Negative Side Effects of Lean Management

Abstract

This paper investigates the problem of unplanned negative effects, which may result from implementation of lean management. Using as the basis empirical evidence from European machine tools industry it is argued, that in majority of cases targeted effects (mostly cost savings, production and utilization increase) are followed, with a delay, by negative side effects (mostly unplanned increased costs, quality issues, customer dissatisfaction). It is suggested, that using the controlling framework as management tool may enable to avoid these unlikely effects. Its relevant adoption, to support multi-perspective assessment of lean management implementations is presented within the paper. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2014.