Abstract:
In the current worldwide scenario, manufacturers are urged to improve their sustainability
performance, in terms of keeping the balance among economic, environmental and social
performances. Nevertheless, top managers and company leaders tend to complain that it
is not possible to become greener without large investments. In particular, they argue that
green practices require expensive technology, the environmental regulations are strict
and the compliance cost is high. In recent years, the well-known lean manufacturing
approach, mainly focused in waste reduction, has become to be viewed with a renewed
interest towards improving not only economic but also environmental and social aspects.
Although promising results have been published in the literature showing that lean
practices can lead to some environmental and social improvements, most of the
researchers in the field agree that lean manufacturing has not obtained the maturity level
required to ensure sustainability yet. In this context, the idea of combining both lean and
green manufacturing has arised. Unfortunately, while there is no doubt that lean
manufacturing increases productivity, efficiency, quality and costumers’ satisfaction by
reducing wastes, there is a lack of research about the benefits of lean practices in relation
to green ones. On one hand, there are researchers that argue that the lean continuous
improvement culture favours the development of green strategies. On the other hand,
there are the ones that argue that green objectives are in conflict with lean ones, since
lean practices are mainly focus on adding value resources, whereas green practices can
limit production, design and services for the sake of taking care of environmental issues.
In this conflicting context, there is a lack of lean-green strategies in the literature as well
as little to no evidence of successful implementation cases. In this thesis, the gap
between applying lean and green practices is studied, evaluating the actual possibility of
combining them towards providing strategical solutions for the sake of sustainability, in
terms of economic, environmental and social performances. Results obtained from three
extensive literature reviews regarding the current trends in lean, green and lean-green
manufacturing show that although lean and green practices do differ in their main
objectives, they can efficiently be implemented together since they have the same
structure and they are synergetic, in the sense that they can enhance each others’
strengths and mitigate each others’ weaknesses. Based on the literature reviews’ findings
a novel theoretical manufacturing framework capable of combining the lean and green
approaches within a synergetic environment is developed in this thesis. In order to test
the proposed framework within the real manufacturing scenario, a survey is conducted in
different Saudi manufacturing companies. The results of this survey show that Saudi
employees are becoming aware of the several business opportunities that lean and green
practices can lead. In particular, the quantitative results have shown that Saudi
employees expect lean and green practices to improve the operational and environmental
performances of the companies. Moreover, they also show that Saudi employees agree
that the combination of lean and green practices can lead to further improvements in the
sustainability performance. Nevertheless, the qualitative results show that, in order to
achieve these benefits, Saudi companies are urged to develop effective systems at
individual, institutional and community levels capable of creating a suitable framework for
implementing the required cultural and structural changes. On one hand, institutional
change involves changing rules and norms in the organisations, while individual change
involves employee training and motivation. On the other hand, both employees and
institutions should be the main actors influencing the broader social change, regulating
the impact on the communities’ sustainability and how this impact can return in terms of
social investment works towards increasing the companies’ profit. In this context, Saudi
employees suggest that companies should reduce the number (and complexity) of the
currently used manufacturing processes; simplify the productive and administrative
procedures making them more efficient; promote educational programs for employees, in
terms of preparing them for the change and training them towards adopting innovative
manufacturing techniques; and improve employees’ working conditions, in terms of
safety, health and salary, so that they can be more engaged and willing to learn new
strategies and implement them. Finally, Saudi employees highlight that none of this can
be actually be achieved without a stronger leadership, a higher top management and
stakeholder involvement, and a more supportive government.