Lean production has become an integral part of the manufacturing landscape as its link with superior performance and its ability to provide competitive advantage is well accepted among academics and practitioners. Lean production helps producers in overcoming the challenges organizations face...

How do local labour market structures, in tandem with workforce dispositions and attitudes, influence the way multinational companies localise their standardised work and production systems? This article investigates the conflict-ridden factory regime of a lean automotive plant in provincial...

The purpose of this paper is to identify success factors in human resource management during the transition process to Lean Production. Using case study research in the aeronautics industry, the results show a series of explanatory factors that are then grouped into main factors depending on the...

Purpose: Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) can be a fundamental aid for the design of new teaching methods that better adapt to the framework of the European Higher Education Area. In this context, this study aims to develop and assess a complex and truly interactive ICT-based...

Purpose: Employment plays an important part in many people's lives beyond merely providing income, since continued participation in work can have many therapeutic benefits for workers defined as disabled. However, disabled workers face a range of barriers to employment, despite legislation...

Purpose: The most popular alternative systems to mass production at an academic level (lean manufacturing, agile manufacturing, flexible customization, mass customization...) share many characteristics. Our article identifies an extensive set of alternative practices to mass production; analyzes...

Purpose: The present paper aims at developing an effective framework including all the components necessary for implementing lean production properly in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. Design/methodology/approach: The paper begins with the review of the main existing framework of lean...

Purpose: This paper describes the perceived effects of implementing lean production in a Swedish SME contract manufacturer. Especially focused are the effects on, and possible trade-offs between, cost-efficiency and flexibility. Design/methodology/approach: SME suppliers need basic capabilities...

Purpose: The main objective of this research is to design a decision-making network, based on the Analytic Network Process (ANP) technique (Saaty, 1996), which will include the main elements to take into account when stating the effect that the application of LP techniques has got on the...

During the past six decades, the Toyota Motor Company established a 'lean' production and management system (the Toyota Way), which has become an iconic template for a high performing and learning organization. The massive recall crisis of 2009/2010 distorted Toyota's image of a role model for a...