Purpose The evidence suggests that, to sustain lean initiatives over time, it is essential to develop a lean culture among employees. However, when exploring “how” to develop this culture, the approaches often prove to be superficial and difficult to replicate across different organizations. Therefore, this study aims to propose a model based on short experimentation cycles for the development of lean culture. Design/methodology/approach Based on a literature review on the topic, a model incorporating active learning approaches and short experimentation cycles was proposed for the development of lean culture. This model was applied in six product development classes, during which data from 536 experimentation cycles were recorded. The results were then analyzed based on three proposed hypotheses. Findings The results provided evidence of the development of factors that characterize lean culture throughout the implementation of the model. Therefore, the proposed model provides a detailed framework for replication in other organization, thus filling the gap in the literature related to how to develop lean culture in people. Originality/value This study fills a research gap by presenting a structured and replicable model for developing lean culture. Moreover, it enables the evaluation of both people development and process improvement.
Werner et al. (Fri,) studied this question.