A South African Ubuntu analogy of Lean philosophy

Abstract

Lean philosophy has become a global phenomenon in recent years due to its organisational benefits. However, as organisations in many countries attempt to implement Lean, it has been noted that there are several implementation problems and failures. Conversely, literature states that the reason for Lean success in Japan lies in the fact that Lean is deeply rooted in Japanese culture. Similarly, Ubuntu is a philosophy that is deeply rooted in the South African culture. This study addresses the lack of understanding of the Lean management principles in the South African context, which attributes to poor buy-in during Lean implementation. In order to accomplish this, the aim is to utilise the Ubuntu management philosophy to develop a South African analogy of the Japanese Lean principles. The research followed the elaborated action design research (eADR) methodology, utilising the problem diagnosing and concept design stages prescribed by this. A case study that followed following the Design, Measure, Analyse, Design, Verify (DMADV) method was employed to investigate the lack of understanding of the Lean management principles in South Africa. During the problem diagnosing stage, a gap analysis (case study) revealed multiple misunderstood Lean principles within a Lean organisation, resulting in a lack of understanding. The concept design stage made use of a systematic literature review (SLR) to establish the correlations and variations between Lean management principles and Ubuntu management principles. Lean and Ubuntu share a considerable number of similarities and it was noted that Lean has several principles that did not, however, have a corresponding Ubuntu principle. The results obtained from the SLR were utilized to develop an analogy (Literature-based framework), which was verified and validated via surveys with South African Lean experts. The similarities in the analogy could assist in “translating” Lean concepts to a South African context, thereby improving understanding of the Lean principles and possibly contributing to more successful Lean implementations.