Lean Tools, Knowledge Management, and Lean Sustainability: The Moderating Effects of Study Conventions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I strongly recommend providing an early and clear definition of precisely what the authors mean by the term "lean sustainability". That is important to reading the remainder of the manuscript.  As a reviewer who has significant work in both lean and sustainability, I think this would be of great help to readers.

Next, the manuscript would benefit from some English language editing. In all, the meaning intended by authors in any given part of the manuscript is sufficiently clear, but as a native English speaker, some of the "language" errors are a bit distracting and frequent. Most such occurrences I noted while reading are small and could be easily corrected. As an example of another sort of small similar error, see the first word ("but") of the third sentence of the first paragraph ... clearly enough it needs to be capitalized as "But".  I consider the "English" editing needed to be a small effort. 

Although lean TOOLS are emphasized, the more enduring way of sustaining lean, is through building culture. As a recommendation of possible interest to the authors -- even if not for revision purposes -- please see, for example the work of the Shingo Institute and of the Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence. Shigeo Shingo was the co-inventor (together with Taiichi Ohno) of approaches at Toyota. His son, Ritsuo, led Toyota plants in China. Ritsuo remains engaged with the Shingo Institute. It my be of interest and value to the authors to explore:  WWW.SHINGO.ORG     Also, it may be interesting for the authors to note that the China Quality Association is a partner of the Shingo Institute.   To better see how all of this fits together, see:

Edgeman, R. (2019). Complex Management Systems and the Shingo Model: Foundations of Operational Excellence and Supporting Tools.  Productivity Press, https://www.crcpress.com/Complex-Management-Systems-and-the-Shingo-Model-Foundations-of-Operational/Edgeman/p/book/9781138626225

Knowledge and its management are important. Tools are important. Culture is equally important and perhaps most important.

Otherwise - I find the work to be useful and the analysis to be carefully performed. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your careful review and constructive suggestions with regard to our manuscript. Thoses comments are very helpful for us to revise and imporve our paper. The point to point responds to the comments are listed as following: 

Thank you for your valuable advice. Based on the previous revision,we have added the definition of lean sustainability according to your thoughtful comments. As shown below:

Lean implementation is the elimination of waste through preventive measures so as to reduce environmental pollution while reducing costs. Lean product design automatically leads to greener products, and green product design ensures efficiency in the product development phase.

The purpose of lean is the application of lean implementation system in the enterprise, which is a deep transformation of the enterprise system. This transformation is not to transform the existing system and process into a better one, but to build a cultural atmosphere for independent improvement within the enterprise. In other words, the enterprise needs to implant a gene that can continuously search for the best and form a dynamic mechanism. After the static mechanism is built, it can be run, while lean requires the establishment of the habit of optimization. It can be seen that lean emphasizes the cultivation of people's ability and habits, as well as the formation of corporate culture, which are the sustainability of lean.    

Therefore, this paper defines lean sustainability from two aspects: from environmental perspective, lean sustainability is the future development stage of lean implementation, in which enterprises pursue long-term environmental harmony and focus on the improvement of social value. Lean sustainability is to help enterprises change their operations to reduce waste, emissions and waste of resources. From the perspective of implementation, lean sustainability is defined as the establishment of the concept of long-term implementation of lean, the use of lean for in-depth transformation, continuous optimization, and the establishment of an independent implementation of lean cultural atmosphere within the enterprise.

 

We are sorry for language  We have carefully corrected the manuscript according to your comment.

Thanks again for your comments, those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the importance guiding significane to our researches.

Reviewer 2 Report

Generally, this is an interesting issue what are the factors facilitation Lean implementation in companies. At the same time this is very complex issue. Definitely, knowledge is one of the important factors, indeed.

In the study I see much of data, and I see very little new valuable knowledge on Lean existence in companies. The discussion section needs to be improved along with theory building. What we know new from this study? How this study contributes to the practice? These are the fundamental questions.

Another issue is the construct of Study Convention, which is not clear, and very weakly rooted in existing literature knowledge. What authors mean by it, is totally not clear. See the two citations below:

"This paper defines the frequent and interactive behavior in the use of lean tools around different stages of knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration and knowledge application as study convention" (p. 6)

"employee execution level (SR1), shared language (SR2), internal learning mechanism (SR3), willingness to receive new methods (SR4)" (p. 8)

The explanation of the concept is not coherent with the measurement scale. This is not clear what authors would like to demonstrate.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your careful review and constructive suggestions with regard to our manuscript. Thoses comments are very helpful for us to revise and imporve our paper. The point to point responds to the comments are listed as following: 

As for the effect of lean implementation, we believe that the most important point is that lean implementation enables enterprises to upgrade their management and keep them alive. The era of high-speed development of Chinese enterprises has gone forever, and all industries have entered a stage of full competition. Competition is a process of survival forthe fittest, which tests the wisdom of corporate leaders, corporate brand and technical strength. lean implementation is to help enterprises to practice "internal strength" and enhance "physical fitness". "Internal power is mainly manifested in these aspects: quality, efficiency, delivery, cost, etc." Thank you for your valuable advice. Based on the previous revision,we have added the discussion of the results according to your thoughtful comments. As shown below:

(1)The adoption of lean tools has a positive impact on knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration and knowledge application. For example, the use of concurrent engineering or BIM technology in the design phase can greatly promote the sharing and exchange of knowledge; the use of the value flow diagram in the lean implementation phase requires the conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge by lean implementation staff. The feedback in the plan execution process and the team members' thinking about the problem will enrich the tacit knowledge of the individual, thereby promoting the process of knowledge integration; and the use of these tools is actually the process of knowledge application.

(2)Most existing studies focus on the direct impact of the application of lean tools on lean sustainability and lack discussion on the role of activities of internal knowledge management between lean tools and lean sustainability. The application of lean tools has a direct positive impact on lean sustainability. However, without the intermediary role of knowledge management, lean tools can hardly exert their maximum effect, reflecting the importance of knowledge management in the application of lean tools. This paper has empirically studied the mediating role of knowledge management in the application of lean tools and lean sustainability, elucidating a better understanding of the internal application of lean tools and the learning behavior of lean knowledge.

(3) New knowledge will be generated in the process of lean sustainable development, and the new knowledge will promote the effect of lean implementation. Lean implementation focuses on performance evaluation, through which periodic problems are found and feasible solutions are proposed to managers to achieve continuous improvement. Whether it is the performance evaluation indicators, the root cause of the problem, or the solution to the problem, it is the new knowledge generated in the process of lean continuous improvement. Storing, recording, and applying new knowledge to the next phase plan will enable the next phase plan to be carried out at a higher level of knowledge, thus further promoting lean sustainability. This is like a continuous climbing process. Sustainable evaluation promotes the generation of knowledge, and the accumulated new knowledge reacts to the continuous improvement and improvement of lean.

(4)This article has implemented different patterns of regular behavior as study conventions, elucidating the effects of the adjustment of study conventions in the application of lean tools through empirical research. Distinct enterprises present a different degree of understanding and application of the same lean tool, and the corresponding performance becomes different. Enterprises with good study conventions could behave more orderly and efficiently in the process of the application and promotion of lean tools. Otherwise, their practice only remains a simple imitation. To begin to deal with this, enterprises can establish good study conventions in the organization, unify their ways of thinking, and form a cohesive force of common work.

From a practical viewpoint, this paper concludes by providing some relevant implications for enterprises applying lean tools. Knowledge is an indispensable factor in the application of lean tools. Enterprises achieve the goal of improving sustainability by continuously improving and innovating the application process of lean tools through knowledge acquisition, integration, and application. On the other hand, good study conventions can help enterprises to create and gather all kinds of lean knowledge. Therefore, enterprise managers should strengthen knowledge management activities in the process of lean implementation, Strengthen knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration and knowledge application, so as to promote the knowledge level of lean implementation continues to grow. This accumulation of experience and knowledge not only helps improve the quality of lean implementation, but also reduces production costs and promotes lean sustainability. At the same time, attention should also be paid to establishing good study conventions, allowing the promotion of a continuous growth of lean knowledge, consequently improving lean sustainability.

  About study convention：

Conventions are regular and predictable organizational behavior patterns formed around work tasks in the process of enterprise evolution, competition and innovation. The study conventions of this paper attempts to point out specific behaviors of technical learning in different stages of knowledge management and lean implementation.

Although some researches have discussed the practice, there is still a lack of investigation into the internal structure and components of the practice. Therefore, from the perspective of knowledge management, this paper proposes a method to measure the learning management in the process of knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration and knowledge application in the process of lean implementation.

So we measure it by employee execution level, shared language, internal learning mechanism , willingness to receive new methods.

 

We are sorry for language  We have carefully corrected the manuscript according to your comment.

Thanks again for your comments, those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the importance guiding significane to our researches.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper was developed and written in a good way. There were some minor grammar errors. Please double-check the language of the paper again e.g.

Ln 14: an should be changed to a. Some words start with capital letters and then with lower-case on other occasions e.g. Lean, Knowledge Management, Lean Tools, Sustainability, etc… Ln 54: “…the paper also studies…”

Author Response

Thank you very much for your careful review and constructive suggestions with regard to our manuscript，

We are sorry for language  We have carefully corrected the manuscript according to your comment.

Thanks again for your comments, those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the importance guiding significane to our researches.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors, thank you for your effort, after your improvements I see your paper as really valuable and contributing to what we know about LM.