Lean Production

Paper Summary:

The paper offers six reasons why lean production processes are stressful for workers. The paper then provides strategies for alleviating the stress of lean production. The paper discusses how the many benefits of lean production come at the expense of workers via longer, more monitored and more stressful work hours. The paper shows how lean production is not a strategy of greater market competitiveness, but one that bases competitiveness on price reductions through major shifts in costs, regardless of the stress or long-term effects on workers.

Outline:
Summary
Strategies for Alleviating Stress in Lean Production Environments
Summary

From the Paper:

"The growth of high efficiency production techniques including lean manufacturing in conjunction with the increasing strength and use of analytical tools, techniques and approaches to tracking employee and departmental performance data has created significant stress for workers throughout global manufacturing and service organizations. This has been exacerbated by management teams who in many cases lack emotional intelligence (EI) and the ability to create an environment of transformational leadership in their organizations. These two components, EI and transformational leadership, can lessen the impact of the stress of lean manufacturing and production techniques on workers, yet much of the research in this area shows it is the exception rather than the rule."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Alstyne, Marshall van, Erik Brynjolfsson, and Stuart Madnick. "The Matrix of Change: A Tool for Business Process Reengineering". MIT Sloan School Working Papers available on the Internet, accessed on April 2, 2007: http://ccs.mit.edu/papers/CCSWP189/ccswp189.html
• Alstyne, Marshall van, Erik Brynjolfsson, and Stuart Madnick "Why Not One Big Database? Principles for Data Ownership." Decision Support Systems 15.4 (1995): 267-284.
• Friedman, Thomas. It's a Flat World After All. New York Times. 3 April 2005. Accessed on April 2, 2007: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03DOMINANCE.html?ex=1270267200&en=cc2a003cd936d374&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
• Porter, Micheal. The Competitive Advantage of Nations. The Free Press. Boston, MA, 1998.
• Rifkin, Jeremy. THE END OF WORK: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era. Chapter 12, The Price of Progress. Putnam Original, NY, 1995, 336 pp., index,. Pages 181 - 193.

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