Organizational practices lean enterprises adopt to focus on value streams

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate which practices lean enterprises adopt to focus on value streams. A case study of three plants: Delphi Diesel Systems, Sogefi Filtration, and a company within the furniture industry is presented. The three plants have successfully performed a lean transformation with significant performance improvements, respectively, to Delphi Diesel Systems, Sogefi Filtration, and a company within the furniture industry. The organizational practices under analysis are (1) the establishment of organizational units based on value streams, (2) the use of a performance measurement system based on value streams, and (3) the adoption of a formal meeting system. These organizational practices were found in all three of the studied plants and have been implemented in all of their organizational units; even concrete implementation detail differs between plants. This research provides a contribution in the fields of organizational practices and the transition to lean enterprise by establishing the relation between real practices and the focus on value stream lean principle. As insight for managers, the adoption of appropriate organizational units, indicators, and meetings appears to be a useful practice to support the focus on value streams.