Transferring Lean into government

Purpose This paper evaluates the transfer of a Lean approach developed by a global manufacturing and logistics company into a large UK Government department. The purpose of this paper is to examine which tools and techniques are transferred and implemented into the government department together with their impact as viewed by the staff within the department in order to bring about both technical and culture change. Design/methodology/approach The research takes a case study approach based visiting ten sites within one organisation interviewing over 250 people throughout the organisation. Findings This paper reflects on the introduction or transfer of a Lean approach into a large government department in order to understand which tools are relevant and have had an impact. The findings indicate that the tools mostly focused on the principle of Lean related to reduction of waste and that some of the concepts such as standard work may not be appropriate for public services. On reflecting on the findings, the paper presents two frameworks – one for clarifying the purpose of the tools in terms of assessment, improvement and monitoring and another, the House of Lean, as a framework for not only for the tools but also the factors to support the implementation of the tools. Research limitations/implications The research is limited to one organisation one approach to Lean. However, the size of the organisation and the establishment of the approach mean that the limitations are small with the findings – particularly the development of the frameworks relevant to the majority of public service organisations. Originality/value To date the development and implementation of business improvement methodologies such as Lean are still under researched within public services. The majority of papers to date focus on presenting case studies of what happened. This paper attempts to go beyond that in order to present framework to help in understanding, developing and challenging the concept of Lean in public services.