Lean manufacturing in fabrication industry: literature review and framework proposal

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to report a review of various perspectives of lean in heavy engineering and fabrication industries and to propose a framework. Design/methodology/approach - Lean manufacturing (LM) earlier known as Toyota Production System (TPS) was mainly used by automobile industries where the operations occur in sequence and the adoption of LM was easier. When it comes to heavy engineering industries, the concept of lean can be adopted in a versatile operating environment to have more advantages by waste elimination thereby having higher profit. Thus, an effort is made to consolidate various lean perspectives, namely, barriers, principles, tools and performance measures and a framework was proposed on how various lean perspectives can be adopted in a systematic way. Findings - A comprehensive analysis of lean from various perspectives from viewpoint of the fabrication industry are done and the review is presented. Also, the framework linking barriers, principles, tools and performance measures is being contributed as an outcome of the review. Originality/value - The review of lean from various perspectives for the fabrication industry and the development of a framework is the original contribution of the authors.