Kanban in Industrial Engineering and Software Engineering: A Systematic Literature Review

There is a growing interest about Kanban in software engineering due to its many advantages, such as, reduced lead-time and improved team communication. Kanban originates from Toyota manufacturing and in 2004 it was introduced to software engineering. However, there is lack of a clear explanation of its principles and practices in software engineering. The objective of this study is to explore Kanban in industrial engineering literature using systematic literature review method. The search strategy revealed 1552 papers, of which 52 were identified as primary studies relevant to our research. From the primary studies, five variations of Kanban were identified together with implementation principles and benefits. These were extracted and summarized for the guidance of practitioners interested in adopting Kanban for software development. The findings of this literature review help researchers and practitioners to gain a better understanding of the Kanban and its use in industrial engineering in order to improve its usage in software

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