How has lean manufacturing influenced the Service industries?

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In today’s ever changing market place, reaching a high level of customer satisfaction is shown more and more difficult; for service industries it has shown to be even more challenging to achieve low costs and greater efficiency. Throughout the academic literature I will broadly introduce the key principles of lean manufacturing, and its processes, using USA Vacuum as a quick example to illustrate how lean processes significantly reduced their costs and maximised their efficiency. Moreover, the paper will discuss some of the problems faced when installing an operational change, followed by suggested measures with backed literature. To address the question it was necessary to select companies that have been influenced by lean, and have applied some of its processes into their service operations. Firstly, looking at an American fast-food restaurant Taco Bell, and secondly, A Canadian Hospital’s Emergency Department. Both companies note to having a lack of efficiency in their operations. Furthermore, we will be looking at how lean manufacturing truly influenced the service industries in terms of its processes, and moreover, its outcomes. Lastly, the paper will conclude the implications of lean manufacturing, and that it relies heavily on the input of involvement from everyone.
Lean manufacturing is commonly believed to have started in Japan, its key principles are to reduce all waste by eliminating such activities that do not add any value, maintaining this principle throughout the supply chain, creating multiple flows of products, by producing to demand rather than supply, and by emphasising quality (Lee and Olson et al., 2008, pp. 973--987). Toyota became the largest car manufacturer in the world in great part helped by the appli...

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...hip, pp. 1--5.
Lee, S. M., Olson, D. L., Lee, S., Hwang, T. and Shin, M. S. 2008. Entrepreneurial applications of the lean approach to service industries. The Service Industries Journal, 28 (7), pp. 973--987.
Ng, D., Vail, G., Thomas, S., Schmidt, N. and Others. 2010. Applying the Lean principles of the Toyota Production System to reduce wait times in the emergency department. Cjem, 12 (1), pp. 50--57.
Radnor, Z. and Osborne, S. P. 2013. Lean: a failed theory for public services?. Public Management Review, 15 (2), pp. 265--287.
Shah, R. and Ward, P. T. 2003. Lean manufacturing: context, practice bundles, and performance. Journal of Operations Management, 21 (2), pp. 129--149.
Suarez-Barraza, M. F., Smith, T. and Dahlgaard-Park, S. M. 2012. Lean Service: A literature analysis and classification. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 23 (3-4), pp. 359--380.

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