A domain model for capturing knowledge of the Lean approach

Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, Feb 2019

Purpose: Lean approach is widely recognized today as an effective approach to process management and more specifically to performance improvement of processes. However, there is an ambiguity around this approach, which leads to the failure of several companies to achieve their desired objectives.Design/methodology/approach: The objective of this paper is to clarify Lean approach by proposing a domain model that describes Lean concepts and the relations between them. The development of this model consists in following the steps: (i) identification of concepts, (ii) identification of relations, and (iii) construction of model.Findings: This paper proposes a domain model to provide a clearer vision that improves and unifies the understanding of Lean approach to ensure its effective application to business processes.Originality/value: The domain model allows to remove any ambiguity and to successfully implement the Lean approach in order to achieve the desired objectives by emphasizing its concepts and the relationships between them.

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A domain model for capturing knowledge of the Lean approach

Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management JIEM 2013-0953 A Domain Model for Capturing Knowledge of the Lean Approach Younes Tiamaz 0 Nissrine Souissi 1 0 Mohammed V University , Morocco 1 Mines-Rabat School , Morocco Purpose: The literature offers many definitions of the Lean but it lacks a standard definition that would facilitate its implementation. These definitions are closely related to the specificities of the domain, sector or problem studied. The purpose of this paper is to capture the concepts of the Lean to propose a generic definition independent of the application domain. Design/methodology/approach: Eighteen Lean systematic literature reviews in different domains have been studied in this paper to understand the Lean and capture the concepts thoroughly. These reviews reviewed a total of more than 2171 articles. Findings: This paper presents a new reading of the Lean. A Lean domain model has been established to represent the concepts and their interactions. Research limitations/implications: This research is limited by the papers indexed in the Scopus database and presenting a systematic literature review. Originality/value: A reference model of the Lean lacks in the literature. The proposed domain model clarifies the Lean and provides a holistic view that is valid in all domains. Lean approach; process management; improvement; domain model; knowledge; UML 1. Introduction Lean manufacturing was originally developed in Japan by Toyota, where it was known as the Toyota Production System (Herron & Hicks, 2008). Krafcik (1988) is the first who used the term Lean in an attempt to generalize Toyota?s work but it was thanks to Womack, Jones and Roos (1990), the term ?Lean manufacturing? or ?Lean production? became favorite for designating the Toyota production system as a new manufacturing paradigm unlike Fordism (Danese, Manf? & Romano, 2018; Henrique & Filho, 2018) . Although the Lean concept was born more than 20 years ago, the attraction of the Lean as a field of research continues to grow (Danese et al., 2018). The primary objective of the Lean approach is to produce better quality products at the lowest cost and in less time by eliminating waste (Dennis, 2007; Liker, 1997) . Lean is a process improvement approach used to deliver products and services more efficiently, faster and at a lower cost (Laureani & Antony, 2017). It is considered the new most influential paradigm in the industrial domain (Forrester, Kazumi-Shimizu, Soriano?Meier, -Garza?Reyes & Cruz-Basso, 2010). Lean research, application and thinking have evolved from the Japanese automotive industry into a holistic value system applicable to all business sectors, both private and public (Samuel, Found & Williams, 2015) . Lean is based on five main principles: defining the value, identifying the value chain for each product/service, identifying waste, promoting continuous flows, introducing pull flow, seeking perfection (Womack & Jones, 2003). Afterwards, Liker (2004) proposed 14 Lean principles and grouped them into 4Ps: ?Philosophy?; ?Process?; ?People and Partners?; and ?Problem Solving?. There are over a hundred Lean practices available and practiced by industries (Pavnaskar, Gershenson & Jambekar, 2003; Rose, Deros, Rahman & Nordin, 2011) . Various interpretations have explicitly evolved to ?lean? and its philosophy, principles, and related measures (Stone, 2012a) . Hines, Holweg and Rich (2004) pointed out that the researchers use various definitions for the Lean term, so there is no standard terminology. Literature presents significant studies on the Lean (Belayutham, Gonz?lez & Yiu, 2016; Collar, Shuman, Feiner, McGonegal, Heidel, Duck et al., 2012; Duska, Mueller, Lothamer, Pelkofski & Novicoff, 2015; Rohani & Zahraee, 2015; Sutari, 2015) . Many companies can successfully implement the Lean approach, but others have not achieved the expected results (Bhasin & Burcher, 2006; Staats, Brunner & Upton, 2011) . Dombrowski and Mielke (2013), Liker, Convis and Meskimen (2014 ) and Orr (2005) also reported that the businesses achieve significant results by implementing the Lean tools only in Lean?s early years, and improvements stagnate sooner or later. Casey (2009) reported that the traditional Lean paradigm is reflected in nearly two-thirds of failed implementations, while only 16.67% of implementations can achieve sustainable results - less than twelve months though. This failure is due mainly to the definition of the Lean, which is very elusive and the lack of a clear definition has many consequences for practitioners seeking to implement Lean as well as researchers attempting to capture its essence (Pettersen, 2009) . Also, Mostafa, Dumrak and Soltan (2013 ) highlighted that the main reason of unattainability of the lean benefits is the incomplete understanding of the lean concepts and the purpose of the lean practices. Lean has evolved in the industry and has subsequently been adopte (...truncated)


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Younes Tiamaz, Nissrine Souissi. A domain model for capturing knowledge of the Lean approach, Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, 2019, pp. 83-96, Volume 12, Issue 1, DOI: 10.3926/jiem.2660