Lean Manufacturing Model Research Articles

A review of agile and lean manufacturing as issues in selected international and national research and development programs and roadmaps

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to analyze international and national research and development (R&D) programs and roadmaps for the manufacturing sector, presenting how agile and lean manufacturing models are addressed in these programs.Design/methodology/approachIn this review, several manufacturing research and development programs and roadmaps – national programs from the USA and Canada, and international programs from the European Union and from one international organization – are reviewed.FindingsThe major finding of this review is that the main concerns in agile manufacturing, as highlighted in these programs, are networks, supply chain and product/service customization, and lean manufacturing's inclination towards achieving better cost efficiency. Although the lean manufacturing approach has been considered in many past and present programs, analysis of the most recent programs shows a greater priority is given to the agile manufacturing approach. The path towards sustainable manufacturing is delineated by pro‐active attitude and action towards customers.Research limitations/implicationsThe study analyzes two national R&D programs from the USA, one international program from the European Union, three international roadmaps from the European Union, one business plan from Canada and one international roadmap from the global organization Intelligent Manufacturing Systems.Practical implicationsThe findings of this paper are intended to help managers, researchers and practitioners from the manufacturing sector to enhance their understanding and define suitable strategy for their organizations' sustainability and identify suitable manufacturing path with respect to agile and lean philosophies. This study could also help academics in defining course curricula for students more coherent with the R&D policies and/or requirements towards sustainable manufacturing with respect to agile and lean philosophies.Originality/valueThere are reviews comparing agile and lean manufacturing paradigms, but there are no reviews about how the two manufacturing concepts are addressed in manufacturing R&D programs and roadmaps.

Last In, First Out: A Case Study of Lean Manufacturing in North America's Automobile Industry

This paper describes a three-year case study (2003-2005) of General Motors' (GM) Lansing Grand River Assembly (LGRA) plant, the first new vehicle assembly plant in North America to be built on GM's Global Manufacturing System (GMS), a globally integrated lean manufacturing model. The paper is an ethnographic journey to understand the LGRA's perceived initial success with lean manufacturing. In the study, LGRA's economic performance is related to two Participant Propositions, one connecting performance to the plant's rural workforce and the second predicting performance declines based on the transfer of other workers to the plant. Findings from the case, overall, contribute to the literature on lean manufacturing and participatory work processes, describing how organizational and institutional processes beyond the control of a single plant can possibly lead to a breakdown in participatory structures, creating risks for the long-term sustainability of lean manufacturing approaches.

A new integrated lean manufacturing model for magnesium products

From an environmental point of view, lighter metals like aluminum and magnesium are unclean products to make; they require energy-intensive methods and increased greenhouse gas emissions as compared with steels. They are, however, clean to use, in particular in the transportation sector, if adequate weight savings and consequent fuel consumption reduction and CO2 reduction can be achieved to offset the initial higher energy need. In order to reduce CO2 emissions, better energy efficiency and substitution of low-carbon technologies are going to play a key role in future technical options. Modern research and development should be focused on promoting the efficient use of metallic materials according to the “dematerialization” concept design.

Estratégia de manufatura e ambiente econômico: comparando desempenhos e trajetórias de Brasil e Argentina

O objetivo deste trabalho é buscar indicações sobre a existência de relações entre ambiente econômico e estratégia de manufatura, baseado na comparação de empresas argentinas e brasileiras pertencentes ao setor metalmecânico. Mais especificamente, se pretende identificar similaridades e diferenças nas trajetórias de modernização adotadas por empresas de cada país e discutir possíveis explicações para o comportamento das empresas em condições de forte mudanças no ambiente econômico. Diferenças históricas e estruturais, assim como o clima econômico dominante na época da pesquisa, parecem ter influenciado as empresas argentinas no sentido de busca uma modernização mais centrada nos investimentos tecnológicos - hardware, enquanto as empresas brasileiras se concentravam nas mudanças de software, ou seja, nos procedimentos e práticas gerenciais associados ao modelo conhecido como manufatura enxuta. Por ter começado mais cedo, e por ter partido de uma base mais fraca de desempenho, as melhorias relativas relativas de desempenho conseguidas pelas empresas argentinas, nos dois anos que antecederam a pesquisa, foram superiores àquelas alcançadas pelas empresas brasileiras.

Nissan U.K.: A worker's paradox?

Europe's lean manufacturing model muy be u benchmark for its compefitors, but it should not be one in its treatment of employees, m he major Japanese 1 automobile companies have now established a successful beachhead in Europe, located in the United Kingdom. As they have in North America, these Japanese transplants are exemplifying high levels of technology transfer, combined with learning and adaptation that results in globally competitive new hybrid manueacturing organizations. These new organizations combine, in highly creative ways, subsystems of the Fordist and lean systems, with diverse national and European innovations. In many ways, the Japanese lean system unfroze the traditional Fordist manufacturing paradigm, resulting in not one dominant lean system but mzlny creative and continuously evolving hybrid spinoffs as diverse as the geographic sources from which they emerge. Nissan Motor Manufacturing (IJK) Limited, or NMUK, is one exemplar of these emerging new hybrid systems, demonstrating high levels of organizational learning and adaptation as well as sociotechnical problems and paradoxes. Europe’s automobile industry in the early 1990s was no better prepared for the Japanese transplants than was Detroit‘s Big Three in the early 1980s. However. because of the Japanese learning experience with their transplants’ lean system in North America, they are more readily adapting and developing new Japanese-European hybrids, which are already setting new quality and productivity standards. Still, the quality of work life shows little improvement. As is now widely recognized, the term “lean production system” was coined by the MIT study team in their landmark book, 73eM~~hirze 7’bat Changed 72~ World (1990). A more recent study by Martin Kenney and Richard Florida (1993) documents the remarkable breadth of the Japanese lean system’s transfer and adaptation within North America and its major role in the continuing global industrial diffusion and transformation. Unlike the MIT study, however, Kenney and Florida provide a more balanced view of both the system’s strengths as an innovative, mediated organization and the considerable social and technical tensions and contradictions experienced by the North American transplants. Like the American research findings, the early studies of the lean system hybrids developing in the U.K. tend to be highly divergent in many of their findings. In his 1987 book me Road to Nissan. Peter Wickens, NMUK’s director of personnel and information systems, presents an understandably corporate view of the company’s practices. Conversely, Garrdhan and Stewart (1992) focus on NMUK’s less favorable labor and community relations practices and experiences. The purpose of this article is to provide a more balanced analysis of the emergence of the Japanese lean system as a hybrid in the United Kingdom along with the paradoxes it raises. We will analyze the case of Nissan in the 1J.K. as an example of technology transfer and organizational adaptation and learning, as well as the comparative stakeholder outcomes.