No. 8, pp. 959-78.
Liker, J. (2004), The Toyota Way, Simon & Schuster Inc., New York, NY. Lindberg, P. and Berger, A. (1997), Continuous improvement: design, organization and management, International Journal Technology Management, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 86-101. Manos, A. (2007), The benets of kaizen and kaizen events, Quality Progress, Vol. 40 No. 2, p. 47. Manufacturing Foundation (2004), Lessons in lean, June. Melnyk, S.A. and Calanton, R. (1998), Short-term action in pursuit of long-term improvements: introducing kaizen events, Production and Inventory Management Journal, Vol. 39 No. 4, pp. 69-76. Monden, Y. (1998), Toyota Production System. An Integrated Approached to Just in Time, Engineering & Management Press, Norcross, GA. Montabon, F. (2005), Using kaizen events for back ofce processes: recruitment of frontline supervisor co-ops, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, Vol. 16 No. 10, pp. 1139-47. Nemoto, M. (1987), Total Quality Control for Management. Strategies and Techniques from Toyota and Toyoda Gosei, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Nyusten, T. (2002), Big results with less, Quality Progress, October, pp. 2-7. Ohno, T. (1978), Toyota Production System. Beyond Large-scale Production, Productivity Press, New York, NY. Oliver, N. and Wilkinson, B. (2002), The Japanization of British Industries, 2nd ed., New Developments in the 1990s, Blackwell, Oxford. Osada, T. (1991), The 5-S, Five Keys to a Total Quality Environment, Asian Productivity Organisation, Tokyo. Parrado-Dez, S. (2001), El enfoque participativo de la gestion de la calidad y los objetivos organizativos: Convergencia o divergencia Un analisis emprico, Proceedings of V Congreso de la Asociacion Espanola de Ciencia Poltica y de la Administracion, La Laguna Tenerife (in Spanish). Pettigrew, A.M. (1997), What is a processual analysis?, Scandinavian Journal of Management, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 337-48. Pettigrew, A.M., Woodman, R. and Cameron, K. (2001), Studying organizational change and development: challenges for future research, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 44 No. 4, pp. 697-713. Radnor, Z. and Boaden, R. (2008), Editorial: lean in public services panacea or paradox?, Public and Money Management, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 3-7. Radnor, Z. and Walley, P. (2008), Learning to walk before we try to run: adapting lean for the public sector, Public and Money Management, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 13-20. Radnor, Z., Walley, P., Stephens, A. and Bucci, G. (2006), Evaluation of the Lean Approach to Business Management and its Use in the Public Sector, Research Findings, Scottish Executive, Edinburgh. Sawada, N. (1995), The kaizen in Toyota production system, CHU-SAN-REN Quality Control Course, Nagoya, pp. 1-38. Sheridan, J. (1997), kaizen blitz, Industry Week, Vol. 246 No. 16, pp. 19-27. Sohal, A.S. (1996), Developing a lean production organisation: an Australian case study, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 16 No. 2.
165
TQM 21,2
166
Sohal, A.S. and Eggleston, A. (1994), Lean production: experience among Australian organisations, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 14 No. 11. Spear, S.J. (2005), Fixing health care from the inside, today, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 3 No. 8, pp. 78-98. Standard, C. and Davis, D. (2000), Lean thinking for competitive advantage, Automotive Manufacturing and Production, December, pp. 1-3. Suarez-Barraza, M.F. (2001), La losofa del kaizen, una aplicacion practica en un area de blico, Revista CONTACTO. La revista de la Calidad Total. servicio del sector pu Suplemento de desarrollo organizacional, Vol. 11, pp. 11-16 (in Spanish). Suarez-Barraza, M.F. (2007), El KAIZEN: La losofa de Mejora Continua e Innovacion Incremental detras de la Administracion por Calidad Total, Editorial Panorama, Mexico, D.F. (in Spanish). Suarez-Barraza, M.F. and Lingham, T. (2008), Kaizen within kaizen teams: continuous and process improvements in a Spanish municipality, The Asian Journal on Quality, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 1-21. Suarez-Barraza, M.F. and Ramis-Pujol, J. (2005), Continuous improvement under Alfred Schutzs approach of scientic interpretation and the common sense of human action, Proceedings of the Quality Management and Organizational Development (QMOD 2005), Palermo, Sicily, Italy, June 29. Suarez-Barraza, M.F. and Ramis-Pujol, J. (2008), Process standardisation and sustainable o continuous improvement: a closer look at the application of ISO 9000 to Logron City Council (Spain), International Journal of Quality and Standards, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 1-35. Takeyuki, F. (1995), Implementing C-JIT (New JIT) A Practical Approach, Chu-San-Ren Corporation, Nagoya. Taylor, D. and Brunt, D. (Eds) (2001), Manufacturing Operations, Thompson, London. Van de Ven, A.H. and Poole, M.S. (1995), Explaining developments change in organizations, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 510-40. Vonk, J. (2005), Process improvement in business permits through kaizen, Innovations Management, Spring, pp. 33-4. Wittenberg, G. (1994), Kaizen, the many ways of getting better, Assembly Automation, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 12-17. Womack, J.P. (2002), Lean thinking: where have we been and where are we going?, Forming and Fabricating, Vol. 9 No. 9, pp. L2-L6. Womack, J.P. and Jones, D.T. (1994), From lean production to the lean enterprise, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 72 No. 2, pp. 93-104. Womack, J.P. and Jones, D.T. (1996), Lean Thinking Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Simon & Schuster, London. Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T. and Ross, D. (1990), The Machine that Changed the World, Rawson Associates, New York, NY. Yasin, M., Wafa, M. and Small, M.H. (2001), Just-in-time implementation in the public sector. An empirical examination, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 21 No. 9, pp. 1195-204. Yin, R. (2003), Case Study Research, Design and Methods, Sage Publications, Thousands Oaks, CA.
Further reading Kume, H. (1985), Statistical Methods for Quality Improvement, AOTS, Tokyo. Mizuno, S. (1988), Company Wide Quality Control, Asian Productivity Organization, Tokyo. Suarez-Barraza, M.F. (2008), Las Capsulas de Mejora. Una metodologa practica y rapida para mejorar la competitividad de las Pymes, Editorial Grupo Gasca-SISCO, Mexico, D.F. (in Spanish). Corresponding author Manuel F. Suarez Barraza can be contacted at: manuelfrancisco.suarez@ itesm.mx
167
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

TQM Journal

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

TQM Journal

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The TQM Journal

Volume 21, Issue 2, 2009, pp.105-215 Articles

Dening lean production: some conceptual and practical issues

Dening lean production

Dening lean production

Dening lean production

Collective term Just in time practices (100%)

Resource reduction (100%)

Supply chain management (78%) Standardization (100%) Scientic management (100%)

Table II. A suggestion for a grouping of lean characteristics

Bundled techniques (56%, 67%)

Dening lean production

Table III. An illustration of the four denable approaches to lean production

Dening lean production

Dening lean production

Dening lean production

Dening lean production

Lean-kaizen public service: an empirical approach in Spanish local governments

Lean-kaizen public service

Lean-kaizen public service

Lean-kaizen public service

Lean-kaizen public service

Lean-kaizen public service

Steps to apply 5S 1. Presentation of the project

Table II. Implementation of 5S in council B

Lean-kaizen public service

Lean-kaizen public service

Table III. Summary of the application of gemba-kaizen workshops in council B

Lean-kaizen public service

Lean-kaizen public service

Figure 3. Process map of Town Council A

Figure 4. Process map of town council C

Lean-kaizen management system

Lean-kaizen public service

Table IV. Summary of lean-kaizen applications in the case studies

Lean-kaizen public service

Lean-kaizen public service

Lean-kaizen public service

You might also like