An Introduction to Lean Work Design

Lawrence Fredendall

ISBN 10: 1606493221 / ISBN 13: 9781606493229

Published by Business Expert Press, US, 2015

About this Item

The purpose of Lean Management is to make an organization more competitive. Lean began as the product of an automobile manufacturer's effort to become more competitive in the world market. The concept of Lean originated not as a particular application of established theory but as a process of trial and error on the shop floor. Although the inventors of lean work design relied on a bottom-up method to arrive at their conclusions, they both incorporated existing principles of work design that they found valuable and studied work designs of other businesses and industries to obtain additional ideas that might compliment and improve their own. For lean work design to be used in industries other than repetitive automobile manufacturing, its fundamental principles need to be understood. Achieving a lean operation involves adopting a method of designing work that incorporates a systems view of the organization Once a work designer adopts a systems perspective, the need to achieve coordination between all parts of the system becomes apparent. Lean is essentially an approach to work design that maximizes system productivity and effectiveness while minimizing costs of the system buffers. Lean does this by achieving tighter integration of its system components. To achieve and maintain this tight integration requires effective, fast communication. What constitutes the principles of a lean operation, and how these principles can be developed and applied across all industries, is the focus of this book. This book approaches Lean as an exercise in work design - hence its title. To provide an integrated view of the different perspectives of lean work design, the book examines the major work design decisions from each perspective. It identifies the principles involved in lean operations and examines three existing theories of work design that help define lean operations: systems theory; system variance and the three buffers utilized to protect the system from variance (inventory, capacity and lead time); and organizational information processing theory. The intended outcome for readers of this book will be an understanding of what is meant by Lean, how it applies to work design, and how it can be implemented in a variety of industries and organizational settings to make those organizations more competitive.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781606493229

Bibliographic Details

• Title: An Introduction to Lean Work Design
• Publisher: Business Expert Press, US
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1606493221
• ISBN 13: 9781606493229
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

This book provides a short, concise overview of lean work design, which sees lean systems as the result of a systematic implementation of appropriate work processes. It discusses lean tools, but views tools only as a means of achieving a desirable work design and does not see the use of lean tools as a goal in themselves.

About the Author

Dr. Lawrence Fredendall is a professor of management and the Trevillian Distinguished Professor in the College of Business at Clemson University. He is currently the editor of the Quality Management Journal published by ASQ, The Global Voice of Quality, and he is serving as Clemson University's director of the Institute for Advancement of Healthcare, which is a research collaboration between Clemson and Greenville Health Systems. He obtained both his MBA and PhD from Michigan State University where his research emphasized supply chain management. His previous book is titled: Basics of Supply Chain Management.; Matthias Thürer is a professor at Jinan University. He holds a masters from the Technical University Berlin and a PhD from the University of Coimbra. Before becoming involved in academia, Matthias worked in several companies, did an apprenticeship and became a master craftsman (ÒMeisterÓ). Simple control for complex shops is one of Matthias' main research interests. He has published widely and is a leading expert on Workload Control, COBACABANA, and Lean Work Design (www.workloadcontrol.com).