Sustainability and development of Lean implementations

Lean production has become a major change strategy in Swedish public organizations. The aim of this paper was to identify factors that support or counteract sustainability and development of Lean implementations in public organizations. In an interactive research project including interviews and questionnaires, seven public organizations were followed during a three year period. Some factors supported and other factors counteracted sustainability and development of Lean. In conclusion, lack of sustained change was to a large extent due to replacement of the top managers in five of the organizations and introduction of another change philosophy, low political and managerial ownership and financial problems