Using Lean Thinking Concepts For Eliminating Waste & Knowledge Creating Flow Barriers (The Iranian Organizations Case Study)  Fulltext 

[ Farshid Abdi ] - Iran, Azad University (Tehran south branch) Scool of Industrial & systems Eng

خلاصه مقاله:

Lean Thinking has been the dominant improvement philosophy in the production organisations. According to a report from Quality Progress Magazine more than 40% of the improvement activities, that were implemented in developed countries in the year 2004, were based on this philosophy. Our innovation in this paper is combining lean thinking principles with knowledge creating throughout the organisation. "The organisation that is aiming at stepping in the knowledge-based era", in Stephen Covey and Peter Drucker points of view. The most significant principle in lean thinking approach is identifying and eliminating "waste" or "Muda" according to what Japanese say . Waste includes any activity that absorbs resources but does not result in any added value. In lean thinking technical resources eight types of waste have been pointed out so far. But no allusion has been made to the ninth waste or Muda.
The ninth muda ,that's in its turn considered as another innovation in this paper,is the disorder in learning ability and knowledge transfer in different ,Individual , team and organisation levels. For becoming lean and fluent(smooth) in knowledge creating flow ,it is absolutely necessary to eliminate (remove) this Muda as well as the others. In this paper this Muda is conceptualized according to the points of view of the Iranian Organisations' Managers and, an improvement method is defined(specified) for each of the obstacles. That's why this paper has got contribution in combining lean thinking and knowledge creating ideas in the organisation.