Barriers to Lean and Pull System implementation: a case study

Abstract

Lean Production has been documented in the last decades as a management methodology that brings many benefits. Nevertheless, many companies faced difficulties in implementing it and in having success. This happens due to the existence of some barriers to its implementation. This fact also occurs in the multinational company studied in this paper. Applying a case study methodology, research on the potential barriers for Lean and pull system implementation in a company that adopted Lean around two decades ago was made. To collect data for the case study, 17 interviews at different hierarchical levels in the organization were performed. The results of interviews analysis show that Lean and pull requires an integrated implementation of several dimensions.