The evolution processes of agile and lean software development are intertwined. Recently a shift from agile methods to lean software development has been noticed and advocated. To truly comprehend this phenomenon theoretically and practically, we take a step back and investigate the key differences between agile and lean software processes, the understanding of which is still limited. A content...

BACKGROUND Lean thinking as a quality improvement approach is introduced in hospitals worldwide, although evidence for its impact is scarce. Lean initiatives are social, complex and context-dependent. This calls for a shift from cause-effect to conditional attributions to understand how lean works. In this study, we bring attention to the transformative power of local translation, which creates...

For Today's Logistics Manager, It's a Jungle out There! Customer-mandated programs with a wide variety of names (JIT, Quick Response, Vendor Managed Inventory, etc.) all share common requirements such as compliance labeling and shrinking order-cycle times. Internal demands to reduce inventory levels coupled with an ever-increasing number of stock keeping units (SKUs) makes the job even more dif...

In a previous International Journal of Production Economics article, a comparative model was presented for inventory costs of purchasing under economic order quantity (EOQ) with quantity discounts and a just-in-time (JIT) order purchasing system. This paper expands the comparative model to include a relevant cost component not considered in the previous article. The results of the revised model...

We consider a firm that manages its internal manufacturing operations according to a just-in-time (JIT) system but maintains an inventory of finished goods as a buffer against random demands from external customers. We formulate a model in which finished goods are replenished by a small fixed quantity each time period. In the interest of schedule stability, the size of the replenishment quantit...

Lebanese industries are growing so fast and expanding their businesses while managing their time, inventory, labor, quality and other production factors in order to increase productivity and output while reducing waste. For that, lean manufacturing aims to reduce the inventory and gain more profits while getting a better quality of the goods delivered to the customers. The aim of this Article i...

When purchased components for an assembly manufacturing operation are replenished Just-In-Time the investment in inventory holding of these components is eliminated, but usually with increased fixed reorder cost. It is therefore important in the pursuit of high returns on inventory investment to know for which components JIT replenishment is an optimal policy. In this paper we describe two deci...

This paper concerns the modeling of low inventory lines. Currently, most models assume that processing times are independent. We consider the differences in behavior of workers in lowand high-inventory production lines. Using a laboratory experiment we show that workers speed up when they are the cause of idle time on the line. This means that processing time distributions are not independent o...

Recently Just-In-Time (JIT) production has attracted increasing interest throughout the Chinese manufacturing industries and its programs have been widely implemented. Currently, there are few studies conducted about JIT manufacturing implemented by small manufacturing firms in China, even though small firms are still dominant in many areas of manufacturing industries in China. This study analy...