This research project aims to develop a novel A3 thinking approach to support knowledge driven design that aids the generation of decision making within a Lean Product and Process Development (LeanPPD) environment. This research comprises the development of a new A3 template as a technique of problem solving in product design, the adoption of a reflection practice structured in a new A3 template for knowledge capture and sharing, and the generation of the process of using the A3 thinking approach for effective implementation. Providing useful knowledge as a design reference to generate decision making at the initial stages of product development in product design helps the designers to prevent recurrence of the same problem, eliminate design mistakes and enhance design decision. In order to achieve a novel A3 thinking approach, a research methodology consisting of four phases was developed. The first phase synthesises the A3 best practice through literature and documentation reviews. The gap analysis and results from the reviews have identified several problem-solving approaches and learning cycles that have to be considered in the research. The second phase is to evaluate the approaches and their impacts and applications in product design. In order to complete this, several research methods are selected and performed (e.g. focus group and semistructured interview) within the collaborative companies. The third phase is to develop the A3 thinking approach by utilising the LAMDA learning cycle, developing a new A3 template or so-called A3LAMDA, adopting the reflection practice and generating the process of using the new A3 thinking approach. Finally, the validation of the new A3 thinking approach through industrial case studies and expert judgements have been performed. This approach has been implemented in the automotive sector and was applied to four industrial case studies and six A3LAMDA reports were collected. As a result of the findings of this research, the utilisation of the A3 thinking approach aided the generation of knowledge driven design in product design by integrating the knowledge management capabilities; knowledge creation, capture and sharing.

This research studies the relationship between car manufacturers (CM) and third party logistics providers (TPLP), also known as the logistics partnership, in the outbound delivery channel in the Malaysian automotive industry. It focuses specifically on the dyad perspective, and demonstrates that several critical success factors are required for a successful relationship between these two parties. Five such factors emanate from the operational dimension and eight from the relational dimension. The five operational factors are: logistics service performance, investment, information sharing, information technology and communication, and price of the logistics service; and the eight relational factors are: trust, commitment, power, conflict, dependency, co-operation, informal activity, and understanding. The study also reveals that five outcomes are identified that benefit both the CM and the TPLP as a result of the win-win situation accruing to both parties. These are: renewal of the contract, company profitability, improved logistics service performance, knowledge transfer, and company branding. Such benefits enhance the supply chain relationship, and knowledge of these advantages improves current TPLP theory by deepening the understanding of how logistics partnership can succeed. In order to obtain rich data concerning the CM-TPLP relationship, the researcher adopted a different methodology from that used by previous scholars, who have concentrated on quantitative techniques. In this study, multiple case studies (seven in total) in one industry, the automotive industry, in the non-western context of Malaysia, were conducted. Three main steps in the case study protocol were followed. The first involved a review of the literature pertaining to the themes that required further exploration, together with the development of the interview questions. In the second step, data were collected using semi-structured interviews, observations, document reviews, photographs and also archival records. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. The third stage involved exploring the data until it was found that nothing new was emerging from the interviews, and hence theoretical saturation had occurred. At this point the factors in question were confirmed, and the initial model revised. Additionally, confidentiality was maintained in all respects to protect the participating organisations and individuals. The findings contribute to the understanding of the CM-TPLP relationship which enhance supply chain relationship and TPLP theory, since they shed light on the operational and relational factors in one specific industry, from a dyadic perspective, and in a non-Western context, thereby adding new dimensions to the existing body of knowledge in this field. The findings benefit practitioners via the novel LPS (logistics partnership success) model generated by the researcher. This indicates the key contributory factors to the CM-TPLP relationship success. Moreover, the study may have the capacity to generalise to other culturally-similar environments.

Lean Manufacturing (LM) is widely accepted as a world-class manufacturing paradigm, its currency and superiority are manifested in numerous recent success stories. Most lean tools including Just-in-Time (JIT) were designed for repetitive serial production systems. This resulted in a substantial stream of research which dismissed a priori the suitability of LM for non-repetitive non-serial job-shops. The extension of LM into non-repetitive production systems is opposed on the basis of the sheer complexity of applying JIT pull production control in non-repetitive systems fabricating a high variety of products. However, the application of LM in job-shops is not unexplored. Studies proposing the extension of leanness into non-repetitive production systems have promoted the modification of pull control mechanisms or reconfiguration of job-shops into cellular manufacturing systems. This thesis sought to address the shortcomings of the aforementioned approaches. The contribution of this thesis to knowledge in the field of production and operations management is threefold: Firstly, a Multi-Agent System (MAS) is designed to directly apply pull production control to a good approximation of a real-life job-shop. The scale and complexity of the developed MAS prove that the application of pull production control in non-repetitive manufacturing systems is challenging, perplex and laborious. Secondly, the thesis examines three pull production control mechanisms namely, Kanban, Base Stock and Constant Work-in-Process (CONWIP) which it enhances so as to prevent system deadlocks, an issue largely unaddressed in the relevant literature. Having successfully tested the transferability of pull production control to non-repetitive manufacturing, the third contribution of this thesis is that it uses experimental and empirical data to examine the impact of pull production control on job-shop performance. The thesis identifies issues resulting from the application of pull control in job-shops which have implications for industry practice and concludes by outlining further research that can be undertaken in this direction.

This thesis examines barriers to the implementation of Lean production systems in China. The aim is to evaluate how implementation barriers affect a Lean production system, and whether they can be explained by Chinese national context factors. The thesis also aims to investigate the mechanisms by which such context factors influence the barriers. A socio-technical systems (STS) perspective is taken to interpret the relative importance of, and the interplay between, the social and the technical barriers to Lean implementation in China. To achieve the aims of the study, a multiple case study approach was chosen. I collected data at two Chinese plants of a globally-operating German automotive supplier in Suzhou and Changsha. As the main method of data collection, I conducted sixty qualitative interviews with Chinese and Western employees during a two month research trip to China. Using an iterative procedure of data collection and analysis, I developed a model that captures barriers to implementing Lean in China, the effects of these barriers on the production system, and influential context factors. Based on respondents perceptions, I identify six main implementation barriers, namely: High employee turnover , Weak supplier performance , Market conditions , Lack of Lean knowledge , Intercultural communication , and Work styles . The analysis highlights the effects of the barriers on specific elements of the Lean production system, and mechanisms by which the context factors influence the barriers. By exploring these mechanisms, I found strong evidence that Chinese context factors act as root causes or catalysts for the implementation barriers. The findings are corroborated through a comparison of the results obtained from the two locations in China, reports by Western and Chinese employees, and respondents at different hierarchical levels of the organisation. Through the Lean implementation model, this research contributes to the literatures on international Lean manufacturing and socio-technical systems. The study is the first to provide detailed empirical evidence of six main barriers, and to describe thoroughly why each barrier was a burden for Lean. The thesis also contributes to the Lean literature by demonstrating how the national context of China can create barriers and therefore play a significant role when implementing Lean in China. The central claim of the study is therefore that implementation barriers do exist in China and that a greater focus on these barriers is required in order to gain a better understanding of Lean implementation in this context. With regard to STS theory, the study highlights that the main perceived barriers to Lean implementation were situated within the social sub-system of Lean, and that some aspects of the barriers were created through a lack of joint optimisation of the social and the technical sub-system. The study therefore shows that STS theory is applicable to the context of Lean systems, and that it facilitates our understanding of barriers to the socio-technical Lean system. The study yields recommendations on managerial strategies for implementing Lean production in China, regarding people management as well as the adjustment of manufacturing facilities. A consideration of the national context can help practitioners to fully understand the causes of implementation barriers in China and, through this, to overcome these barriers. The thesis is concluded by reflecting on its limitations and suggestions for future research.

Relatively little is known about how concepts of human values and value interact during the construction design process. Whilst researchers of value management have expounded in this context upon the complexity of the design process, problem-solving and sense-making, little is said about the alignment and reconciliation of multiple-stakeholder values and value judgements. An abductive reasoning and a grounded theory approach was adopted that iterated between literature and empirical observation to obtain new insights. The initial phase created a values and value framework and Value in Design (VALiD) approach through seven unstructured interviews, a design workshop, four Schwartz Values Surveys (with 545 participants) and 55 semi-structured interviews. The values and value parts were then separately implemented, developed and validated through action research on five live education capital projects, involving over 250 participants. Subsequently, a middle-range theory of values and value is proposed through theoretical triangulation. This draws on seven related theories to provide greater explanatory pluralism, uncover hidden phenomena and enable convergence. The research findings are significant in focusing soft value management on underlying stakeholder values and subjective value judgements. A more nuanced and intertwined relationship between stakeholder values, attitudes, behaviours and qualities during the design process is offered that promotes compromise and sense-making.

This thesis concerns three important issues related to the problem of time-inconsistency in decision-making and revealed preference analysis. The first chapter focuses on the welfare properties of equilibria in exchange economies with time-dependent preferences. We reintroduce the notion of time-consistent overall Pareto efficiency proposed by Herings and Rohde (2006) and show that, whenever the agents are sophisticated, any equilibrium allocation is efficient in this sense. Thereby, we present a version of the First Fundamental Welfare Theorem for this class of economies. Moreover, we present a social welfare function with maximisers that coincide with the efficient allocations and prove that every equilibrium can be represented by a solution to the social welfare optimisation problem. In the second chapter we concentrate on the observable implications of various models of time-preference. We consider a framework in which subjects are asked to choose between pairs consisting of a monetary payment and a time-delay at which the payment is delivered. Given a finite set of observations, we are interested under what conditions the choices of an individual agent can be rationalised by a discounted utility function. We develop an axiomatic characterisation of time-preference with various forms of discounting, including weakly present-biased, quasi-hyperbolic, and exponential, and determine the testable restrictions for each specification. Moreover, we discuss possible identification issues that may arise in this class of tests. Finally, in the third chapter, we discuss the testable restrictions for production technologies that exhibit complementarities. Suppose that we observe a finite number of choices of input factors made by a single firm, as well as the prices at which they were acquired. Under what conditions imposed on the set of observations is it possible to justify the decisions of the firm by profit-maximisation with production complementarities? In this chapter, we develop an axiomatic characterisation of such behaviour and provide an easy-to-apply test for the hypothesis which can be employed in an empirical analysis.

Dans cette thèse, après avoir expliqué l'historique et les concepts principaux de l’organisation lean dans différents contextes, le monde des systèmes complexes est exploré, puis il est montré pourquoi le lean est lui-même un système complexe. Un modèle novateur du lean est proposé sous forme d'ontologie, le Lean Organization Framework (LOF), qui peut être appliqué à toutes les formes d’organisations. Le LOF est testé avec celles qui ont déjà été explorées, proposant ainsi des pistes d’amélioration (lean pour la fabrication, pour l’IT, pour les soins de santé, pour la fonction publique, pour les organisations non gouvernementales, pour les start-ups et pour l’éducation). Il peut également être appliqué à de nouveaux domaines d’activités avec l’aide d’experts dans ces domaines, une approche montrée avec les exemples nouveaux d’une fondation lean et de l’architecture d’entreprise lean (Lean EA) mais aussi en comparant l’organisation lean au système immunitaire, un exemple bien connu de système complexe. Ensuite, un modèle de processus lean est proposé, présentant les propriétés émergentes d’un système complexe, le hoshin kanri (gestion des objectifs de l’organisation), y compris dans sa dimension culturelle. Les résultats de son expérimentation pratique avec l’application eHoshin sont discutés et un premier prototype en open source est présenté, déjà utilisé à ce jour par une centaine d’organisations dans le monde. Une seconde expérimentation plus robuste dans l’industrie (Toyota, dans plusieurs fonctions et entités juridiques) est exposée. Le modèle théorique est enfin amélioré sur base des résultats obtenus. En annexe, les concepts du lean sont expliqués avec leur application à six domaines de connaissance différents et les programmes de simulations sont listés. / In this thesis, after explaining the history and main concepts of the lean organization in various contexts, the world of complex systems is explored, then it is shown why the lean organization is itself a Complex System. A novel model of lean is proposed as an ontology, the Lean Organization Framework (LOF), which can be applied to all forms of organizations. The LOF is tested with those already explored (Lean Manufacturing, Lean IT, Lean Healthcare, Lean Government, Lean NGO, Lean Start-Up, Lean Education) and proposes ways to enhance them. It can also be applied to new domains with the help of subject matter experts, an approach that is checked with the novel cases of a Lean Foundation and Lean Enterprise Architecture (Lean EA), but also with the comparison of the lean organization with the immune system, a well-known Complex System example. Then, a model of lean process presenting the emergent properties of a Complex System is proposed: the hoshin kanri, or management of the organization objectives, including in its cultural dimension. The results of its practical implementation with the eHoshin application are discussed and a first open source prototype already used by around one hundred organizations in the world is explained. A second, more robust implementation in the industry is presented (at Toyota, extended to several departments and legal entities). Finally, the theoretical model is improved based on the experimentation results. In the appendices, the lean concepts are explained together with their application to six domains of knowledge and the simulation programs are listed.

In recent years, rapid changes in markets including outsourcing and globalisation of trade and production systems have led to a dramatic upsurge of interest in retail logistics with the aim to minimise operational and logistics costs, improve responsiveness and ameliorate customer services. The notable massification and commodification of production and consumption have created structural changes in traditional urban distribution systems with the establishment of peripheral transshipment and hub systems. In the light of sustainable development, green logistics and transparency on emissions have become a further requirement conforming to the times with a special focus being placed on the logistics of collecting, processing and recycling waste materials. This has increased the need to develop more efficient and effective city distribution plans and to establish optimised logistics models which will integrate the delivery of materials and the collection of waste and returns in order to reduce congestion, costs and emissions. To this end, this thesis aims to investigate opportunities to improve existing delivery mechanisms in a dedicated shopping centre in the UK in order to minimise freight activity and emissions, while optimising the reverse flow system for product returns and waste. Using a substantial database of logistics operations compiled for 92 businesses in Southampton’s shopping centre, the study aimed to understand the current opportunities to better utilise the existing back-load capacity and assess the potential logistical and environmental savings that could arise from the use of a peripheral consolidation centre for core goods and waste. Following statistical analysis on WestQuay managers, logistics providers, waste contractors and head offices responses it was found that the fill rates of delivery vehicles were considerably low and therefore there was a great potential to increase back-load rates and consolidation among loads of different businesses. In examining the waste and return flows it was found that there were already centrally managed collections of general waste and some recyclables and therefore further opportunities to reduce the logistics and environmental impact would lie into the consolidation of forward traffic and the back-loading of specific waste streams such as hazardous materials. The examination however of specific case study examples exhibited the variety in the characteristics and properties of hazardous wastes and the role of material-specific legislation on the way different waste streams should be managed and disposed of which limited the collaboration opportunities among businesses producing different waste streams. Instead the study highlighted the considerable transport, environmental and economic gains that could be achieved by individual businesses through the use of regional waste contractors and recycling sites. With regard to the consolidation of forward flows, the study reviewed a number of existing consolidation schemes and their characteristics to identify potential strengths, weaknesses and risks that would impact on the operation of a consolidation centre in the outskirts of Southampton. Various scenarios regarding the operation of the consolidation scheme were examined considering different take up combinations among different vehicle modes and loads. The scenario analysis suggested that the establishment of the consolidation centre could offer great opportunities to reduce the overall urban freight activity, while mitigating the environmental impacts and cutting down the total costs to businesses.

During the last twenty years, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence Models [BEMs] have been very attractive to organisations as an improvement strategy, as there has been a push by governments to encourage this trend in both public and private sector organisations through the development of national quality awards. There remain difficulties in the successful implementation of BEMs, as there have been high implementation failures rates in various industrial settings. It appears that these failures have been the result of a failure to identify key influential factors that might be incorporated into organisations’ BEM implementation guidelines. Therefore, this research attempts to identify the key influential factors for the successful implementation of a BEM and then examines the role of these factors when they are incorporated with the implementation strategy of a BEM in a public sector organisation in the United Arab Emirates, the Abu Dhabi Police. The research takes a mixed-methods approach including a systematic literature review, a questionnaire survey of 300 employees and 25 interviews with top managers and BEM implementation team members in the Abu Dhabi Police. The quantitative data is assessed using descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. A paired-samples t-test is used to compare perceptions and the actual presence of key influential factors. Additionally, the correlation between these factors and the implementation efficiency of the BEM is investigated by using a Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis. The interviews are also subjected to thematic analysis. The key findings are that there are 18 key influential factors which significantly impacted on the successful implementation of the BEM in this public sector organisation; therefore they should be considered as a whole during any such implementation. These factors can be grouped into associated stages of commitment, implementation and measurement, leading to the development of a conceptual framework to be used as a roadmap for the implementation of BEMs by public sector organisations.

Demands for producing small components are increasing. Such components are usually produced using large-size conventional machining tools. This results in the inadequate usage of resources, including energy, space and time. In the 1990s, the concept of a microfactory was introduced in order to achieve better usage of these resources by scaling down the size of the machine tool itself. Several industries can benefit from implementing such a concept, such as the medical, automotive and electronics industries. A novel architecture for a reconfigurable micro-manufacturing cell (RMC) is presented in this research, aiming at delivering certain manufacturing strategies such as point of use (POU) and cellular manufacturing (CM) as well as several capabilities, including modularity, reconfigurability, mobility and upgradability. Unlike conventional machine tools, the proposed design is capable of providing several machining processes within a small footprint (500 mm2), yet processing parts within a volume up to 100 mm3. In addition, it delivers a rapid structure and process reconfiguration while achieving a micromachining level of accuracy. The approach followed in developing the system is highly iterative with several feedback loops. It was deemed necessary to adopt such an approach to ensure that not only was the design relevant, but also that it progresses the state-of-the-art and takes into account the many considerations in machine design. Following this approach, several design iterations have been developed before reaching a final design that is capable of delivering the required manufacturing qualities and operational performance. A prototype has been built based on the specifications of the selected design iteration, followed by providing a detailed material and components selection process and assembly method before running a performance assessment analysis of the prototype. At this stage, a correlation between the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) model and prototype has been considered, aiming at studying the level of performance of the RMC when optimising the design in the future. Then, based on the data collected during each stage of the design process, an optimisation process was suggested to improve the overall performance of the system, using computer aided design and modelling (CAD/CAM) tools to generate, analyse and optimise the design.