A theoretical analysis of Lean implementation in airline industry

Abstract: Lean production has a potential to strengthen the competitive advantage of the companies. As the airline business sector proceeds to quickly extend and advance; the current aircrafts management is facing a challenge of having to balance the long term goals with short term answers. Satisfaction of the clients has turned out to be altogether critical for airline operations and this resulted to more focus on the service quality. Lean's client centered topic for enhancing service quality has picked up a drive in services; but, the implementation of Lean in this industry is way behind health and manufacturing services. Although a number of studies have been conducted over the past few decades to address these issues but there is still a gap in the current literature review, therefore the aim of this paper was to theoretically assess the lean implementation in airline industry. The results of the critical analysis of the current literature clearly indicate that there are flaws related to the country and area of the studies. Most of the studies are based in UK and USA and the previous researchers have focused more on manufacturing companies