A maturity assessment of lean development practices in manufacturing industry

Manufacturing firms continuously seek new ways to improve performance and to maintain high profitability levels. This paper examines the performance level of five key milestone attributes to create a lean business system in an organisation (strategy deployment, people enabled process, value stream management, application of lean tools and techniques, and extended enterprise) and to understand how lean principles and practices are implemented. The research used a qualitative approach utilising an online survey and collected the primary data from 46 employees working in different manufacturing organisations in Qatar. This research identified the synergy between lean practices and other management approaches as an effort to improve manufacturing competence attributes; capabilities and responsiveness and how to maximise benefits from lean implementation. This knowledge also enriches the theories related to the concept of production competences and understanding the factors that enable/facilitate the implementation of lean practices.