Lean thinking is a modified way of thinking that focuses on providing an effective strategy for businesses to increase value in society and reduce waste. When a company adopts this methodology, the unnecessary costs to the company's environment reduce. In contrast, the customer and employee's values are aligned with profitable services and quality products. Most organizations globally use lean thinking in their business plans. A significant company that has adopted this strategy is Nike, one of the world's leading shoe companies. The lean approach has shown sustainability at Nike because it has been able to reduce material waste and time taken during production. Therefore, this has, in turn, added value to the employees and customers. The production time and the establishment of a quality product determine what the customer will pay; additionally, adequate services ensure that the company delivers the value that the customers expect. However, Nike faced challenges when implementing Lean thinking in their business plan.
Firstly, the supply chain contributed as a major challenge during this methodology's implementation process in that raw materials were being delivered to the company when the former ones were still in use and had not been completed. Therefore, this created a lot of waste due to the many raw materials that were still not used. Lean manufacturing focuses on reducing the storage time for the raw materials delivered to a company and the storage time for already made products. Before implementing lean thinking, Nike used to experience a lot of storage time on the outgoing products because the incoming raw materials also stayed for a lot of time before they began using them. All these were experienced due to poor time management during production as they also received lesser orders from customers. Raw materials need to be delivered in time such that there are recurring orders made from customers and proper coordination among suppliers (Godbole et al., 2019).
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Secondly, employee development was a problem faced by Nike because the company needed skilled and well-trained employees with the adoption of lean thinking. Since this methodology encompasses various aspects to be put in place, including technological innovations, Nike needed to hire educated employees to ensure the coordination of the supply chain. Lean thinking focuses on producing positive results through the adoption of a strategic plan that minimizes unnecessary costs. Therefore, there are certain aspects in lean thinking like lean manufacturing that require a company to hire technical employees who will be responsible for inspecting and repairing the technological innovations that manufacture the company's products. If they maintained their regular employees, then the methodology would have been ineffective, and losses would be incurred. Through the implementation of lean thinking, technical employees will require much higher compensation than regular employees. Additionally, they will need licenses to operate the company's systems (Distelhorst et al., 2017). Therefore, skilled and technical workers are necessary for ensuring that the company's profits are stable through the variety of tasks they handle when engaging in the company's technological systems.
Lastly, cultural issues mostly affected employees because lean thinking requires adopting a strategic plan, which gives managers a chance to hire a few employees who handle a wide range of responsibilities within the company. Nike opted to use lean thinking to reduce unnecessary costs and production time; therefore, this requires strict supervision and commitment to achieve its goals. Additionally, through this methodology, there is the involvement of working incentives that motivate the employees to work harder. Following the employment of few workers, the plans implemented by a company may interfere with the employees' routine. There needs to be a commitment from each entity involved in the company's processes to ensure that goals are achieved.
Nike having adopted. Lean thinking has gained various opportunities and managed to control the challenges they had when implementing the methodology. Firstly, Nike reduced material waste by creating a just-in-time strategy whereby incoming materials are delivered in time after the outgoing products have been sold out. Additionally, these raw materials are stored for a short period compared to the former days when the materials could stay for months without being used. The material wastes such as carbon were emitted to outlets as this ensured that health and safety were made a priority. Nike worked with Business for Social Responsibility to implement strategies that improve labor and environmental conditions (AlManei et al., 2018). Therefore, the lean thinking methodology was influential in ensuring that Nike's supply chain was productive, which meant great profit for the company.
Secondly, the employees at Nike can make good teamwork through the training they undergo as this helps to improve the company's operations, additionally attaining the goals set. This training helps employees solve technical problems that the company experiences, thereby increasing productivity and hence reduces less time on production. Also, these employees work under self-directed groups. This means that employees can handle their work without supervision because they know what tasks to handle and how to do them. Lastly, Nike improved their product quality through a statistical method known as Six Sigma, which aids in getting quality products. When there is improved quality of products, then the company experiences a good flow of orders. Therefore, the perfect order rate ensures that products are delivered in time.
References
Distelhorst, G., Hainmueller, J., & Locke, R. M. (2017). Does lean improve labor standards? Management and social performance in the Nike supply chain. Management Science , 63 (3), 707-728.
Godbole, H., Esterman, M., Palekar, S., & Arciniegas, A. R. (2019, August). Successes and Challenges in Implementing Lean Product Development. In International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (Vol. 59278, p. V007T06A056). American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
AlManei, M., Salonitis, K., & Tsinopoulos, C. (2018). A conceptual lean implementation framework based on change management theory. Procedia cirp , 72 , 1160-1165.
