Development of a framework for lean enterprise

Abstract

Purpose Lean enterprise (LE) is one of the emerging fields because of its impact across industry sectors. There were many LE framework articles published in the past without reviewing or considering the already published literature which lead to lots of inconsistencies in the existing frameworks of LE. This study aims to critically review the existing frameworks to identify inconsistencies and propose a new LE framework to overcome limitations of the existing LE frameworks. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review was conducted to identify the existing LE frameworks. All these identified frameworks were classified based on the following criteria: novelty of the framework; based on participation of academicians/practitioners/consultants; whether the proposed frameworks were verified; type of verification methodology used; and the degree of standardization of LE elements. A comprehensive LE framework was proposed after a thorough review of the existing LE frameworks which has been validated through reliability analysis and validity analysis. Findings The analysis revealed major inconsistencies such as lack of adaptation of existing frameworks in literature which lead to incoherent elements in LE frameworks. The study also found shortage of significant participation of academicians and practitioners in LE frameworks development compared to consultants. The present work established a road map to find a “cohesive theory of LE”, which resulted in the development of a set of coherent elements. Finally, a comprehensive LE framework was proposed with the help of extensive literature review. The initially proposed 106 elements were condensed to 50 after the validation to increase the focus and relevance. Research limitations/implications The proposed LE framework needs to be validated via an empirical approach or clinical approach such as a case study which will be the future work. Originality/value The present study performed extensive literature review to identify LE-related articles, corresponding elements and established coherency among them. A new comprehensive framework was proposed.