Lean Distribution: Concept Development and Assessment

Manager: Dr. Amr Mahfouz
Email: [email protected]

Problem:

While, lean manufacturing has contributed to increase the efficiency and flexibility of many industrial enterprises, to date there has been relatively few reports addressing the application of lean in a distribution environment. This situation has caused confusion about lean distribution’s definition and unclear vision about its concepts, practices and strategies. Moreover, more than 90% of the companies that have adopted lean have failed to notice measurable improvements in their system performance. This could be explained due to the lack of developing suitable models to monitor, assess and compare companies leanness levels.

Objective:

• Explore the opportunities of applying lean practices within distribution companies and transfer lean distribution knowledge to the industry practitioners.
• Identify the dimensions, practices, and tools that construct lean distribution paradigm.
• Develop an integrated lean assessment framework to evaluate and benchmark leanness in distribution industry

Outcomes:

• Identifying and validating best lean distribution practices in cooperation with more than 100 distribution companies in Ireland and UK.
• A quantitative leanness index to measure and benchmark the leanness performance in Distribution companies.