Operations turning Lean
Interestingly all the trends discusses above can boil down to the "Lean" philosophy. Be it Sustainability or Mass Customization both trends are two different aspects of lean operations. Businesses can lead to successful Sustainable Management only by following a part of lean philosophy. continuous improvement or Kaizan. In fact Mass Customization has been possible just because JIT since it helps customise the products according to the customers' needs or preferences without increasing costs or manufacturing time.
Same is the case of Employee Involvement. Lean philosophy considers employee to be the most important asset of the organization and successful implementation of this philosophy depends on the people a very large extent. Inevtably involving them at every step of the process helps make the system leaner.
Even Computer-aided system and Supply-chain Management fall under the Lean philosophy since the main aim of these concepts is to make the process faster reduce costs and avoid any waste. Continuous improvement as an aspect of lean help face the challenge of shrinking product life cycle by making the system more efficient and reducing waste at every step.
Following the paper will discuss the lean philosophy in general touching upon all the major aspects of Lean Operations and concepts related to it with Toyota being the case in point.