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PurposeAssessing the outcome of lean transformation journey has been of interest to both researchers and practitioners. Various qualitative and quantitative assessment methodologies have been proposed in literature to track and measure the degree of leanness attained. The purpose of this paper is to understand the evolution of this leanness assessment literature over different attributes and identify gaps for future research.Design/methodology/approachA detailed literature review of peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers addressing leanness assessment was performed. Content analysis methodology involving a four-step process suggested by Mayring (2004) was adopted for this study.FindingsThe number of studies in literature on leanness assessment is low when compared to that in the area of lean implementation. Assessment methodologies developed are of wide range, varying from simple qualitative checklist to complex quantitative mathematical models. Following the trend of lean implementation literature, lean thinking assessment literature is also getting transformed from process-level monitoring to enterprise-level monitoring. Finally, based on this review, a simplified leanness assessment framework is proposed for future validation.Research limitations/implicationsOnly peer-reviewed journals and conference papers were analyzed, while excluding the manuals, reports, and white papers from practice. Clustering of leanness assessment literature revealed that future studies in this domain would fall into two major categories, namely manufacturing leanness assessment and service leanness assessment.Practical implicationsPractitioners can use this review study to choose a suitable methodology for assessing the leanness attained in their organization by controlling for the structural attributes identified.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to review the topic "leanness assessment." The review analyzes the entire literature available on leanness assessment to summarize its current status and identify potential future directions.

India has and is undergoing sweeping economic changes lately. There are several organisations who have supported this positive change. Of these, one such organisation, which shouldered the infrastructural burden of the transportation sector in India's growth story, was the 160 year old Indian Railways (IR), the world's largest commercial employer. IR's profit over the last few years was a far cry from its loss making days, which tempted the government of India to consider privatisation in 2001. The transformational turnaround would not have been possible but for IR's employees. After celebrating IR's 160th anniversary in 2013, the case organization wished to revisit its HR practices to understand its recent economic transformations and to strategize how they can improve and sustain maximum efficiency in future. The objective of this case study is to understand the 'people side' of IR by explaining its current HR practices, and to investigate and identify changes over the years so that changes then can be implemented in the context of HR practices for the future. Hence the case attempts to explain the role of human resource management in IR's turnaround strategies. Resistance exhibited by IR staff towards its recent initiative of ERP implementation across India due to fear of job losses and insecurity is also discussed in the case. Teaching note for this case study explains existing people management frameworks published in the research literature to class participants by applying it to the case company. In addition, teaching note also discusses how Chief Personnel Officers (CPO's) of IR can pursue the change initiatives among the employees with least resistance. Changes/initiatives that can be imbibed by the CPO's in the existing HR practices to overcome the resistance exerted by the employees and to improve the existing system is also discussed.

One key challenge for consumers at the base of the pyramid (BoP) is access to products that could transform their livelihood, leading to nonconsumption as the dominant pattern. Previous studies have claimed that nonconsumption could be addressed with services offering access to goods without ownership. Drawing on expected utility theory, we conduct two experimental studies in rural India that provide the first empirical support for the idea that the availability of access-based services reduces nonconsumption at the BoP. Additionally, we show that this effect is explained by BoP consumers' expected utility assessment as reflected in their perception of access being more affordable and entailing less financial risk than ownership. We also demonstrate that access temporality, an important configurational variable for access-based service providers, affects the degree to which nonconsumption can be decreased. Compared to short-term access, BoP consumers perceive long-term access to be too similar to ownership in terms of affordability and financial risk, which causes them to refrain from purchasing. Overall, the results suggest that access-based services represent a viable alternative for addressing nonconsumption at the BoP. However, service providers should be aware that short-term access is required to gain acceptance among BoP consumers.

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to investigate the contingent adoption of Additive Manufacturing (AM) and propose a typology to evaluate its adoption viability within a firm's supply chain.Design/methodology/approachBy conducting semi-structured interviews of practitioners with deep knowledge of AM and supply chains from diverse industries, this research explores the contingent factors influencing AM adoption and their interaction.FindingsWhile the AM literature is growing, there is a lack of research investigating how contingent factors influence AM adoption. By reviewing the extant literature on the benefits and barriers of AM, we explain the underlying contingencies that enact them. Further, we use an exploratory approach to validate and uncover underexplored contingent factors that influence AM adoption and group them into technological, organizational and strategic factors. By anchoring to a selected set of contingent factors, a typological framework is developed to explain when and how AM is a viable option.Research limitations/implicationsThis study focuses on specific industries such as automotive, machine manufacturing, aerospace and defense. Scholars are encouraged to explore the contextual factors affecting AM adoption in particular industries to expand our findings. The authors also acknowledge that the robustness of their framework can be enhanced by integrating the remaining contingent factors.Practical implicationsThe developed typological framework provides a pathway for practitioners to see how and when AM can be useful in their supply chains.Originality/valueThis is the first paper in the supply chain management literature to synthesize contingent factors and identify some overlooked factors for AM adoption. The research is also unique in explaining the interaction among selected factors to provide a typological framework for AM adoption. This research provides novel insights for managers to understand when and where to adopt AM and the key contingent factors involved in AM adoption.