Application of LEAN Principles to Improve Business Processes: a Case Study in a Latvian IT Company (original) (raw)
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23rd Cromar Congress - Marketing in Dynamic Environment - Academic and Practical Insights, 2013
Lean thinking is way of improving efficiency in not only production but also in all companies in the world. Lean thinking philosophy includes principles of reducing waste in production and running company and giving customer only what is value for him. Lean thinking has started in automotive industry fifty years ago and now implementation of lean thinking is present in different industrial sectors and also coming to the service companies and in offices. In reducing waste companies need to address seven different types of waste and they need to do that in five steps of lean thinking. There are several different tools which companies can use in their “fight against the waste” in company processes. Lean help companies in becoming faster, better, their products and or services are cheaper and they become more attractive to their customers. For most of Croatian SME’s lean thinking is still unknown but if lean thinking is implemented in SME’s there is increase of the efficiency and saving in time and money. Second part of the paper will examine how implementation of lean thinking in one of the Croatian SME’s can improve efficiency and save time. Based on presented example of lean thinking implementation in every day’s processes in one Croatian SME, company managed to save time and money.
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Making IT Lean: Applying Lean Practices to the Work of IT presents Lean concepts and techniques for improving processes and eliminating waste in IT operations and IT Service Management, in a manner that is easy to understand. The authors provide a context for discussing several areas of application within this domain, allowing you to quickly gain insight into IT processes and Lean principles.
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Lean Management of IT Organizations: A Literature Review
Lean Management has been successfully applied by companies around the world, mainly in production/manufacturing functions. Recently, the interest to investigate a wider application of Lean Management especially in service functions increased. However, it is not clear how Lean Management can be applied to IT organizations. Therefore, this study aims to provide an overview on common characteristics and future research directions. A literature review on existing scholarly research from January 2004 to June 2014 is conducted. Using a database-driven search approach, a total of 1,206 research contributions are found of which 49 were identified as relevant. Results indicate a low theory grounding of mostly formulative and interpretative research items. This implies that research on Lean Management of IT organizations is still at its nascent state. Content-wise, five research themes emerge. The majority of research investigates IT organizations in a role to support Lean Management in production/manufacturing functions (determining “what to work on”), therefore more research on how Lean Management can be applied to IT organizations themselves (determining “how to work”) could be beneficial. Future research could also try to build on Change Management theories, as the implementation of Lean Management is of transformational character.
2019
This article supports previous publications on the importance of lean principles as guidelines (Liker, 2004) or as challengers when developing systems and frameworks (Ballard, Hammond, & Nickerson, 2009) and even methods and tools (Santos, 1999). It seems that the principles have taken the position of being a significant part of lean thinking, meaning a knowledge that lean personnel should acquire. This article wants to support and emphasise the importance of lean principles as rules of living but believes in taking the power of the lean principles one step further. If a lean organisation, project or leader explicitly confronts each other with the principles, this empowers the individuals being challenged and may create an outcome that closely links the employee's know-how to the process. Using lean principles as the main message to be understood, they may pull in tools, methods, frameworks or systems to answer these principles. This paper reports from research that explores the effect of pushing lean principles as the direct challenger on employees. Skilled workers at construction sites are the receiver of both general principles but mainly rephrased into more operational language.
New Approaches in Lean Management
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This article explores the future of Lean Management, its implementation potential in other industrial sectors as well as Lean Management education process. At the same time it explains possibilities of its implementation in industries such as Public Administration, Healthcare and IT services. It describes how the various principles of Lean Management are transmitted to the service sector and what differences arise by this process. In conclusion the article describes and compares different ways of Lean education in various countries and finally the best teaching practice with regard to practice is suggested and proposed.
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Lean Management has been successfully applied in production/manufacturing functions since more than four decades. Recently, the interest to investigate Lean Management also in service functions increased. Therefore, this study aims to (1) Consolidate critical success factors (CSFs) for the implementation of Lean Management of IT organizations; and (2) Describe a theoretical foundation for these CSFs. With respect to (1) a database-driven search was conducted. CSFs then were extracted and categorized. In total 13 CSF groups were assigned to three dimensions: Mindset and behavior; Organization and skills; and Process facilitation and performance management. To understand underlying mechanisms better, and with respect to (2) we related existing (IS) theory to identified groups of CSFs. Especially, five theoretical concepts are discussed: Absorptive capacity, Agency theory, Cognitive dissonance, Dynamic capabilities, and System dynamics. Future research needs to validate the results of (1) and (2) empirically in IT functions.
Lean Management - The Way To A Performant Enterprise
2010
In this work we approached issues related to new methods of production organization such as Lean Management, a method specific for a flexible production of great success which represents the guarantee for a performant enterprise. In this paper we presented the main concepts, the application and adaptation way in different contexts, both in industry and in services. We showed a modern tendency which is taking shape more and more in the contemporary economic context, such as the integration of this concept with the Six Sigma concept, and thus we can talk about Lean Six Sigma, as an integrator method which guarantees high-class quality and lower costs. KEY WORDS: lean management, quality, performances, Six Sigma, the diminution of the defaults JEL CLASSIFICATION: L15,