Using Data analytics to explore opportunities of Lean assessments

The suitability of statistical analysis of Lean maturity assessments to generate business value is reviewed. A case study is conducted on a large supply chain company. The relationship between the Lean maturity assessment scores and business performance is explored using Fisher's exact test. The effect size was also reviewed using Cramer's V. The insights of the analysis were shown to the company. They used the results to fund further investment in Lean in the business. The results demonstrated that Lean assessment data can be used for analytics to generate business value. The research provides a new perspective on the Lean qualitative measures and opportunities from statistical analysis.

I. Introduction

Lean manufacturing is a process improvement framework that is commonly used in supply chains to increase business performance. Assessments are the most common way to measure implementation success of the improvement framework. These assessments generate a lot of data. At the same time, organisations are becoming more digital with a bigger focus on data analytics. Process improvement assessment can be a new source of data for analysis to understand past events and understand what should be done in the future.