Lean management is a philosophy focused on identifying and eliminating waste throughout a product’s entire value stream. It originates from the manufacturing system of Japanese automotive manufacturer Toyota and attracted due to its tremendous success widespread attention worldwide. Lean promises significant benefits in terms of waste reduction, and increased organizational and supply chain communication and integration.Generally, in terms of operations and improvements service companies are far behind manufacturing industries. Transferring Lean management concept from the manufacturing shop floor to services might offer opportunities for improvements. Many manufacturing businesses have improved and profited by the use of Lean management methods and tools. Yet the benefits haven’t been as nearly as impressive for service industries applying Lean management principles.The challenge in applying Lean to services is the lack of widely available references for implementing Lean in a service organization. Although some successful examples of Lean implementations in service businesses could be noticed in the past no standardized framework or general guideline was solidified for implementing Lean management in service organizations. In addition, implementing Lean and achieving the levels of organizational commitment, employee autonomy, and information transparency needed to ensure its success is a complicated task.This paper approaches to develop a conceptual framework for implementing Lean management in service organizations. Based on a sound theoretical foundation of Lean management methods in production and considerations about service management, challenges of implementing Lean in a service environment are derived. Ultimately, a conceptual framework is developed to implement Lean management approach in service businesses using a specific set of Lean tools.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kth-102841 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Damrath, Felix |
| Publisher | KTH, Industriell ekonomi och organisation (Avd.) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Examensarbete INDEK ; 2012:125 |
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