Four decades of lean: a systematic literature review

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic review of four decades of scholarly lean literature and identify phases of lean while highlighting core knowledge and voids from within the scholarly lean literature. Design/methodology/approach The methodology applied to better understand lean over the past four decades was a systematic review of literature, as described by Machi and McEvoy in The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success . Findings This literature review has synthesized and categorized four decades of scholarly literature, along with influential books from credible researchers and practitioners of lean, in an effort to decipher the lean thinking paradigm from jargon to a commonly‐shared language. In total, five themes evolved from the analysis starting with the Discovery phase (1970‐1990), Dissemination phase (1991‐1996), Implementation phase (1997‐2000), Enterprise phase (2001‐2005), and the most recent phase of Performance (2006‐2009). Research limitations/implications The literature review was limited to articles available to the researcher using search terms restricted to: lean manufacturing, lean production, lean thinking, lean and review, lean and Toyota Production System, lean assessment, lean culture, lean transformation. The databases accessed through EBSCO were: Academic Source Premier, Business Source Premier, ERIC, and PsycINFO. Originality/value Publications tracing the lineage of lean over the past four decades are sparse, based on lean scholarly literature, exposing a void in the knowledge base. This literature review should assist other scholars and practitioners who are interested in substantiating their lean endeavours.