EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF LEAN PHILOSOPHY TO SPREAD THE VALUE OF SUSTAINABILITY IN THE JAPANESE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY: THE CASE OF TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION

Abstract

The criticality of sustainability suggests the need to understand how commercial organization could implement sustainable development. This paper focuses on lean manufacturing and intends to explore the potential of lean philosophy to bring the value of sustainability into an organization. The ultimate purpose of the study lies in the comparison between the possibility of lean philosophy to lead to something remotely resembling a contribution to strong sustainability and what lean enterprise present in the sustainability report. According to the lean practices implemented in Toyota Motor Corporation and previous literature about lean philosophy, we explore how lean philosophy could assist spread the value of sustainability initiated by the top management and construct sustainable development in the corporate value chain. The result shows that the corporate philosophy could assist in achieving a consensus among all the stakeholders and mobilizing them moving towards sustainable development. The value of sustainability can also be beneficial from the process of implementing lean practices. However, the report implies that Toyota focuses more on how to utilize lean tools to achieve technological optimization in operation to address sustainability issues, rather than having a thorough understanding of the ecological limits of the planet.  This paper offers some helpful reference to lean manufacturing and discuss the potential role of lean philosophy in the construction of sustainable development.