EXPLORATORY REVIEW OF FACTORS THAT AFFECT LEAN IMPLEMENTATION

摘要

Trends of unstable economies along with the increasing impact of globalization and technological development seen in recent decades have led organizations in diverse settings to apply lean initiatives in order to reduce operational costs and remain competitive. Lean is a management philosophy that, when effectively implemented, streamlines workflows by focusing on the value delivered to the customer, thus aiming to eliminate wasteful activities. While the concept of lean enterprises has been studied extensively in the past, only recently has scholarly research put emphasis on identifying the implementation factors to best execute lean, as a response to reports indicating that failure rates of lean implementation are still high. Current studies in this field are mostly concerned with its assessment in manufacturing settings, however, lean can be applied to many sectors. This paper presents the current state of knowledge pertaining to the factors that affect the implementation of lean programs, regardless of organizational setting. Results are obtained by means of a Systematic Literature Review applied to only one database, characterizing this study as exploratory. The 48 factors identified are displayed in terms of citation frequency. Observations on the maturity of this field of research and suggestions for future research are also made.