Analysing the Adoption of Lean Production in Remanufacturing Industry

1. The increasing popularity of lean has been driven by studies highlighting the dramatic results of lean implementation. An early study regarding the power of lean was undertaken by Womack, Jones, Roos and Carpenter (1990), which revealed that the efficiency of Japanese automotive manufacturers far exceeded that of their American and European counterparts, where Japanese factories required half the effort of American factories

2. It seems there is not any empirical evidence that production flow can run smoothly in remanufacturing companies. When production flow for creating value to customers cannot be evidenced in remanufacturing companies, the universality of lean can be questioned.

3. This is a qualitative study using the case study method (Yin, 2009; Eisenhardt, 1989). The use of this method makes the present study different from many previous studies investigating this topic. Most previous studies have adopted positivist paradigms, conducting operations research based on assumptions that are difficult to test in real life situations (Flynn, Kakibara, Schroeder, Bates & Flynn, 1990). Therefore, conducting research adopting a different methodology and philosophical stances provides a significant contribution to existing knowledge.

4. Remanufacturing is a process in which used products, referred to as “cores”, are reprocessed into like-new products. During the remanufacturing process, cores undergo a series of processes including inspection, disassembly, testing, reassembly, and a final check to ensure that the final products meet the remanufactured product specifications (Ijomah, 2009).

5. The origin of lean production is the long-term orientation of companies striving for excellence, where lean production can be summarised as “doing more with less”. Although this definition over-simplifies the concept of lean production, the phrase accurately conveys the basic principle of lean production: utilising resources in an effective way.