Lean Service 

Pengantar

Lean pada dasarnya merupakan suatu filosofi yang menekankan pada pentingnya menghilangkan pemborosan. Pemborosan ini adalah segala sesuatu aktivitas yang tidak memberi nilai tambah (dari perspektif pelanggan).  Nilai (value), dengan demikian, adalah setiap aspek dari proses produksi atau pemberian jasa yang dinilai pantas untuk dihargai (dibeli) oleh pelanggan.  Untuk itu penting bagi kita untuk menilai ulang seluruh proses operasi pemberian jasa, agar supaya tidak terjadi keadaan dimana kita melibatkan banyak proses namun tidak sepadan dengan ekspektasi pelanggan.

Saat mengevaluasi proses yang memberi nilai tambah, tidak selalu apa yang dilakukan oleh pemberi jasa merupakan apa yang diinginkan oleh pelanggan.  Sebagai contoh, sebuah bank menerapkan biaya tambahan kepada pelanggannya karena mesin ATM yang digunakan menggunakan teknologi canggih (misalnya identifikasi pupil mata) dalam mengidentifikasi pemegang kartu ATM.  Belum tentu proses identifikasi dengan teknologi canggih seperti ini merupakan apa yang diharapkan oleh pelanggan.  Bisa jadi teknologi ini malah menyulitkan, dan sering tidak andal sehingga malah pelanggan kesulitas dalam mengambil uang tunai.  Dengan demikian, nilai dari sebuah proses/fitur jasa sangat bergantung kepada konteks dan waktu terjadinya pemberian layanan kepada pelanggan.  Pelanggan adalah pihak yang paling berwenang dalam menetapkan nilai dari sebuah layanan.

Penerapan lean pada sektor jasa memiliki kemiripan dengan penerapan pada sektor manufaktur. Terdapat sejumlah prinsip dasar yang harus dipenuhi. Hal ini mencakup:

(    1)   Perlunya menetapkan “nilai” atau value yang akan dihargai oleh pelanggan

(   2)   Mengidentifikasi keseluruhan proses yang memberi (maupun yang tidak memberi) nilai tambah pada aliran            nilai (value stream)

(   3)   Mengupayakan agar seluruh aspek proses yang bernilai tambah mengalir secara kontinu (bukan batch and          queue, sebagaimana sering dilihat pada proses manufaktur)

(   4)   Memastikan bahwa proses hanya diawali oleh permintaan dari pelanggan (customer pull)

(   5)   Memastikan bahwa setiap proses telah berjalan secara sempurna (proses berjalan secara efisien, produktif,        dengan kualitas terbaik).

  Tulisan berikut (Hadid, 2012) merupakan pemaparan lanjut tentang lean di sektor jasa.

Introduction

Globalization accompanying with increasing competition have forced companies to seek new production and management systems that eliminate waste and control costs (Karmarkar, 2004). Lean system is an approach focusing on eliminating non-value-added activities from processes by applying a robust set of performance change tools, and emphasizing excellence in operations to deliver superior customer services (Allway and Corbett, 2002). Manufacturing companies adopting lean system have enjoyed a superior operational and financial performance over non- adopters (Fullerton and Wempe, 2009; Shah and Ward, 2003). Notwithstanding, the applicability of lean system in services and its effect on performance has not received a similar consideration as in manufacturing. However, the escalating importance of service industries in developed economies combined with the holistic benefits achieved from lean system in manufacturing led several researchers to stress the need for researching the applicability of lean system to services and its effect on performance (Piercy and Rich, 2009). Through conceptual and case-study research, several authors attempted to examine the validity of lean to services (Staats et al. 2011; Swank, 2003). However, there is yet a strong lack of empirical (survey) research examining the implementation of lean in service organizations and its effect on performance (Holm and Ahlstrom, 2010). It is strongly believed that if a positive effect of lean system on the performance of service organizations could be proved through carefully conducted survey studies that have yet to be done, the whole economy in which those organizations operate will significantly advance (Apte and Goh, 2004).

The aim of this study is to investigate the implementation of lean system in the UK service sector. To achieve the aim, the following five questions will be answered and three hypotheses will be tested:

.     1-  To what extent has UK service sector considered the implementation of lean service?

.     2-  What are the reasons encouraging/discouraging the implementation of lean service?

.     3-  What are the difficulties facing companies when implementing lean service?

.     4-  What are the results achieved from the implementation of lean service?

.     5-  What are the most important lean techniques that distinguish between high performing and low performing organizations?

H1: implementation of more of lean tools and techniques is associated with higher operational and financial performance.

H2: higher adherence to the requirements of lean system will lead to better operational and financial performance.

H3: higher adherence to the requirements of lean system will lead to less difficulty through the implementation of lean system.

Literature review

A systematic review of lean service literature was conducted. It involved deriving key words (e.g. “lean”, “process improvement”, “system thinking” and “more with less”) and searching through five well known databases (i.e. Business Source Premier, ABI/INFORM Research, Emerald, Science Direct and Scopus) in title, abstract or key words. References of the relevant articles (based on title and abstract) are also traced to collect all possible articles. 186 articles were found and read in depth to extract information related to lean tools, requirements, barriers, reasons and outcomes. Figure 1 depicts the development of lean service literature over time.

Figure 1: the development of the number of publications over time

Figure 1 shows increasing interest of lean service especially as of 2004 onwards. Figure 2 highlights different research designs employed to study the concept. As the figure shows, lean service has been studied mainly by conceptual and single case studies that are although important they do not allow for generalization of results. Combining the results of figure 1 and 2 it is significantly important to provide more research on lean service especially in the form of survey studies.

     

Conceptual framework and hypotheses

Lean system is perceived by some researchers to consist of two levels: lean philosophy and lean practices (Bhasin and Burcher, 2006), while to others it is a three-level system, lean philosophy, lean principles and lean practices (Arlbjørn et al. 2011). The philosophy of lean focuses on improving the value from customer perspective by eliminating waste from processes. The second level involves the five principles introduced by Womack and Jones (1996) which are a roadmap to achieve the first level.

The third level, practices, is necessary to reflect the previous two levels practically and subsequently, it represents the actions to be taken (Bhasin and Burcher, 2006). Therefore, highlighting lean practices applicable to services will be critical especially for organizations that have yet to apply the system into their operations.

Figure 3 reveals that several lean techniques invented in manufacturing are becoming popular in services. Several researchers argue that lean tools and techniques are interrelated and complementary. Therefore, it is contended that implementing more of those tools and techniques will effect a higher level of interaction leading to a higher level of synergistic effect and therefore to higher organizational performance (Shah and Ward, 2003; Shah and Ward, 2007). Consequently, the following hypothesis will be tested:

H1: implementation of more of lean tools and techniques is associated with higher operational and financial performance.

Like any improvement system, lean is sought by organizations due to specific reasons and a desire to achieve particular purposes. Subsequently, identification of reasons for which organizations seek lean implementation will be of particular importance as reported by Fullerton and Wempe (2009). Figure 4 depicts those reasons in order of their frequency in the literature.

Having identified lean practices that suit service processes and reasons for which those practices are sought, organizations will be eager to know the benefits that could be accomplished after the practices have been implemented. Figure 5 presents the benefits of lean service as reported in the contemporary literature.

Figure 4: Reasons for implementation of lean services

Figure 5: Benefits attributed to lean services

As the figure shows lean system in services is highly credited with reducing lead time and cycle time as well as reducing and controlling costs of operations.

Some researchers emphasize that the purported benefits of lean practices are not achieved without cost, implying the need to provide a proper foundation for the system (Parker, 2003). Therefore, recognizing the requirements necessary for a successful lean implementation is essential for organizations before setting out the journey of lean implementation. Figure 6 summarizes all requirements reported in the literature for a successful lean implementation.

Figure 6: Requirements of lean services

Like other improvement programs, organizations should not expect good results from lean system without training employees on how to correctly implement the system and having a high level of management support to the system.

The last element of lean ingredients is to know what barriers organizations may encounter while implementing lean system. Identifying those barriers can help organizations prepare to alleviate their effects so that the implementation process can run smoothly (Del Val and Fuentes, 2003). Figure 7 highlights barriers of lean service in order of their reported frequency in the literature.

The presented obstacles, if not considered, can prevent an organization from implementing successfully one or more of lean techniques. Keeping in mind that lean techniques are interrelated so that implementing more of the complementary tools yields a better performance, those inhibitors have an opposite force to that of lean requirements of their effects on lean implementation and consequently on performance. For instance, demand and process variability work against standardization.

Moreover, the literature supports the premise that satisfying the requirements of lean system leads to a successful implementation and then to the benefits of it. Therefore, it can be fairly assumed that companies fulfilling more of those requirements achieve better results. Similarly, fulfilling more of the requirements can be argued to minimize difficulties faced by companies when implementing lean. For instance, involving employees in the decision-making process and considering their ideas is strongly believed to reduce their resistance to such system and reduce errors occurred during the implementation process leading to savings in time, efforts and other resources. Consequently the following hypotheses will be tested:

Figure 7: Barriers of lean services

H2: higher adherence to the requirements of lean system will lead to better operational and financial performance.

H3: higher adherence to the requirements of lean system will lead to less difficulty through the implementation of lean system.

Furthermore, several contextual factors affect the implementation of lean service and its outcome (e.g. organization size, industry, process type and unionization) and should be controlled. Figure 8 presents the conceptual framework representing the above argument and which is planned to be validated empirically.

Methodology

The previously presented information on reasons, tools, requirements, barriers and outcomes represent initial lists of lean components that are going to be validated by experts of lean service before inclusion in the questionnaire. A random sample of UK service organizations will be surveyed by a method of questionnaire to collect the necessary information on the components presented in the conceptual framework to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses previously outlined. A survey-type study is chosen for the aim of this research to overcome shortcomings inherent in single and multiple case studies in terms of generalization of results. Different statistical tests will be used to test the previously developed hypotheses. For constructs measured by multi-item measures, factor analysis will be performed to test their dimensionality and composite scores will be computed to be used in a hierarchical regression to test H1 and H2. This type of regression will be used as it allows testing the effect of lean implementation on performance after statistically controlling for the effect of contextual factors. Pearson correlation coefficient can be used to test H3. Fullerton and Wempe (2009) report that if a clear association between the implementation of lean practices and performance improvement could be evident, such practices would spread more widely and rapidly. Therefore, Discriminant analysis will be used to link specific lean tools to each of the operational (e.g. productivity, quality, lead time) and financial performance (e.g. return on investment, return on sales) indicators used in this study.

Conclusion

This paper reports on the implementation of lean system in services. The results of a systematic literature review reveal an increasing level of popularity and interest in the implementation of lean in services. Moreover, information on lean reasons, tools, requirements, barriers and outcomes are collected. The information obtained has been used to design a conceptual framework and formulate several research questions and hypotheses that will be tested through a future survey study in the UK service sector.

Pustaka

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