The concept of implementing lean manufacturing technologies in transportation enterprises

¹ ITMO University, Kronverksky Av., 49, 197101, Saint Petersburg, Russia
² Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation (North-West Institute of Management - a branch of RANEPA), Sredny prospect V.O., 57/43, 199178, Saint Petersburg, Russia

^* Corresponding author: igor.kotciuba@gmail.com

Abstract

The article explores the techniques and tools of lean manufacturing, and formulates the concept of implementing lean approaches in transportation enterprises. Lean manufacturing technologies are necessary for the transportation industry, and their application is already in progress in many companies with varying speed and effectiveness. To achieve this, firstly, existing practices in implementing lean manufacturing technologies in transportation enterprises are analysed, secondly, the organisation of flow of individual transportation and logistics operations is identified as the fundamental basis for a lean transformation, and thirdly, a possible approach to revising the overall organisation of transportation enterprises is proposed to realise a continuous flow through the transition to network-centric logistics. The scientific novelty of the study is that it presents and analyses the problem of contrasting partial and systematic implementation of one of the most promising management methodologies, and identifies a direction for formulating specific recommendations for transportation enterprises. The main idea of the concept is that transportation enterprises are encouraged to focus on the flow of information rather than material.