Measuring the Leanness of an organisation

Purpose – Existing audits fail to fully encapsulate the complexities of an organisation's value chain and the significance of culture and change to the success of Lean. The purpose of this paper is to identify precisely what is meant by the term, “a genuine Lean organisation” through the application of a comprehensive Lean audit focused at manufacturing firms in the UK. Design/methodology/approach – An extensive audit was developed able to establish the juncture of an organisation's Lean journey. This was piloted within 20 manufacturing organisations in the UK. A total of 104 separate indices are used, which are grouped within 12 distinctive categories. Findings – The audit provides an organisation with a Lean vision. Lean requires a considerable commitment and whilst successful implementations facilitate the improvement of numerous indices, the audit acquaints an organisation of the multifaceted requirements for Lean. Its real value is in identifying the juncture of Lean an organisation has accomplished. Research limitations/implications – The audit has been tested in 20 manufacturing organisations; a natural extension would be to replicate the exercise within the service sector. Practical implications – The audit results demonstrate how it is possible to split an organisation's Lean journey into seven evident phases. The feedback would improve the implementation records within the UK. Originality/value – This paper tackles a void within the literature of a comprehensive Lean audit specifically examining: whether an organisation had adopted Lean as a philosophy, and to distinctively deduce the phase of a Lean journey the organisation had reached.