Editorial: The landscape of Lean across public services

A decade of application, experimentation and refinement Ten years ago in Public Money and Management (Vol. 28, No. 1), Radnor and Boaden (2008) wrote an editorial entitled: ‘Lean in public services—panacea or paradox? ’ (pp. 3–7) as an introduction to a theme they had edited examining Lean in public service delivery. In this new theme, Radnor returns with Bateman and Glennon to reflect on the implementation of Lean in public services 10 years on. The first point to note is that Lean (and associated techniques) is still being implemented and the question is still being asked! Can Lean address the challenges of public service delivery (a panacea)? Or is it a distraction for public sector managers (a paradox)? In this editorial, we reflect on the original editorial and other contributions to the 2008 theme to understand how far we have (or have not) come, as well as examine the current state of play and introduce the contributions to this theme. We will not give a detailed overview of Lean, as this was presented in 2008 (Radnor and Boaden, 2008) and can be easily found in other sources (for example Ohno, 1988; Womack et al., 1990; Liker, 2004; Womack and Jones, 2010), with Holweg (2007) providing a useful genealogy of Lean’s production origins. Public service reform has continued apace across the globe, with spending levels reduced within and across the vast majority of services and countries. A plethora of management tools, techniques, and theories have made the sometimes arduous journey from their origins in the private sector to the public or voluntary sectors, but Lean, or the Toyota Production System (TPS) to give it its original name, remains one of the most intriguing. Simple to understand, yet simultaneously complex to implement; highly specific, yet the fundamental concepts seem eminently translatable to wider contexts. It is these tensions and contradictions that make the study of Lean, particularly in public, third and voluntary sector services, so thought-provoking. Radnor and Boaden’s editorial distilled Lean’s key points and raised some questions. It asked where Lean was being applied and which elements from Lean were relevant to public service delivery. The key findings noted that the approach taken was very tool-based, especially on Lean projects and rapid improvement events (RIEs). A recent survey and report (Bateman et al., 2017) concluded that this is still the case—a strong emphasis on tools with visual management a significant one (Galsworth, 2005). Importantly, the report (Bateman et al., 2017) highlighted that organizations recognized the need to embed Lean into organizational strategy, and to have clear teams and resources dedicated to Lean, as well as to capture the benefits in order to sustain its implementation and focus. This shows a maturity over the past 10 years in the understanding of the complexities and length of time needed to successfully implement Lean. The original editorial (Radnor and Boaden, 2008) also found that the majority of published case studies were in healthcare, and often case studies were carefully selected to demonstrate benefits. Since then the application of Lean (and associated techniques) has broadened across public, third and voluntary services, as the contributions in this theme illustrate. Matters of application, as should be the case, has not gone unchallenged, with researchers such as Carter et al. (2011; 2017) raising questions over worker autonomy and performance-driven culture. The issue of Lean’s impact on the worker was highlighted in the editorial in 2008 (Radnor and Boaden, 2008), as was the process and sustainability of Lean. Like the people issue, process and sustainability have been considered in research and publications over the past 10 years, with the continuing recognition that Lean and associated techniques should be adapted not adopted within public services. Recognizing that Lean is context-dependent has led to further engagement of other disciplines, including service and operations management, thus unpacking some of the key elements needed to Theme: The development of ‘Lean’ (and associated techniques) in public, third and voluntary services