Improving the organizationsl lean culture by using critical lean culture criteria model

Abstract

The desire for organizations to become innovative has led them focusing on manufacturing concepts such as lean manufacturing, which are very important for companies to succeed in the competitive global environment. The culture of an organization, and its applied strategies, varies from one organization to another, and the organizational culture plays an important role for successful implementation of lean concepts and in shaping the company to becoming an effective and competitive business. The Toyota Way lean culture concepts, has became Toyota’s core competence and a major part of Toyota’s success in being able to continuously improve and remain competitive globally. The core values that make up this culture are important factors in order to become lean. Toyota believes that lean is not just a set of tools to reduce cost for the short term, but building a culture of learning organization that can become adaptable and dynamic for the long term. This paper measure and assess the current organizational critical lean culture criteria, which lead to find new areas of improvement, and investigate a ways to improve them to ensure successful and sustaining implementation of Lean methodology in the organizations. This paper indicates that the existing organizational culture of technical support unit of airplanes can be improved by focusing on mutual respect, training, empowerment and motivation for employees within the company.