A Manufacturing Strategy Perspective on Lean and Green Manufacturing

Paper in proceeding, 2009

One part of the manufacturing strategy content is often described in terms of decision criteria, i.e. necessary decisions on how to make investments, train personnel, manage manufacturing etc. Traditionally, these decisions involve several contradictory aspects called trade-offs. Lean production, or Toyota Production System, is a philosophy on how to manage production efficiently and focus on value-adding activities. More recently, green aspects have come into focus and customers tend to appreciate environmental concern more and more. In this article we compare these two perspectives in terms of decision criteria and identify decisions that support both perspectives, but regarding some decisions we suggest that the two perspectives could be contradictory. In those cases, this trade-off situation needs to be handled.