Abstract:
In the last century Lean Production practices have revolutionised the mass
production sector. Globally embraced, many of the leading organisations
celebrate contributions Lean Production has made to their success through
improved quality and reduced cost and human resources. With contradicting
resources and abundant levels of literature on the subject, an organisation may
struggle to find a starting point when looking to implement Lean Production
practices on their own. In the first part, this paper seeks to define just what
Lean Production is, how exactly it may be implemented and what benefits and
challenges it can bring to an organisation, if properly implemented. However,
the second purpose of this paper is to identify the strategic human resource
management practices suitable for the period of transition process to Lean
Production and afterwards. Using a case study research in a New Zealand
industry, the results show certain important factors. Four main factors are
found in the various stages of the adoption and implementation process: staff
training, amicable communication, just rewards, and appropriate job design. It
has been identified that strategic human resource management is important not
only at every stage of the transition process to Lean Production but throughout
in order to obtain firm performance.
