Abstract
Due to the recent worldwide recession companies again tend to focus on cost-efficiency by increasing the ratio of value adding activities within their intra- and inter-organizational processes. In order to achieve efficient processes and eliminate non-value adding activities out of customers’ perspective, the principles and methods of Lean Production (LP) are gaining interest especially in Austrian companies. According to this development the need of further lean-activities within the Austrian industry can be deduced but not validated. Due to this fact the purpose of this paper is to survey and discuss the status quo of Lean Production in Austrian companies. Therefore three different perspectives are used to describe the actual situation of lean-paradigm within the industry. These are the currently applied principles and methods as well as their degree of implementation, the acceptance of implementation and the structural/organizational integration. Furthermore a trend of the prevalence and application is predicted due to the degree of implementation and the prospective requirements. In summary it can be stated that LP is already known and applied in Austrian industry. However, the need of further activities to intensify the application of lean methods can be deduced. In this context it seems important that there is still resistance to implementation offered from the foreman and the operators in general. Therefore, the involvement of the employees before and during the implementation process can be defined as one important critical success factor of LP.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the company Agamus Consult for the friendly permission to use their questionnaire as basis for the survey. Furthermore, the authors would like to express their gratitude to Dr. Laura Baker and Ms. Sandra Streit who contributed with their expertise.
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Neumann, C., Kohlhuber, S., Hanusch, S. (2012). Lean Production in Austrian Industrial Companies: An Empirical Investigation. In: Jodlbauer, H., Olhager, J., Schonberger, R. (eds) Modelling Value. Contributions to Management Science. Physica-Verlag HD. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2747-7_15
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