Lean Business Systems and Beyond

Lean Manufacturing has proved to be one of the most successful and most powerful production business systems over the last decades. Its application enabled many companies to make a big leap towards better utilization of resources and thus provide better service to the customers through faster response, higher quality and lowered costs. Lean is often described as "eyes for flow and eyes for muda" philosophy. It simply means that value is created only when all the resources flow through the system. If the flow is stopped no value but only costs and time are added, which is muda (Jap. waste). Since the philosophy was born at the Toyota many solutions were tailored for the high volume environment. But in turbulent, fast-changing market environment and progressing globalization, customers tend to require more customization, lower volumes and higher variety at much less cost and of better quality. This calls for adaptation of existing lean techniques and exploration of the new waste-free solutions that go far beyond manufacturing. This book brings together the opinions of a number of leading academics and researchers from around the world responding to those emerging needs. They tried to find answer to the question how to move forward from "Spaghetti World" of supply, production, distribution, sales, administration, product development, logistics, accounting, etc. Through individual chapters in this book authors present their views, approaches, concepts and developed tools. The reader will learn the key issues currently being addressed in production management research and practice throughout the world.