Seven steps to success

The 1980s represented an important watershed in quality as total quality management and lean production processes came to the forefront of management thinking. Since then, enough time has elapsed to allow a serious assessment of such potentially paradigmatic changes.

Such an evaluation has been carried out using data on the use of lean operational and related people practices and productivity in 448 UK manufacturing organisations over a 22-year time period. This unique study showed that organisations were typically adopting these key process and people management practices in an integrated way and that integration was associated with higher levels of productivity.