Critics of Lean by Donna Samuel

7th August 2013

Critics of Lean

Dr. Donna Samuel,

Head of Lean Academy
S A Partners LLP

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 Critics of Lean by Donna Samuel
7th August 2013

Critics of Lean
These days, few would doubt that lean is a practitioner-led field of study. However,
lean has its origins in the world of academia. Lean is most commonly seen as
having emerged following the publication of The Machine That Changed The
World (Womack et al., 1990). The Machine is the book that made lean a popular
phenomenon. However, when the book was first published, it encountered a good
deal of criticism from within the academic community. Some might argue that this
polemic may have been, in part at least, a reaction to the book’s success. In this
paper I provide an overview of the various lean critics so that you can begin to
evaluate the validity of their views. More than twenty years on from when the
book first appeared, it would seem that lean has emerged triumphant. After all,
today there is still tremendous interest in lean among the practitioner community
many of whom remain driven to follow the imperative set out in this original
seminal text. Nevertheless, it is still valuable to have an appreciation of who
criticised lean and why.

There are five main schools of Lean critics which may be categorised as follows:

1. The style and narrative devices of The Machine or the discourse

school of Lean critics.
2. The empirical evidence contained in The Machine or the empiric
school of Lean critics.
3. The effects of Lean on the workforce or the exploitation school of
Lean critics.
4. The transfer and universal application claims of Lean or the
transfer school of Lean critics.
5. The financial benefits of Lean or the financial benefits school of
Lean critic.
Each school, and the main critics within that school, is addressed in turn in the
paragraphs that follow:
The Discourse School of Lean Critics

The Machine followed a relatively contemporary genre of bestselling management

books. In keeping with this genre, it made bold claims and assertions:

‘Our conclusion is simple: Lean production is a superior way for humans to make things……….It
follows that the whole world should adopt Lean production and as quickly as possible’
(Womack et al., 1990, p. 225).

Delbridge (1995) was critical of the arrogance of such claims which he dismissed
as generalised simplifications based on stereotypes and western misconceptions.
New (2007) took a similar view, denouncing simple schema which seek to assert
bald polarities between TPS and Taylorism. Similarly, Williams et al., (1992; 1994)
argued that the ‘periodisation’ of craft, mass and lean, used as one of the

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narrative devices in The Machine, was misleading. Williams et al. polarised the
debate on Japan at the time into two basic positions: the sceptical pessimists,
who argued that Japan’s success is the result of higher wages and healthcare
costs in the west, and apologetic optimists, who argued that the Japanese
represent more efficient productive methods that would eventually spread. They
claim that The Machine and the International Motor Vehicle Programme (IMVP),
the research study on which the book was based, were significant because they
provided heavy-weight social scientific support for the apologetic optimists.
Williams ridiculed The Machine for its gospel-like preaching of Lean production
(Williams, in Stewart, 1996). Stewart (1996) also attacked the authors directly:
‘Many people’s lives are changed unrecognisably by the latest management whim, proselytised by
academic consultants who knowing better should be wary of promised wonders’

(Stewart, 1996, p.16).

The Empirics School of Lean Critics

Some authors focused less on the style and genre of The Machine and more on
the empirics within. Williams et al., (1992) argued that the difference between
Lean and mass production was not empirically sustainable and accused the
authors of basing their account on standard secondary sources that are known to
be deficient. Coffey (2006) also questioned the historical accuracy of The
Machine. Williams et al., (1992) argued that the ‘half the human effort’ claim
exaggerated the Japanese advantage. He maintained that this claim is based on
three final processes which only account for 15% of the labour in a car. He stated
that The Machine ignored the prevailing literature which warns against the
difficulties of process comparisons. He also said The Machine ignored the
influence of market demand, not correcting for capacity utilisation and ignoring
the problem of a company, which may be a bundle of plants, being the unit of
analysis. Finally, he suggested that the emphasis on the company as the unit of
the analysis led to the neglect of the wider social context such as economic and
market conditions (Williams et al., 1992). Katayama and Bennett (1996) also
pointed out that the research reported in The Machine was conducted at the time
of Japan’s ‘bubble economy’ of the late 1980s during conditions of a bullish stock
market and low interest rates. Other commentators have also highlighted the
importance of the Japanese economic context (Cusumano, 1994).

Coffey (2006, 2007) is also critical of the empirical data within The Machine
partly for methodological robustness but primarily for poor interpretation of data.
He suggested that the role of automation was heavily downplayed in The Machine
and that, if due account had been taken of Europe’s weak overall results,
automation would have offered far greater causal explanation. Coffey argued that
the official, flawed, interpretation of the IMVP survey was disseminated via and
aggressively promoted from within the corporate sector that was both its major
sponsor and intended subject.
The Exploitation School of Lean Critics

Several studies have highlighted the stressful effects that Lean has on the work
life of Japanese people (Kamata, 1982; Hutchinson et al., 1996; Sugimoto,

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1997). Some authors have suggested that Lean is primarily about greater power
and control over workers (Wilkinson and Oliver, 1989; Sewell and Wilkinson,
1992; Delbridge et al., 1992; Delbridge 1995; 1995a; 1998). Delbridges’
ethnographic study of workplace relations (1995; 1998) described one Japanese
transplant as a fast-paced and highly stressful working environment. Stewart and
Garrahan (1992) conveyed similar findings based on research accounts from
former employees at Nissan’s Sunderland plant. Gill (2003) found that Lean leads
to elevated stress levels, increased worker turnover, absenteeism and time loss
due to accidents. Gall (2007) proposed that Lean is simply the latest in a long line
of management techniques designed to increase worker exploitation. Recently,
Stewart et al., (2009) examined worker responses to Lean at Vauxhall-GM and
Rover/BMW and fond that they are intimately tied to changing patterns of
exploitation in the car industry. They concluded that:

‘at the heart of lean lies the irreconcilable contraction between the rhetoric of success, security
and a range of enriching employment experiences, and the reality for many millions of workers, of
exclusion, insecurity and deteriorating employment experience …many workers whose work and
lives have been devastated by the ravages of lean production’
(Stewart et al., 2009, p. xi).

The exploitation school of Lean critics was essentially concerned with the
displacement of cost and risk onto labour and suppliers.
The Transfer School of Lean Critics

Some authors criticised lean for its claims to universal applicability, disputing the
claims prevalent in the Lean literature that Lean was the dominant production
method of Japanese industry (Pilkington, 1998; Jorgensen, 2008). Cooney
(2002) described the claimed universality of the Lean production concept as a
chimera, arguing that Lean is an addition to rather than a replacement for existing
production systems. Many authors noted that Lean requires modification
(Cusumano, 1994; Katayama and Bennet, 1996; Miyai, 1996; James-Moore and
Gibbons, 1997; Cooney, 2002).

Lee and Jo (2007) categorise the ongoing debate on the transferability of Lean
into four perspectives:

1. The convergence perspective which drew upon the IMVP work (Womack et
al., 1990) and treated Lean as a universal set of management norms that
can be transferred anywhere. From this perspective, Lean is the system
into which every business player tends to converge when trying to survive
in the contemporary global market.
2. The structuralist perspective which denied the transferability of Lean,
emphasising the unique socio-economic context in which Toyota exists
(Williams, 1992; 1994; Nakamura et al., 1996; Cooney, 2002).
3. The contingency perspective which postulated a compromise by
considering both the superiority of Lean and the necessary pre-conditions
and constraints relating to its transferability (Kast and Rosenzweig, 1985;
Harber et al., 1990; White et al., 1999; Mehta and Shah, 2004).
4. The ‘emergent process’ perspective which viewed the spread of Lean as
an evolving and indeterminate transformation process which can lead to
various outcomes depending on the form adopted (Liker et al., 1999).

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Bartezzaghi (1999) in particular distinguishes between a production model

and a production paradigm, arguing that while TPS was a specific
production model it later became recognised as a production paradigm
from which emulators have developed their own production models,
through a process of interpretation and transmutation.
Certain authors have suggested that Lean is weak in its ability to accommodate
variations or reductions in demand for finished productions (Miyai,1996). Others
have questioned the application of Lean to low volume, high variety production
environments. For example, Jina et al., (1997) commented that implicit in most
widely publicised examples of successful Lean manufacturing is the fact that the
complexities of satisfying order winning criteria have been mitigated by high
production volumes. They argue that that most companies will need to adapt
Lean practices to meet their special circumstances. Chrisopher and Towill (2000)
suggested that organisations will need to progress from Lean and functional
supply chains to agile and customised ones.

Many authors noted that successful Lean implementation is dependent upon

several organisational factors such as management strategies, labour-
management cooperation, employee and union involvement, investment in
training (Harber et al., 1990; White et al., 1999; Hines et al., 2008). Other
authors observe that Lean is also conditioned by external forces such as market
situations, international division of labour, local institutional environment and
social culture (Liker et al., 1999; Mehta and Shah, 2004). Some authors stress
the importance of considering the evolution of firms and transplants in the light of
their own trajectories and particular histories (Pardi, 2005).

A number of authors have highlighted the role of the national context in Lean
implementation. Nakamura et al., (1996) emphasise the influence of different
social contexts (culture, social relations, economics conditions and business
practices) across international boundaries. Similarly, Doeringer et al., (2003)
revealed national differences in Multinational National Enterprises (MNEs) in the
US, the UK and France. Kumon (2000) highlights differences between American
and European Lean researchers and observes that: while American researchers
tend to see the transferability of Lean in positive terms; European researchers
tend to focus on the selectivity of introduction or hybridisation based on the
trajectory of the firm.

Some authors emphasise the role of the social context in Lean implementation.
Cooney (2002) claims the Lean concept simply does not encompass the influence
of social and political institutions. Therefore, Lean has evolved under Toyota’s
singular conditions and its substance can only be transferred to other structural
contexts with difficulty. Majek and Hayter (2008) suggest that hybridisation is a
search for an appropriate mix of practices that ensure viability in local
circumstances rather than the transfer of established best practices. Several
authors are wary of the wider notion of best practice (Pilkington, 1998;
Dahlgaard-Park and Dahlgaard, 2007).

Seddon (2005) specifically questions the application of Lean in the service sector.
While he concedes that TPS is probably the most highly developed, best
articulated and most successful example of systems thinking applied to a

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business organisation in the world (Seddon and Caulkin, 2007), he is critical of

Lean (as a movement) for promoting tools which are concerned with how to do it
thereby obscuring the importance of perspective and how to think about
improvement (Seddon, 2005).
The Financial Benefits School of Lean Critics

A number of authors have questioned the assumption that Lean leads to financial
benefits (Lewis, 2000; Cooney, 2002). In an early attempt to address the lack of
empirical evidence on the financial outcomes of Lean implementation, Oliver and
Hunter (1998) conducted longitudinal research and found the links between
manufacturing practice and financial performance to be complex and
problematic. Several authors suggest that these problems lay primarily with
traditional accounting convention and practice (Yishikawa et al., 1993; Maskell
and Baggaley, 2004; Johnson, 2007). Darlington et al., (2008) argue that Lean
Accounting has become the foremost topic of discussion amongst Lean
practitioners over the last two years.

Summary
The purpose of this paper was to offer the reader a structured overview of the
various commentators who have objected to lean over the years. The purpose
was not to offer opinion as to the validity or otherwise of these objections but to
raise awareness. The lean movement is strong both sides of ‘the water’. In fact
the practitioner community was barely impacted by the polemics within the
academic community. This is in spite of the fact that the academic origins of lean
are frequently cited by practitioners is being key to their belief in the efficacy of
lean. It is the author’s hope that this brief overview has enriched the readers’
knowledge and understanding of the some of the dissent and debate that has
taken and continues to take place in a world that often seems irrelevant and even
alien to lean practitioners.

References

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Coffey, D. 2006. The Myth of Japanese Efficiency: The World Car Industry in
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