Abstract Our purpose for making this study is to study the implementation, the use of and the effects of Lean within our case objects.  We chose to make this thesis by case studies. The three themes mentioned above is also the main research questions that we aim to find an answer to by this study. We have chosen to do a cross section analysis where we conducted structured interviews to find answers to these questions. The theoretical reference frame consists partly of traditional theoreticians within Lean but also more recent research within the subject as well as theory specifically for Lean within the Health Care sector. The result of this study shows in all our case studies that the Management has been supporting the implementation, but that the implementation process proceeds faster if also the professionals are involved in the process.  To succeed with the implementation there is a great need for good reasons and strives that can benefit the professionals. By the use of Lean our case studies have evaluated its processes, with the main intentions being to reduce waste activities and to create flows with “pull systems”. The effects are that the internal processes have been clearly improved. Partly regarding quality, but foremost regarding time savings in terms of less waste activities. This has been done through factors like increasing the internal co-operations. The level of acceptance within the personal has large influence on the effects of the use of Lean, which leads back to the importance of a good implementation process. This study has covered many parts of Lean and our motive has been to analyze, without having the motive of doing an evaluation of Lean as a concept. The effects of capital tied up in warehouses, the economical measures and how the economical interaction between the hospitals and the politic world works is what we have focuses least on. These parts we recommend as future research. For future research we can also mention case studies of where the objects have implemented Lean within the whole organization (health care). It could be interesting to follow the patient from the emergency room, through the nursing process until the final stop of being discharged. We see the definition “customer value” as an ambiguous term. Is it enough to reduce what is not of value for the customer or should one give the costumer quality above what is expected? It would be interesting to study this through interviews with customers to companies who are using Lean. / Sammanfattning Vårt syfte med studien är att genom en kvalitativ studie på våra fallstudieobjekt studera implementeringen av Lean, användningen av Lean samt vilka effekter man kan se av Lean. Detta är också de huvudfrågeställningar vi vill ha besvarade. Metoden är en tvärsnittsstudie där vi utfört strukturerade intervjuer för att besvara våra frågeställningar. Den teoretiska referensramen består bl a av traditionella teoretiker inom Lean men också senare forskning på området kompletterat med teori som är specifik för Lean i sjukvården. Vi har i studien kommit fram till att alla våra studieobjekt har haft ledningens stöd i implementeringen, men att dess process påskyndas betydligt när man får med de professionella i implementeringen. För det behövs skäl och drivkrafter med implementeringen som de professionella kan se fördelar av. Användningen av Lean har lett till att man sett över sina processer med det huvudsakliga arbetet att reducera slöseriaktiviteter och att skapa flöden med drag-system. Effekterna är att de interna processerna förbättrats avsevärt, delvis kvalité men framför allt tidsbesparingar i bl a form av färre slöseriaktiviteter genom bl a ökade interna samarbeten. Hur väl personalen accepterar Lean har stor påverkan på hur stora effekterna blir, vilket leder tillbaka till hur viktig implementeringen är. Vi har gjort en studie som täckt många delar av Lean och som vi analyserat utan att ha som syfte att utvärdera Lean. Lagrets påverkan, de ekonomiska måtten och hur det ekonomiska samspelet sker mellan sjukhus och politiken är det vi lagt minst fokus och som vi rekommenderar som fortsatt forskning. Som fortsatt forskning kan även nämnas studieobjekt som implementerat Lean i hela organisationen - inom sjukvård vore av intresse att följa patientens väg från akuten via inskrivning/vård till utskrivning. Definitionen ”kundens värde” ser vi som ett tvetydligt begrepp – räcker det att reducera det som inte är av värde för kunden eller bör man förse kunden med kvalité den inte kan förvänta sig? Intressant vore att studera det utifrån intervjuer med kunder till företag som använder Lean.

Comments and Discussions: Soemon TAKAKUWA (高桑 宗右ヱ門)

Today's world is characterized by volatility and uncertainty. Cooperation is needed to survive in this harsh business climate. Cooperation in supply chains are practiced and well known but in today's tough and volatile environment it is simply not enough. Wastes and unnecessary processes have to be eliminated to secure a competitive advantage. Incorporating lean in supply chains get more and more attention and embrace in the modern literature and media. Lean implemented in supply chains is praised to create a proactive supply chain that successfully eliminate waste and create efficiency. In the thesis the negative aspects, the angle that is very seldom described in the literature, of incorporating lean in supply chain is researched. I will view lean from the management perspective and research the negative aspects, their cause and impact on the entire supply chain. Being aware of the criticism of lean from the employee and society perspective this research serves to find if lean from the management perspective is a flawless story. To achieve the aim of this thesis I conducted a survey research where 100 supply chain executives from different countries, different industries and of different designations within supply chain management were asked to share their lean experience. The summary of my research show that lean incorporated in supply chains is not only a sunshine story. I can conclude problems, even a mismatch, with the lean concept incorporated in supply chains- the time sensibility lean brings. In my research it became obvious that lean supply chains are very sensitive to delays and that the consequences of the delays will strike very hard - hence the lean supply chain can also be seen as more vulnerable and fragile compared to ordinary supply chains. There is no question about the fact that any company, any network of companies or a supply chain for that matter, are better off without delays. A delay will always be negative. In a lean environment, where time aspects such as Just-In-Time and a pull scenario are present, a delay will immediately ruin the entire execution and the consequences will naturally spread in the supply chain. In today's volatile and ever changing world I believe that leanness in supply chains are indeed needed but to an extent where the time factors are viewed realistically in order to avoid drastic consequences. My conclusion is that supply chains should be realistically lean, bearing the time factors of lean in mind, to avoid being mean. I encourage every supply chain to identify their lean level in order to avoid a mean result.

TCG is a small real estate investment and property management company that seeks to go through a lean transformation to simplify and improve its processes. The main purpose for any business developing a lean business structure is to focus organizational resources on eliminating waste and optimize business processes to become more productive. The main objective of this thesis will be to identify problem areas in TCG’s property management process and provide an improvement plan based on lean methodologies. In addition, this thesis will propose a five-year financial plan based on TCG’s current financial state as well as new capital investments and process improvement goals. / text

Syftet: Syftet med denna studie är att skapa förståelse för varför onödig efterfrågan uppstår på Telefonbanken. Teoretisk och empirisk metod: Det har gjorts en kvalitativ studie med en abduktiv ansats vilket innebär att vi arbetat med teorin och sedan återvänt till empirin för att se dess betydelse för teorin. Observationer och intervjuer är metoder som används för datainsamlingen. Respondenterna utgörs av bankkunder i en enskild bank som har valts ut med hänsyn till om de varit i kontakt med banken ett flertal gånger med samma ärende. Dessa kunder har vi kunnat identifiera med hjälp utav deltagande observationer. Teoretisk referensram: Studien har till stor del utgått från Lean production konceptet. Det är ett koncept om hur aktiviteter förbrukar resurser men som inte tillför något värde. Lean production fokuserar till stor del på tillverkande företag men kan även tillämpas på tjänsteföretag, detta genom begreppet Lean service. Slutsats: Resultatet av denna studie har varit den upplevde otydligheten och missförståndet kring kommunikationen mellan kunden och banken. Det finns även indikationer på svårigheter att navigera i bankens system. Detta tyder på att den onödiga efterfrågan uppstår på grund av bankens ärendehantering och kommunikation med kunderna.

Syfte: Syftet med studien är att ta reda på hur Lean passar i vården genom att studera framgångsfaktorer och kartlägga eventuella utmaningar samt att ge en ökad förståelse för vårdens Leanarbete. Metod: För att uppnå syftet med studien lämpar sig en kvalitativ metodinriktning bäst. För att öka förståelsen för hur Lean passar i vården har en fallstudie genomförts, där tio verksamheter inom Landstinget i Värmland har studerats. Ett sätt att samla in data för denna studie har varit att genomföra semistrukturerade intervjuer med respondenter inom varje verksamhet och detta ligger till grund för empirin. Referensramen har arbetats fram med hjälp av vetenskapliga artiklar och böcker. Slutsats: Studien visar, att Lean som ursprungligen konstruerades för den japanska bilindustrin, mycket väl kan användas i vården, men måste anpassas till vårdens behov. Gammal ledningsstruktur, invanda roller och oförutsägbarhet är hinder som måste överbryggas för att Leanarbetet ska fungera optimalt. Genom att ta ett steg i taget kan helheten till slut förändras.

In an ever changeable and globalized world with new economic and global competitors competing for the same customers and resources, is increasing the pressure on organizations' competitiveness. In addition, organizations faces additional challenges due to an ever-growing amount of data and the ever-bigger challenge of analyzing that data and keeping the data secure. Successful companies are characterized by exploiting their intellectual capital in an efficient manner.[1], [2] Thus, the most valuable asset an organization has today has become its employees' knowledge. To enable this, there is a tool that supports easier handling and optimize the use of knowledge, which is knowledge management.[3] Based on the theoretical framework and careful review as well as analysis of interviews and observations resulted in six essential areas: structure, management, compensation, communication, trust and motivation. The analysis showed that the scientific articles and literature have different perspectives, different definitions and are based on different theories but the essence is that they all finally seems to arrive at the same result and conclusion, although with different viewpoints and perspectives. This is regardless of whether the focus is on management style, rewards or communication they all focus on the individual. The conclusion is that organizational culture affects knowledge management and dissemination of information, because of its direct impact on the individual. The largest and most important underlying factor why we choose to participate in improvement work or share knowledge is our motivation. Motivation is the reason for and the reason behind our actions. The recommendation is therefore a continued effort to provide employees with tools to better communicate and share knowledge. In addition, to further strengthen the motivation of employees an increased presence of management at the shop floor is recommended.  [1] Ichijo & Nonaka, 2007 [2] Tohidinia & Mosakhani, 2010 [3] Wallach, 1983, p.35

Lean is one of the recent years most popular methods for organizations to use in order to increase efficiency, productivity and quality. Despite Lean's increased popularity, Lean is still difficult to define and can be explained and described in different ways. Previous studies have also shown that Lean is difficult to implement and challenging to maintain successfully. Knowledge of Lean is viewed as a necessity in the implementation of Lean, which leads to that organizations often chooses to bring in this knowledge through external consultants or other experts in order to implement Lean in their organization. Thus, it is interesting to examine the consultants view on Lean and the implementation process of Lean. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate the consultants' assumptions about Lean and how the implementation of Lean should be performed in organizations, and what those assumptions are based on. This study is based on three semi-structured interviews with different consulting firms in Sweden. The findings in this study impose that the consultants have a philosophical and strategical view on Lean with some elements of social control. The assumption on that Lean is characterized by a holistic and continuously never ending process. The managers’ ability to create dedication, enthusiasm and motivation among the employees is important during the implementation. Therefore it’s also important for the managers to believe in the Lean concept in order for the implementation of Lean to become successful. Findings in this study show that a coaching aspect is also imposed to be important when working with Lean and implementing of Lean in organizations. Based on these results the paper impose further research on the impact of coaching in conjunction with Lean and implementation of the concept, both with and without the present of consultants.

Den svenska planprocessens effektivitet är ett problematiskt och omdiskuterat ämne. Uppsatsen behandlar effektivisering av den fysiska planeringsprocessen med leanteoretiska begrepp som utgångspunkt. På senare tid har flera alternativa lösningar för effektivisering uppkommit. En av dessa lösningar är lean, en verksamhetsstrategi med ursprung från Toyotas produktionsfilosofi. Uppsatsen utgår ifrån en kvalitativ forskningsmetod med målet att genom intervjuer, offentliga rapporter och litteratur granska den svenska planeringsprocessen och fenomenet lean inom fysisk planering. Uppsatsen utgår ifrån syftet att studera den svenska planeringsprocessens problematik och ifall en verksamhetsfilosofi utvecklad för industriell tillverkning i Japan kan bidra till en effektivare fysisk planeringsprocess i Sverige. Uppsatsen utgår ifrån två empiriska exempel: verksamhetsutveckling av bygglovshantering inspirerat av lean i Norrtälje kommun och en övergripande verksamhetsutveckling inspirerad av lean på stadsbyggnadskontoret i Täby. Resultat tyder på att vägen till att bli lean inte är helt okomplicerad, samtidigt finns det tydliga indikationer på att effektivisering av planprocess med inspiration av Lean har gett goda resultat.

This thesis seeks to find out the impact of Lean manufacturing (LM) on different sectors of process industries.  The theory of this thesis was established mainly on published high-impact scholarly literature, such as books, journals, conferences and theses, as well as several online websites on the subject matters of LM.  Afterwards, several hypotheses were formulated in order to check the findings of the present research regarding the impact om LM implementation on process industry. The research method for testing these hypotheses used in the thesis is to investigate several published case studies on LM in different sectors of the process industry. The findings from the results of these case studies have been substantiated by a case study which was conducted via questionnaire- based interviews in one alcoholic beverage industry.  The thesis reveals the importance of the inherent production process characteristics of each facility that sets out to implement lean as well as the range of expectations and benefits that can be witnessedupon successful employment of the most suitableLM practices. Additionally, attention is drawntowards the necessity of a continuous organization commitmentto the adoption of LM. Future research prospects that stem from the present thesis consist of an analysis of many different lean practices and tools separately, their implementation as well as the impact they would effectuate on differentsectors of the process industry contrary to the combined analysis of the LM tools studied in this thesis. Moreover, while the scope in this thesis was the implementation and the outcome of LM, it would be of interest to investigate the factors that inhibit successful implementation on process industries.