A Study of the Impact of Lean on UK Manufacturing Organisations : Lean to be observed as more than a manufacturing system - it needs to become an ideology

Despite the term "Lean" being invented over twenty five years ago by Krafcik (1988), there still remains inaccurate representations of it as a concept. The endeavours to provide a transparent understanding of its ideology have largely been comparatively bewildering. The book promotes that when embraced as a philosophy as opposed to another process or strategy that Lean enables a superior performance level for the respective organisation. The DMP Model (Maltz et al., 2003) was modified to perform this role. In accepting the premise that Lean incorporates a journey, it was fundamental to identify the voyage. Prevalent frameworks are deficient in identifying the sustainability and ideological facets of Lean. Consequently, an extensive Lean audit was developed and piloted in twenty disparate organisations. This was tremendously enlightening to organisations since it assisted to clarify the passageway should they wish to embrace Lean as a philosophy. An unremitting theme both in literature concerning the implementation of Lean and in the research evolves around the notion of corporate cultures. Its relevance is explored further in context of the successful Lean implementation rates.