USING STORYTELLING TO UNDERSTAND A COMPANY'S LEAN JOURNEY

Abstract

Lean implementation has become a recurring topic in literature. Scholars have studied lean tools, implementation barriers and proposed strategies, audit tools, and maturity models to overcome such barriers. However, despite the importance of these methods, over the years, researchers have realized that "best practices" emerge from a combination of contextual factors and coherent strategic choices affecting workforce management, supplier relationship, and other "soft" factors. Therefore, through exploratory research structured according to business storytelling fundamentals, the authors describe a company's lean journey along a timeline to provide an overview to understand the strategic choices and even the underlying rationale aligning strategic, tactical, and operational level decision-making. Findings suggest that lean implementation is a never-ending journey, which requires organization-wide changes for achieving success. Furthermore, strategic choices enhancing organizational stability and predictability seem to have played a crucial role in the company's success in lean implementation, knowledge retention, and capability development.