Information technology and the quality improvement in defense industries

Enabling digitization by implementing Lean IT: lessons learned

Purpose

With the rise of digitization, IT organizations are challenged to provide efficient service delivery and offer innovative digital solutions while maintaining a constant resource capacity. To address this challenge, some IT organizations have adopted Lean Management (LM). Although LM is a standard production mode in manufacturing, it is less familiar to IT organizations. The purpose of this paper is to identify 12 lessons learned from companies who implemented LM in their IT organization (Lean IT) to free up their IT resource capacity from existing day-to-day operations so they could use it to enable their digitization strategy.

Design/methodology/approach

A case study of two major international companies from different industries. Data were collected from 25 structured interviews.

Findings

The lessons learned provide insights into how these companies implemented Lean IT, the potential outcomes they aimed for, what they did to achieve those outcomes, how they facilitated the implementation of Lean IT, and restrictions they encountered during the implementation.

Research limitations/implications

The findings are based on a limited range of IT organizations.

Practical implications

The lessons learned inform those implementing Lean IT because they explain how companies have implemented Lean IT to facilitate digitization and the benefits and pitfalls they encountered. A comparison of Lean IT and Lean Production shows that LM is transferable to IT organizations if domain specific requirements are respected.

Originality/value

This paper reports the unique experience of companies implementing Lean IT, which can inform other companies in a similar situation.

Operationalising performance measurement dimensions for the Australasian nonprofit healthcare sector

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a performance measurement (PM) framework for Australasian nonprofit organisations (NPOs) involved in healthcare, and operational descriptions for each PM dimension within this framework.

Design/methodology/approach

Literature relating to the balanced scorecard and other PM frameworks was examined to develop an initial conceptual model, and this model was substantially improved by collecting qualitative data from nine Australian and New Zealand healthcare NPOs using a case study approach.

Findings

The study identifies nine causally related PM dimensions: mission, strategy, organisational capabilities, infrastructure and people development (people and information), financial health, processes, and stakeholder satisfaction (clients, people, and donors). The study also recognised that “Mission” and “Strategy” should be PM dimensions and that healthcare NPOs should focus on satisfying its people, not only donors and clients. Additionally, 41 operational descriptions are developed for each of these dimensions and can enable detailed PM items to be derived by organisations.

Originality/value

The study is the first study that has been undertaken to develop a PM framework for the Australasian NPOs to a level that it can be readily used by the practitioners (following customisation to their own specific context). The developed model also serves as a basis for future quantitative academic research aimed at testing and empirical validation of the conceptual model.