ESSEC Working Papers,
ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School

Abstract: This paper studies the curious odyssey of "Lean Management"... Under this label, managerial ideas and practices have undergone, first a decisive step towards process thinking, and then a striking return to planning and variance control habits. The study of this historical shift can give us clues about obstacles to process thinking in the managerial world. The paper will first recall the key ideas originally highlighted by the pioneers of "lean management", based on the Toyota Production System (TPS), and their distinctly processual orientation. Then it will review the practices today labelled as "Lean Management" and the surprising historical reversal they reveal. Finally it will review some of the potential reasons why such a reversal took place, with a particular focus on the treatment of time and the notions of slack and wasted time.

Keywords: Complexity; Lean Management; Organizational Learning; Performance; Process; Slack; Time; Wast

JEL-codes: M11

8 pages, June 2014

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WP1410.pdf  

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