The Strategic Role of Lean– A Discussion

• Autor(a) principal: Veiga, Gabriela L.
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Outros Autores: De Lima, Edson Pinheiro, Angelis, Janinis Jan, Da Costa, Sérgio Eduardo Gouvêa
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Brazilian Journal of Operations & Production Management (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://bjopm.org.br/bjopm/article/view/V8N1A2
• topic: Lean; operations strategy; competitive dimensions; decision areas.

Operations strategy and its development have received a lot of attention in the operationsmanagement literature. However, literature related to benefits of improvement programs, suchas lean production, is often contradictory to operations strategy principles. There is a largebody of work arguing that lean can bring substantial performance improvements, indicatingthat operations strategy formalization might be unnecessary when certain operational processesimprovements are applied. However, some literature emphasize the importance of operationsstrategy, stating that its formulation leads to superior competitiveness when lean techniques areproperly related to competitive dimensions and to decision areas. In this study, a comprehensiveliterature review has been carried out to reveal insights on both streams of study and it is usedto conceive a framework and a research interview protocol based on that. Hence, this studycompares experts’ view of the strategic role of lean. Such a comparison is done through a rangeof interviews. The results support the notion that lean can generate a strong advantage in manycompetitive dimensions; even so, a formal strategy approach is still necessary to focus leanmodel implementation.