PurposeToyota had mature lean capabilities when developing its supplier network. This paper aims to explore how companies can develop a Toyota-style supplier network (TSN) while their lean capabilities are still evolving. Design/methodology/approachTheoretically, this paper relies on the literature on lean maturity levels and lean supplier network development. Empirically, the paper portrays a Toyota-style initiative, detailing the buyer's efforts to develop internal lean capabilities concurrently with developing lean in its supplier network. It compares the Network for supplier innovation (NSI) initiative with TSN development regarding activities, organizations and knowledge-sharing routines. FindingsUnlike the sequential development in the case of Toyota, NSI improved performance and capabilities in the buyer's supplier network by implementing lean in the firm and its supplier network concurrently. Third-party involvement was the key to the initiative's success. Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are based on an in-depth single-case study which allows theoretical generalization but not statistical generalization. Furthermore, the case study concerns an initiative with Norwegian firms during a financial recession. Future studies should consider these limitations on how firms with evolving lean capabilities can develop a TSN-style supplier network and the importance of involving third parties operating in the role of lean master. Practical implicationsThis study suggests what buying firms should consider when designing a TSN initiative, enrolling suppliers and engaging third parties that can take on the role of lean master. Originality/valuePrevious research has focused on how mature lean firms develop lean suppliers and networks. This paper extends this to firms whose lean capabilities are still evolving.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate how Toyota Kata can be effectively applied in the engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing within the construction industry. The objective is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for the Toyota Kata implementation in this environment and to develop a continuous improvement (CI) method – based on Toyota Kata and adapted to the ETO manufacturing within the construction industry. Design/methodology/approach An action research (AR) approach was applied, which includes a participatory form of inquiry and learning from both intended and unintended outcomes, while simultaneously building up scientific knowledge about successful implementation of Toyota Kata. Findings All the CSFs in the AR project are addressed by the earlier literature, thus confirming the existing body of knowledge. Moreover, the existing knowledge was arguably extended through the modified Toyota Kata as an approach for CI. New elements regarding how to run the small experiments by extending the core team with personnel who work with the problem on a daily basis. Originality/value This research addresses a gap identified in the literature regarding how Toyota Kata can be adapted to the ETO manufacturing within the construction industry. It also presents an overview of CSFs for the Toyota Kata implementation in this environment.

Through qualitative case research involving two cases of digital lean implementation projects, we identify and explicate how grit, vision, and pragmatism (as enablers) and technology maturity, implementability, and idiosyncrasy (as barriers) interact with and affect strategic digitalization initiatives. Seemingly-paradoxical strategic approaches to digitalization emerge from the associations between the enablers and barriers with micro-foundations in continuous learning and purposeful implementation—in other words, a lean mindset. Lean thinking changes how firms work with production processes and practices, approach management culture, envision the larger operational landscape, and manage strategy. In today’s business environment, firms need to consider how to make digital technologies fit their own strategic and operational priorities. The contribution of this study is its presentation of strategic digitalization as a lean approach to competitive differentiation.

Advances in manufacturing technology made plastics comparatively inexpensive, light, mouldable and durable. The great success of plastics comes along with a strong negative environmental impact and their accumulation in landfills and leakage into the natural environment is now recognized as a global environmental crisis. The circular economy approach to plastics provides a feasible solution to the prevailing linear system and aims to raise the proportion of plastic that is reused or recycled back into the system. The transition towards a circular economy, cannot be achieved solely through changes within the waste-handling system but must be combined with changes in other parts of the value chain, including the design, the manufacturing, etc. Plastic manufacturing companies need support in the transition. Therefore, this study aims to provide knowledge to plastics companies to move from linear towards circular manufacturing processes. We conduct a systematic literature review examining current practices and research needs in circularity within the plastics industry. This study contributes to the literature by mapping circularity strategies in plastics, explaining innovative circular plastic materials, and highlighting current circular manufacturing technologies such as additive manufacturing and the chemical transformation of waste plastics into various value-added chemical feedstocks, which can replace petrochemicals. Additionally, circular pathways are illustrated to support practitioners in identifying their current position in the value chain and understanding pathways to increase circularity. One of the key conclusions is that circular plastic value chains are still deficient in the implementation of R-strategies (such as rethinking, reducing, reusing, etc.) besides recycling.

Traditional lean tools such as value stream mapping (VSM) do not account for environmental benefits. Simultaneously, life cycle assessment (LCA) does not account for improving manufacturing performance. Given the advent of the concept of sustainable development as an approach to fulfill the needs of the world's population without destroying the planet, integration of environmental benefits and manufacturing performance presents the next frontier of the industrial improvement. LCA can be integrated with VSM to ensure a sustainable development of the manufacturing industry. This paper presents a review of literature on integration of the tools-LCA and VSM. The reviews show that the main motivation factor is to enhance sustainable development. Further, a key finding is the benefit as a guide for decision making, fostering of a systematically improvement focus and increased engagement expanding the focus to include the sustainable aspect in addition to traditional lean measures. This is enabled through a systematically approach with assessing and visualization of the production process performance from a sustainable viewpoint.

Successfully completed construction projects with regards to quality, time consumed, and cost are the main concern focus of the construction industry. Thus, there is a growing attention to continuous improvement programs dealing with the streamlining of material and information flows and the minimization of waste in all processes at a construction site. Unfortunately, many companies are struggling with this, and the continuous improvement programs fails. Drawing on an action research case study involving a leading Norwegian construction company and their key suppliers, this study aims to identify enablers and inhibitors influencing the implementation process of a specific continuous improvement method – Toyota Kata. The aim was to learn from the implementation process to avoid pitfalls and to know what to solve, increasing the likelihood of success. The case is a housebuilding project where the case companies collaborate on common improvement tasks. Main enablers identified is the importance of having a common area for collaboration between actors in a value chain to solve common problems and application of a systematically approach ensuring learning and lasting improvement. The main inhibitors are lack of culture for CI and Kata is not a part of a management system such as Lean Construction, enabling to involvement of the entire workforce in the CI process. The results of this study can help managers and practitioners to address the identified enablers and inhibitors, paving the way for successful implementation of Kata.

Industry 4.0 technologies with the vision of smart factories will dominate the manufacturing industry for the next decades. Hence, the application of digital technologies of modern IT and communication technologies to enable machines, products, and human being exchanging information with each other will be of high importance. Consequently, more complex manufacturing processes will evolve and affecting the interplay of humans and technology. Thus, we argue that the competence needed for the future will change to successfully integrate industry 4.0 technologies.

The expectations of Norwegian citizens with respect to the quality, availability, and effectiveness of public healthcare and welfare service provided by municipalities, are rising. Public resources are at the same time limited. This increased pressure is, however, an encouragement to optimize organizations and improve productivity and on delivering high-quality service. It is well known from the manufacturing industry that lean as an approach has achieved outstanding results regard to this. Thus, the aim of this study is to explore the translation process of new organizational idea of lean into the municipality, enabling to meet future increasing demand. The translation is carried out through a collaboration between a private actor and the municipality, where the private actor contributes with knowledge and skills about lean in a manufacturing industry context. An in-depth, exploratory single case study was carried out with the aim of understanding how the collaboration process takes place and the factors that drive the translation process. From how lean is rendered to fit the specific context to its meet in the recipient organization. The data material is made up of semi-structured interviews with key personnel from both actors and the analysis of written documentation from the collaboration process. The main drivers identified were being part of the same municipality, competent translation, internal translator to prepare the final translation, and solid anchoring and motivated leadership.

To remain competitive in today’s increasingly dynamic and complex environments, manufacturing enterprises must build resilience to respond to changes quickly. As such, lean production has provided firms with an alternative to "fat and lazy" mass production. In addition, Quick Response Manufacturing has been presented as a credible supplement to lean production, specifically in High Mix, Low Volume environments. Drawing on practical insights from two case studies, we present a Quick-Scan method as an initial step towards creating resilient and responsive value chain strategies. The approach combines manufacturing critical-path time mapping from Quick Response Manufacturing with Gemba-based discovery and learning from Lean - to find, face, and frame real problems, and thereafter form solutions together with managers and front-line personnel. The method has been adopted in both cases as a means of revitalizing operations with the intention of enabling more effective delivery of customer-specific products.

In the journey towards zero defect manufacturing, digital technologies aiming to improve different aspects of production and quality control will be of high importance. This will not replace existing management approaches such as lean manufacturing, including continuous improvement at the shop-floor level. A single case study is performed, where we have examined various aspects that influence a successful continuous improvement for reducing scrap parts and prevent further propagation in interaction with new zero-defect solutions. The aim is to identify the changing roles of the shop-floor operators and we highlight that they still will remain a key part of the system.

The existing wave of improvement in manufacturing industry is strongly driven by the application of digital technologies. Unfortunately, the implementation process is not straightforward. To understand the barriers which hinder a smooth implementation process is essential for successful implementation of digital technologies. Our study aims to identify the major barriers based on a case study performed at six Norwegian manufacturing companies, to know what to solve enabling a smoother implementation process. The findings shows that both technical and organizational aspects are of importance to consider, where the organizational aspects are seen as the most underestimated. The lack of digital competence alongside underestimated need for organizational development of involved people emerges as prominent barriers. Some technical problems were also pertinent, like system integration. Sharing of data was seen as a potential asset, but both legal, strategic and technical issues hampered this. The results of this study may help managers and practitioners to address the major barriers highlighted, paving the way for successful implementation and integration of digital technologies in the manufacturing industry.

Continuous improvement (CI) is a fundamental part of lean thinking and practice and will remain critical for the success of manufacturing firms during the fourth industrial revolution. The realization of CI is based on the active participation and involvement of the firm’s entire workforce – with everybody making incremental improvements, every day. This of course includes shop floor operators. In this paper, we explore various aspects that influence the successful involvement of shop floor operators in CI activities, by adopting a case study approach. The case company has achieved only partial success with CI on the shop floor, despite repeated efforts. As a result of the study, several organizational factors emerge as critical success factors for securing involvement and engagement of operators in CI, with positive results. Raising awareness of these critical factors may help manufacturing firms adopt an alternative approach to CI which promises to increase the level of operator participation in CI.

The main interface in human-machine interaction is identification and visualization technologies. In the future, more automated data analysis is needed so that data can be continuously aggregated, so that value added information is produced and that knowledge is extracted from this information that can improve the productivity and the quality of a product. Visualization of real-time production data in a user-friendly manner is, more specifically, a basis for decision-making for overall equipment losses. This research is based on a case study which aims to provide insight into how to successfully increase useful and user-friendly digital decision-making human-machine interaction support that can enable the improvement of overall equipment efficiency.

Digital Lean Manufacturing has emerged as a new approach to Lean Production, combining lean thinking and practice with the new opportunities presented by innovative digital technologies and Industry 4.0 concepts. However, this combined approach also raises certain challenges for the manufacturing industry. In this paper, we explore both the challenges and opportunities presented to manufacturers in light of digitalization contra Lean Manufacturing, with a specific focus on Production Planning and Control. Drawing on insights from four diverse explorative industrial cases studies, we identify the challenges and opportunities experienced by manufacturers embarking on a journey towards Digital Lean Manufacturing and highlight important avenues for further research.

High global competition forces manufacturers to continuously aim for optimizing their processes. Identifying and eliminating waste and streamlining the value chain, are the main objective of lean. Therefore, many companies use this tool to provide an optimized value chain. However, it is often seen that the interfaces in between the process steps are forgotten. Based on empirical data from five different organizations from different industries, the following question will be addressed: In what way does lean contribute to achieve value chain integration?

In response to the continual pressure on health and social services worldwide, there has been a demand for innovation in this sector. One area of interest has been collaboration between public and private actors in developing new solutions for service delivery. So far, knowledge of how such private-public innovation (PPI) processes emerge has been limited. We studied barriers to PPI, focusing on how transaction costs influence the innovation process. We conducted a single case study, following the collaborative efforts of a Norwegian municipality and a local fire and rescue company searching for new care service delivery models. The data consist of interviews with central stakeholders and documents from the PPI process. The findings add to the knowledge on barriers in public-private innovation by highlighting transaction costs as a factor influencing the PPI process. An increased awareness of transaction costs throughout the innovation process may be important in planning and resource allocation. Findings from this case study may be useful in the development and implementation of innovative ideas. Our case illustrates the need for organisational change in service innovation. A focus on transaction costs can provide a useful tool for analysing necessary structures and their consequences when beginning PPI initiatives.

The ability to acquire and utilize new knowledge within an inter-organizational context is considered a key factor for gaining competitive advantage. This study aims at investigating how organizations do cross-border collaboration in the context of realizing Industry 4.0 principles at the operational level. The ever demand for advances in products, processes and systems, in a symbioses of product- and service performance, require new skills and knowledge at both organizational and inter-organizational level. This study investigates three case companies, and their maintenance departments, in order to understand if and how their role has changed in parallel with the adaption and implementation of Industry 4.0.

Due to global competition, manufacturers constantly aim for improving their processes [1]. To achieve this, a continuous improvement [CI] work is necessary. To improve a process, different presumptions must be in place as: 1. Product and processes must be well defined and with right specifications according to customer requirements. 2.What constitutes a non-conformity should be unmistakable if right specifications and precise measuring is possible. 3. The root cause of the non-conformity must be possible to identify. And finally, 4. The root cause can be eliminated. This article aims to shed light on possible challenges in succeeding with the CI process.

Lean management remains the most popular approach to operational excellence within industry. The next wave of industrial improvement is widely considered to be driven by the application of digital technologies. Organizations are seeking to understand how the two approaches can be utilized synergistically. This paper aims to sketch the landscape for current theories and managerial challenges facing Lean and digital transformation based on Lean principles with respect to organizational design, supply chain planning, decision systems and supplier relationships. We raise fundamental questions that should be addressed by future research in the field of digital lean manufacturing and lean digital transformations.

The ability to innovate and introduce new products faster is critical to maintain a competitive position internationally in an increasingly dynamic marketplace. Shorter product life cycles and increased competition makes open innovation strategies a viable way of reducing research and development costs for companies. Open innovation includes inter-company and intra-company process and activities like cooperation in extensive networks, knowledge management, managerial activities, team formation and individual motivation. Therefore, this study is based on empirical research thorough using questionnaire-based survey and semi-structured interviews, examines various aspects that influence successful open innovation projects. Data was collected from a sample within the Norwegian metal forming industry, making advanced structural components for different industrial sectors, such as automotive, building and construction, offshore and marine. The study will report on open innovation types practices among these companies, as well as how they manage their intra-company activities for successful innovation management. Both small and medium-sized enterprise’s as well as large multinational corporations are part of the study.