Articles

LERC articles include research results, papers, case studies, commentary on
specific issues or events, or 'thought piece' papers. Members of the LERC community are invited to submit articles for inclusion.

Reflections on Toyota Kata

February 22, 2019

Graham Canning, coordinator of the LERC Kata Research Network Group, draws on his experience of Kata and reflects on its take up by organisations and poses some questions on the research task ahead.
Exploring 25 years of Lean Literature

January 22, 2019

The purpose of this paper is to take a critical, analytical approach to explore the growth and spread of Lean through the academic and practitioner community over the last twenty-five years to understand the impact of the book The Machine that Changed the World on management thinking.
Researching Lean Themes

December 5, 2018

As part of LERC's development of its research themes, it carried out a 'voice of the customer' survey into managers' views of the relative importance of selected themes. It also asked about the barriers facing organisations implementing lean thinking. This article summarises the main results; note that its does not include an in depth analysis or commentary, which will be contained in a more detailed future report.
Learning to Evolve – A Review of Contemporary Lean Thinking (2004)

December 2, 2018

This seminal paper discussed the evolution of lean thinking and proposed a framework for understanding the evolution of lean not only as a concept, but also its implementation within an organisation and point out areas for future research.

Authors: Peter Hines, Matthias Holweg, and Nick Rich (Lean Enterprise Research Centre)
Case Study: NHS Blood & Transplant

October 19, 2018

This article discusses the case of the application of lean thinking in Clinical Pathology – specifically in histocompatibility and Immunogenetics in the UK’s NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) organisation. It’s not only an excellent example of the application of lean in a broad healthcare environment, but it also demonstrates how lean can be used in highly technical and ‘non-traditional’ contexts, where core principles are used to guide improvements using a variety of tools, to deliver greater value.

It demonstrates the importance of adapting the implementation approach to the fit the needs of the service under consideration and the need to ensure a human dimension is built in to the programme.

Author: Tom Browne, NHS Blood & Transplant
Value Confusion: Lean in Public Services

October 19, 2018

For well over a decade continuous improvement approaches have been formally applied in the public sector in the UK and elsewhere, in an attempt to improve service quality and streamline processes, often in response to cuts in public expenditure budgets imposed by governments. While there are numerous examples of successful initiatives at a process level, questions remain about whether real systemic changes are being made that will produce the long term sustainable CI culture desired.

This article examines the nature of the lean thinking that has been embraced and calls for a debate on the development of a new definition of lean for public services.

Author: Simon Elias
The Case for Open Source Lean

October 19, 2018

Coming in 2019.
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