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KEY WORDS
Lean manufacturing, scio-technical systems
SUMMARY
Most companies attempting to implement lean manufacturing have focused on the manufacturing process (the technical system) and have ignored the organizational factors (the social system) of the change management process. This has resulted in the less than complete success they have experienced in their efforts to become lean. The authors of this paper will present a socio-technical approach for evaluating and managing both the technical and organizational factors necessary for the successful implementation of lean manufacturing.
INTRODUCTION
America's manufacturing firms face unprecedented pressure for change as a result of combined economic and technological forces. As companies increasingly compete globally, firms face increasing pressure to supply products that meet ever more stringent cost, quality, and delivery requirements. The drive toward agility in manufacturing (i.e., the capacity for fast response to market and other changes) also means that firms must cope with the need for continuous improvements in product and process design, while simultaneously reducing the cost and time required to achieve these improvements. Increasingly rigorous quality standards also require that each generation of new designs have fewer defects than the generation before. These are difficult standards to meet, even for the most able of companies. As a result many organizations have jumped on the lean production bandwagon.
Lean production is a term that was first introduced by Jim Womack, Dan Jones and Dan Roos in their book "The Machine That Changed The World." Lean manufacturing describes the production system that Eiji Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno developed at the Toyota Motor Company in Japan.
Lean production, compared with mass production, "uses less of everything... half the human effort in the factory, half the manufacturing space, half the investment in tools, half the engineering hours to develop a new product in half the time." "Also, it requires keeping far less than half the inventory on site, results in many fewer defects, and produces a greater and ever growing variety of products." It is no wonder that a great many manufacturing companies around the world are trying to become lean producers.
"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."
The widespread interest and activity in lean manufacturing closely resembles the quality movement in the United States in...