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Work 00 (2014) 1–14 1DOI 10.3233/WOR-141941IOS Press

Workplace ergonomics in lean productionenvironments: A literature review

Pedro M. Arezes, José Dinis-Carvalho and Anabela Carvalho Alves∗Department of Production and Systems, School of Engineering, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal

Received 4 April 2013

Accepted 7 March 2014

Abstract.BACKGROUND: Lean Production Systems (LPS) have become very popular among manufacturing industries, services andlarge commercial areas. A LPS must develop and consider a set of work features to bring compatibility with workplace er-gonomics, namely at a muscular, cognitive and emotional demands level.OBJECTIVE: Identify the most relevant impacts of the adoption of LPS from the ergonomics point of view and summarizessome possible drawbacks for workplace ergonomics due to a flawed application of the LPS. The impacts identified are focusedin four dimensions: work pace, intensity and load; worker motivation, satisfaction and stress; autonomy and participation; andhealth outcome. This paper also discusses the influence that the work organization model has on workplace ergonomics and onthe waste elimination previewed by LPS.METHODS: Literature review focused LPS and its impact on occupational ergonomics conditions, as well as on the Healthand Safety of workers. The main focus of this research is on LPS implementations in industrial environments and mainly inmanufacturing industry workplaces. This is followed by a discussion including the authors’ experience (and previous research).RESULTS: From the reviewed literature it seems that there is no consensus on how Lean principles affect the workplace er-gonomics since most authors found positive (advantages) and negative (disadvantages) impacts.CONCLUSIONS: The negative impacts or disadvantages of LPS implementations reviewed may result from the misunderstand-ing of the Lean principles. Possibly, they also happen due to partial Lean implementations (when only one or two tools wereimplemented) that may be effective in a specific work context but not suitable to all possible situations as the principles of LPSshould not lead, by definition, to any of the reported drawbacks in terms of workplace ergonomics.

Keywords: Lean production, ergonomics, literature review, work organization models

1. Introduction1

Lean Production was the term used by Krafcik in2

1988 to nominate the production organisation system3

used in some Japanese automotive plants installed in4

the U.S. during the 1980’s [1]. This system, also called5

Toyota Production System (TPS) because of its ori-6

gins in Toyota automotive plants [2], became known7

since the first oil crisis in 1973. Despite the crisis, Toy-8

∗Corresponding author: Anabela Carvalho Alves, Campus ofAzurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal. Tel.: +351 253510766;Fax: +351 253510343; E-mail: anabela@dps.uminho.pt.

ota results were remarkable, provoking the curiosity of 9

other plants. Their capacity in designing and building 10

cars in less time, with fewer people and lower inven- 11

tories was notable. This crisis also motivated MIT to 12

develop a research program entirely dedicated to this 13

specific approach, the International Motor Vehicle Pro- 14

gram (IMVP). One of the first of many studies that re- 15

sulted from this program was the survey published in 16

the book “The Machine that changed the world” from 17

Womack et al. [3] about the differences between the 18

Western and Japanese automotive industry practices. 19

According to several publications, “Lean Think- 20

ing” [4] is focused on waste (muda) elimination, i.e., 21

everything that does not directly contribute to the 22

1051-9815/14/$27.50 c© 2014 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved

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2 P.M. Arezes et al. / Workplace ergonomics in lean production environments

added value of a product, under the perspective of23

customers’ needs and requirements. This approach is24

based on five main principles: i) create value for the25

customer; ii) map the value stream; iii) create flow;26

iv) the customer pulls the production, and v) pursuing27

perfection. To achieve these principles, it is indispens-28

able to apply two key-concepts: JIT (Just-In-Time)29

production and continuous improvement (kaizen) [5].30

The continuous improvement is linked to another lean31

thinking concept: the creative thinking, pointed out32

by Toyota Production System (TPS) as another key-33

concept [2,6]. This concept has to do with the will of34

the workers and culture promoted by the companies to35

extend the principles to all management activities, the36

Lean Production Systems (LPS).37

Despite the clear gain in production, some of the38

so called “lean” companies were not always focused39

on the well-being of workers and on the issue of er-40

gonomics, and that also applies to some of the Toyota41

plants, as reported in Pil and Fujimoto [7]. According42

to Yang et al. [8] most of the implementations of LPS43

emphasize the technical practices of the TPS and ne-44

glect the role of human factors in such implementa-45

tions. Also Shoaf et al. [9] mentioned that lean manu-46

facturing seems to be more focused in optimizing the47

process performance and, thus, ignoring the effects of48

these new work practices on workers.49

Workers are very important and have a central role50

in LPS, so it is important to guarantee that they feel51

well and that their health and safety are assured. Nev-52

ertheless, it is possible to find in recent literature a53

significant number of papers addressing negative as-54

pects of the LPS implementation regarding the work-55

place ergonomics (e.g., Anderson-Connolly et al. [10];56

Kazmierczak et al. [11]; Winkel and Westgaard [12];57

Dul and Neumann [13] and Johansson and Abrahams-58

son [14]). Fortunately, there are others who point out59

some positive aspects such as low human effort [15,60

16] or worker autonomy [17]. A review from Bränn-61

mark and Håkansson [18] pointed out the same conclu-62

sions, alerting for the importance of how the context63

and LPS implementation could influence these aspects.64

The context is related with work organizational model65

(Taylorist, Socio-Technical system,. . . ) that was previ-66

ously implemented in a company and when implement67

LPS, a different work organizational model [3], this68

must has been in account. The workplace ergonomics69

impact of LPS tends to be recognised as more pos-70

itive when LPS are implemented in a previous Tay-71

lorist/Fordist systems [19], while when implemented in72

existing Socio-Technical Systems, the reactions from73

employees tend to be more negative [20]. The influ- 74

ence of work organizational model existed in the com- 75

pany on workplace ergonomics will be discussed later 76

on this paper. 77

Based on this scenario, this study aims at re- 78

viewing the most recent literature and at identify- 79

ing the most relevant impacts of the implementation 80

of LPS in industrial manufacturing context, regarding 81

ergonomics working conditions and discussing some 82

possible drawbacks about a flawed or partial applica- 83

tion of LPS. The impacts discussed are focused in four 84

dimensions: work pace, intensity and load; worker mo- 85

tivation, satisfaction and stress; autonomy and partici- 86

pation; and health outcome. 87

2. Research design 88

This paper is based on an extensive literature review 89

about the proposed subject and comprises two of the 90

most comprehensive and large available publications 91

databases, namely the ISI Web of Knowledge, from 92

Thomson Reuters, and Scopus, from Elsevier. 93

As a literature review, the current paper intended 94

to discuss the relevant published information on the 95

considered domains and within a certain time period. 96

Thus, this literature review has focused on the LPS and 97

its impact on occupational ergonomics conditions, as 98

well as on the Health and Safety of workers. The con- 99

text is LPS implementations in industrial environments 100

and mainly in manufacturing industry workplaces. 101

Considering that some previous works focused on 102

similar literature reviews and included all the relevant 103

literature during the 1980’s and 1990’s, it was decided 104

that the current study would focus on the review of 105

the more recent publications, i.e., documents published 106

from the year 2000 onwards. 107

The first step of the analysis consisted in a search 108

for relevant papers/studies within the defined topics. 109

The search was limited by the publication date and to 110

academic journals, thesis and other published docu- 111

ments available online. Therefore, all the unpublished 112

works, including personal communications, were ex- 113

cluded from this analysis. 114

As an example of a (non-exhaustive) list of the used 115

keywords, it is possible to mention “Lean Produc- 116

tion”, “Lean Manufacturing”, “Lean Management Sys- 117

tems”, “Lean Thinking”, “Lean Management”, “Er- 118

gonomics”, “Health and Safety”, “Workplace condi- 119

tions”. 120

According to the mentioned procedure, the current 121

literature review included empirical and theoretical, 122

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P.M. Arezes et al. / Workplace ergonomics in lean production environments 3

quantitative and qualitative studies, written in English,123

which focused on the topic of LPS and its relationship124

with the working conditions.125

3. Brief review of work organization models126

A brief review of work organizational models is pre-127

sented to contextualize Lean Production Systems and128

to support the discussion that work organization mod-129

els influence workplaces ergonomic.130

3.1. Fordist and socio-technical systems131

Henry Ford adopted Taylor’s Principles of Scientific132

Management (1911) to his automobile factory to im-133

prove productivity. These principles were simple and,134

mainly, consisted of dividing the operations in elemen-135

tary tasks that anyone could do. Each operator stayed136

permanently in one workstation doing his simple and137

monotonous task with a previously estimated standard138

time. Tasks like product or process design, produc-139

tion planning and control, quality control or decision-140

making tasks were carried out by management. Opera-141

tors had no relevant responsibilities and were excluded142

from any active participation regarding the improve-143

ment of processes and products.144

This work organization model emphasizes the indi-145

vidual and the individual specialization for executing146

one task at some point in the moving assembling line.147

Accordingly, it restricts the mobility of operators be-148

tween tasks, as well as their participation in solving149

problems and their creativity. For these reasons, this150

model imposes severe and hard work conditions, con-151

sidering that each worker is only a gear of the “big ma-152

chine” and is totally dependent on the equipment, rea-153

son for referring to this system as a techno centric sys-154

tem.155

The workers’ promotion is limited because the pos-156

sibility to learn and develop other tasks is denied. Other157

effects, such as aggressiveness, anger and overall stress158

may also be found in workers’ behaviour.159

Contrasting with this techno centric system is the160

Socio-Technical, or also called anthropocentric pro-161

duction system, defined as a system based on the uti-162

lization of skilled human resources and flexible tech-163

nology adapted to the needs of a flexible and partici-164

pative organization [21]. The STS totally breaks away165

with the Fordist system, by promoting the operators’166

qualification, teamwork and giving power and auton-167

omy to the team operators. The multi-skilling, empow-168

erment and job rotation, enlargement, and enrichment 169

are strategies adopted with that aim in mind. For ex- 170

ample, multi-skilling is the opposite of job specializa- 171

tion; the operator is capable of doing several different 172

tasks. These could be obtained through training and 173

maintaining job rotation in the workplace. The job ro- 174

tation plans have been used by the companies and is 175

largely recommended in the literature [22] as a strategy 176

to avoid the workers’ boredom and the injuries caused 177

by repetitive tasks. For example, in the case studied in 178

Oliveira and Alves [23], the operators rotate after two 179

hours doing one task. This workers’ mobility is pro- 180

moted by working in a dynamic standing posture that 181

simultaneously reduces their fatigue [24]. This could 182

also be a way to avoid monotony, demotivation and ab- 183

senteeism on the job. 184

Job enlargement means to join tasks previously 185

fragmented and executed by different operators. It is 186

mainly a horizontal enlargement because the basis of 187

the tasks is the same, as opposed to job enrichment 188

that includes different task contents like tasks prepa- 189

ration, quality control and machine maintenance. Job 190

enlargement permits more work variety and diversifi- 191

cation, longer cycle duration and more flexibility and 192

work organization. 193

Job enrichment goes beyond these advantages and 194

looks to promote the operator’s initiative, giving him 195

complex and responsibility tasks and, ultimately, giv- 196

ing him power, authority and responsibility (the em- 197

powered operator) to decide the work to be done. 198

The operators in the Socio-Technical System were 199

organized in semi-autonomous work groups (SAWG) 200

or self-directed (or self-managed) work teams 201

(SDWT) [25] where the democratization is the work 202

basis. In self-management teams, all members partic- 203

ipate in the local decision-making, previous function 204

of supervisors and managers [26]. Self-management 205

is defined as autonomous decision-making about the 206

tasks to be done and how to do them, organizing the 207

transformation processes to achieve the objectives of 208

the team [27]. Additionally, giving power and respon- 209

sibility to the team present other advantages, such 210

as the reduction of hierarchic levels of management 211

and the promotion of cooperation and creativity [28]. 212

Examples of the most discussed of these kinds of 213

teams were implemented in the Kalmar and Udde- 214

valla Volvo automobile factories in the 1970’s and 215

1980’s [29]. This organization model was also known 216

as the Volvoísm model. Each team is responsible for the 217

whole automobile assembling process. 218

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4 P.M. Arezes et al. / Workplace ergonomics in lean production environments

3.2. Lean production system219

Many authors see work organization in LPS as220

an evolution with some deviations from the Tay-221

lorism/Fordist system, job rotation and team-work222

being two of these deviations. Other authors, like223

Forza [19], considers that workers were structurally224

stimulated to move to a different dimension of respon-225

sibility that combines its own with the companies’ re-226

sponsibility in a manner of obtaining the greatest em-227

ployee willingness. In his research, he concludes that228

LPS uses more teams for problem solving, schemes229

for employee’s suggestion and quality feedback, pro-230

duction documents procedures and task variety. On the231

other hand, van Amelsvoort and Benders [25], dis-232

cussing the Toyota “team”, consider that those teams233

do not have autonomy, only a set of duties and re-234

sponsibilities. Björkman [30] also refers that the team235

work in LPS is restricted to Quality Circles and to236

cleaning and housekeeping activities. Quality Control237

Circles (QCC) [2], comes from TPS and consisted in238

small groups of workers that discuss quality control239

issues or improvement methods for production. How-240

ever, the purpose of the circle is beyond the house-241

keeping activities and, as an ultimate goal, the circle242

is seen as a continuous way to improve the quality of243

work. The mentors of TPS believed that when properly244

stimulated operators could improve, better than any-245

one, the process they were working on. The unused op-246

erators’ creativity is the additional type of waste that247

is frequently referred to, besides the well-known and248

discussed LPS seven wastes [31]. The new shop-floor249

management, as Suzaki [32] names the TPS, only has250

meaning with the workers intervening and participat-251

ing in the operating, planning, designing, coaching,252

self-managing, measuring, training and controlling in-253

volved in problem-solving, meeting, suggesting and254

improving processes. Spear and Bowen [33] referred255

that all organizations managed by TPS they studied256

“. . . share an overarching belief that people are the257

most significant corporate asset and that investments258

in their knowledge and skills are necessary to build259

competitiveness.” and “. . . a work environment that is260

safe physically, emotionally and professionally for ev-261

ery employee”. Work organization practices in LPS are262

deeply related with workers’ participation, empower-263

ment, continuous training, learning and team working,264

as pointed out by Olivella et al. [34].265

This leads to a different concept of teams – Lean266

Teams – that emerges as something different from the267

socio-technical teams. According to the study of Mac-268

Duffie and Pil [35], workers had more influence on the 269

job to be done and who should do the job than on the 270

selection of the team leader or the amount and the work 271

pace. Working in teams shows how important team- 272

work is, although the teams have different levels of 273

influence in the work they do. The characteristics of 274

Lean Teams were, according to Delbridge et al. [36], 275

the presence of a formally recognized, hierarchically 276

distinct team leader who is part of the team and whose 277

duties include some element of direct work; a clearly 278

defined and relatively fixed membership; a span of con- 279

trol for team leaders that does not typically exceed 280

20 workers; the teams are constituted around specific, 281

on-line production activities within clearly recogniz- 282

able areas of the plant. These characteristics are based 283

on the works of Cutcher-Gershenfeld et al. [37] and 284

Mueller [38]. This last author also refers that “a team 285

shall be understood as a group of people that has be- 286

tween 8 and 15 members, is responsible for producing 287

a well-defined output within a recognizable territory, 288

where members rotate from job to job with some regu- 289

larity, under a flexible allocation of tasks”. Normally, 290

this team works in a U shaped cell layout with all ma- 291

chines necessary to produce a product or a family of 292

products [39]. U-shaped layout is preferred because it 293

contributes to less monotony in terms of work [40,41]. 294

Working on this cell arrangement, the team members 295

could adopt different and flexible work patterns or cell 296

operating modes, i.e. an internal organization and dis- 297

tribution of the operators by the workstations (related 298

to how people work and how they flow inside a cell). 299

4. Literature review results 300

Generically, and as pointed out by many authors, 301

such as Saurin and Ferreira [42], Wong [43] and Gnoni 302

et al. [44], ergonomics and occupational safety can be 303

impacted by the implemented lean production systems, 304

thus the identification of the possible advantages and 305

disadvantages related to this implementation is highly 306

dependent on the discussed contexts and also on the 307

type of production shift observed at the time of the LPS 308

implementation. 309

Despite some dispute about the positive and nega- 310

tive outputs of the implementation of a LPS, it seems 311

that there are arguments for both “sides”. Overall, al- 312

most a half of the analyzed papers and topics referred 313

to positive impacts, or opportunities, and the other half 314

to negative impacts, even though, many of these studies 315

indicated that both impacts occurred simultaneously. 316

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P.M. Arezes et al. / Workplace ergonomics in lean production environments 5

Accordingly, it was decided that some transversal317

issues regarding the impact on workplace ergonomics318

of the LPS would be presented and, in the last part of319

this section, a compilation of some of the cited posi-320

tive and negative points resulting from the adoption of321

a LPS. This review will be focused on 4 dimensions:322

work pace, intensity and load; worker motivation, sat-323

isfaction and stress; autonomy and participation; and324

lastly, health outcome.325

4.1. Work pace, intensity and load326

Some of the main characteristics of the LPS, such327

as the standardization of cycle time, which prevents328

workers from managing their own work pace [45], the329

need to be multi-skilled [17,46], which often implies330

job enlargement and work intensification, by the un-331

limited demands on performance, the willingness to332

frequently work overtime and on very short notice and333

a close individual surveillance and pressure [42,47] are334

also associated to some of the main cited drawbacks of335

this production system.336

In terms of workload and regarding its content, it can337

be assumed that the need to reduce the work cycle will338

imply that the work will tend to be more repetitive and339

intense [42]. The reduction of the work cycle to small340

values (often less than 60 seconds), which are some-341

times cited by some authors as being linked with the342

Toyota Production Systems [46,48], is considered as343

one important risk factor for work-related injuries and344

may have a negative impact on workers’ well-being.345

In contrast to this, other authors, such [15], mentioned346

that LPS use less human effort.347

Angelis et al. [49] emphasized that in some activi-348

ties there is a need to maintain a certain high level of349

work pace during long periods. According to those au-350

thors, these activities are, most likely, very highly de-351

manding, hence they need to be designed for an execu-352

tion at a maximum of 80% of the total possible work353

pace, including the participation of the workers in the354

planning of their activities. However, the adoption of a355

“self-definition” of the work pace, also viewed as a sort356

of autonomy, may imply, for example, the need to pre-357

view the availability of intermediate points for prod-358

uct storage. Additionally, some studies [17,45,46] also359

described other previous studies where it was assumed360

that the LPS principle of reducing all the inactivity pe-361

riods may also result in an increase of the intensity of362

the work.363

4.2. Worker motivation, satisfaction and stress364

One of the most cited negative effects of the LPS365

is the stress level registered among workers. Although366

the effect that can result from a LPS implementation 367

may be seen as contradictory throughout the various 368

studies found in the literature, it seems that there is 369

some consensus in the potential for an increase level 370

on the stress observed among workers [10,49–51]. 371

As pointed out by Dul and Neumann [13], Lean 372

production and business process re-engineering are fo- 373

cused on improvements of business processes in order 374

to cut costs and serve customers better, which are likely 375

to involve the need to downsize. Some of these strate- 376

gies have been linked to the decrease of the wellbeing 377

of employees. For example, the individual’s perception 378

of the downsizing process itself also appears to affect 379

health [52,53]. In this respect, Parker [54], based on 380

a longitudinal study, showed that the implementation 381

of a LPS results in job depression and reductions in 382

job control and skill utilization although the same au- 383

thor referred that this study could not be generalized 384

because of the applied methodology (only one plant 385

was studied). Moreover, the author also pointed out 386

that the analyzed plant adopted a mixture of mass pro- 387

duction and lean production principles, which is typ- 388

ically found in non-Japanese companies introducing 389

lean production. Conti et al. [51], in a study of 21 dif- 390

ferent companies, found that the stress in lean imple- 391

mentations was related to implementation and opera- 392

tional decisions, rather than inherent problems with the 393

LPS, concluding that workers’ well-being in lean pro- 394

duction is not deterministic. 395

Some authors, like Dul and Neuman [13,55], refer 396

that despite the fact that new forms of work (including 397

LPS) are seen as improvements in working conditions, 398

at the same time, a long series of negative tendencies 399

are visible in working life, such as the increased num- 400

ber of people on long-term sick leave and with work 401

related injuries, burned out personnel, stressed people, 402

and overburdened people [56]. 403

Carayon and Smith [56] also referred that various 404

theories of job design can help in the definition of the 405

positive and negative characteristics of the work sys- 406

tem. For instance, theories of occupational stress have 407

defined work stressors that are negative characteristics, 408

such as high workload, shift work, low job control, 409

high role ambiguity and role conflict. Theories of job 410

design have also specified some positive characteris- 411

tics, such as high task variety, feedback, opportunities 412

for learning and autonomy. 413

Some of the possible positive outputs of the LPS 414

implementation are related to work aspects that can 415

improve workers’ motivation and satisfaction. These 416

include job stability, a hierarchical level decrease, as 417

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6 P.M. Arezes et al. / Workplace ergonomics in lean production environments

most of the employees enjoy a similar status, and the418

high qualification of the workforce [42].419

Taking into consideration the workers’ opinion, Ek-420

lund and Berglund [45] have also reported that after421

the introduction of LPS in two manufacturing com-422

panies, production operators were more positive than423

negative to the new production system, identifying also424

both positive and negative aspects of the production425

concept.426

The concept of Lean Teams implemented in many427

lean environments improves the working conditions428

for operators and stimulates satisfaction in the work.429

For instance, training and job rotation had been strate-430

gies adopted to familiarize the workers with a range of431

tasks. Accordingly, workers will be able to understand432

the scheduling problems and that the workload balance433

may prevent ergonomic problems associated to repeti-434

tive operations and avoid monotony.435

4.3. Autonomy and participation436

Two of the most important requirements for an ef-437

fective implementation of the LPS are the workers’438

commitment with the company performance and job439

enrichment (sometimes also called job enlargement),440

considering the workers’ skills and activities. This en-441

richment assumes that workers will need to identify442

and control work variations, that they reorganize and443

improve production within their jobs.444

There are some studies (e.g. Olivella et al. [34]) re-445

ferring that a LPS is also characterized by a significant446

decentralisation of the authority and the attribution of a447

great degree of autonomy to each worker. This involve-448

ment of workers seems to be positively reflected in the449

improvement of working conditions, as long as it is as-450

sumed that a large diversity of activities, skills and re-451

sponsibilities tend to enrich the job content. Thus min-452

imizing work monotony and isolation [50], and also453

seen as having beneficial ergonomic effects [15]. How-454

ever, other authors [49,57] also consider that the same455

characteristics may result in a more stressful job. A few456

authors, for example Johansson and Abrahamsson [14]457

and NIOSH [58], consider that workers’ power and au-458

tonomy to decide is relatively modest, as it is often459

‘overlooked’ due to the need to increase the work in-460

tensity and pace.461

Another call to involvement of workers in a lean en-462

vironment are the continuous improvement (Kaizen)463

initiatives that are seen as a natural fit and complemen-464

tary with ergonomics initiatives by Monroe et al. [59]465

and Vieira et al. [60]. According to them, improved466

ergonomics and working conditions of the job were 467

achieved by the employees when involved in these ini- 468

tiatives. Even so, other authors like Toralla et al. [61] 469

and Silva and Bento [62] alert for the need to clar- 470

ify the effects of continuous improvement initiatives 471

and improve ways of how work and activities are con- 472

ceived and designed, otherwise this could leads to an 473

“increased pace of work and to the definition of rigid 474

standards” ([61, p. 2710]). 475

In terms of autonomy, some authors [50,63] con- 476

sider that workers’ autonomy in LPS is also modest, as 477

most of the workers follow some imposed rigid work 478

patterns, which tend to limit their freedom to decide on 479

their work. 480

Treville and Antonakis [64] argue that autonomy is 481

a necessary condition for workers’ intrinsic motiva- 482

tion. Since LPS is more about process standardization, 483

it reduces workers’ autonomy. Therefore LPS cannot 484

be intrinsically motivating. Nevertheless, they suggest 485

that motivation is theoretically possible in LPS since 486

other job-factors may compensate the lack of auton- 487

omy. They concluded that LPS may also lead to work- 488

ers’ intrinsic motivation. 489

Zink [65], considered that the observed “Lean Man- 490

agement wave” has weakened the ergonomics structure 491

within companies, by reducing costs with Health and 492

Safety (H&S) and Ergonomics staff. In this respect, 493

some studies reported that some changes were ob- 494

served in terms of the companies’ safety culture [66]. 495

According to Saurin and Ferreira [42], some stud- 496

ies mentioned that top management’s commitment to 497

H&S issues had increased due to LPS and this subject 498

was no longer considered to be a specific concern of 499

the H&S staff. However, Li [66], in a literature review 500

regarding lean practices and experiences, also noted 501

that employees reported quite different experiences of 502

work effort, health and safety and relations with man- 503

agement. 504

4.4. Health outcome 505

As aforementioned, the major cited workers’ health 506

outcome related to LPS is the increase in stress lev- 507

els. However, there are other possible health outcomes 508

that are related to LPS and mentioned in the literature. 509

For example, Genaidy and Karwowski [17], pointed 510

out that, at least from a theoretical point of view, a true 511

LPS may imply a demand of the workers’ muscular, 512

cognitive and emotional resources to the limit. Other 513

authors, such as Colombini and Ochipinti [67] referred 514

that it is still unknown to what extent the organizational 515

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P.M. Arezes et al. / Workplace ergonomics in lean production environments 7

changes are helping to reduce musculoskeletal prob-516

lems of assembly and other routine tasks of manufac-517

turing or if, in turn, they are initiating new occupational518

risks.519

Although the impact of lean practices in workers’520

safety can be an important issue, according to Wilson-521

Donnelly et al. [47], this impact has been neglected.522

There are also recent examples of the analysis of523

the relationship between safety and LPS, for example524

Cournoyer et al. [68] reported that the use of some525

Lean tools in a nuclear facility implied some statisti-526

cally significant variations in the injury/illness reports.527

Also Rozenfeld et al. [69] reported the development of528

a method within the framework of research toward a529

Lean approach to safety management in construction,530

which, according to them, is able to predict fluctuating531

safety risk levels in order to support safety planning532

and, ultimately, carrying out a more effective safety533

management.534

Brown and O’Rourke [70] mentioned that lean man-535

ufacturing establishes small production cells, which536

complete an entire product from raw material pro-537

cessing through to final assembly and, according to538

these authors, it will increase health and safety hazards539

by mixing exposure to previously separated hazards.540

However, it seems that these authors did not take into541

account that the same systems could also decrease the542

time of exposure to the same risk factors.543

It is also possible to find a frequent reference to544

the relationship between the LPS and the appearance545

of high rates of Work-related Musculoskeletal Disor-546

ders (WMSD). For example, Eklund and Berglund [45]547

mentioned that in jobs with ergonomic stressors, in-548

tensification appears to result in an increase in the549

WMSD. The same authors referred that the main crit-550

icism of LPS is that the lean working conditions are551

very demanding and that the risk of stress-related dis-552

orders (including musculoskeletal disorders) is high.553

Other critics claimed that LPS by principle did not554

differ from Taylorism. Kazmierczak et al. [11] went555

further and referred that some ergonomics problems556

have been associated to Lean environments, and also557

referred that it is possible that the problems were a con-558

sequence of the rationalisation of the production sys-559

tem. In accordance, LPS and Total Quality Manage-560

ment (TQM) have been claimed to contribute to poor561

ergonomics and to the increasing appearance of mus-562

culoskeletal disorders.563

Assuming the adoption of some typical Lean prac-564

tices, Johansson and Abrahamsson [14] reported that565

the return of the assembly line also creates problems566

at the level of working conditions mentioning that, in 567

general, a Lean environment tends to represent an in- 568

creasing risk for one-sided work movements and phys- 569

ical over exertions, contributing to the potential devel- 570

opment of WMSD. 571

Surprisingly or not, a set of papers argument exactly 572

the opposite point of view, i.e., that the implementa- 573

tion of LPS tend to increase workers’ quality of life by 574

introducing some improvements in their occupational 575

environments. 576

According to Hunter [15,16], the proper adoption of 577

LPS may result in positive health effects, including the 578

reduction of chronic and traumatic work injuries. This 579

author, for example, referred that one typical goal of 580

the LPS cell designer is to promote job enlargement, 581

and not job simplification. Accordingly, job enlarge- 582

ment will result in better ergonomics, for example, by 583

including additional time to do the additional work it 584

will allow the human body to “heal micro injuries”, 585

which, according to the author, are related to chronic 586

WMSD. Besides, and based on a RULA analysis ap- 587

proach, the author concluded that a substantially lower 588

risk, in postural terms, is present when using the cellu- 589

lar manufacturing design rather than the functional job 590

shop design. Spear [71] also reported a case where a 591

number of parts racks were reconfigured to present ma- 592

terials to the operators more comfortably and a handle 593

on a machine was repositioned to reduce wrist strain 594

and improve ergonomic safety. 595

Womack et al. [48] have also analyzed the relation- 596

ship between LPS and WMSD in 56 similar jobs in 597

the automobile industry. They referred that, in the ana- 598

lyzed cases, a greater repetition exposure was detected 599

in Lean systems. However, when they combined rep- 600

etition and force, they noticed that a lean system does 601

not necessarily increase workers’ risk for WMSD. 602

In LPS it is also usual to find workers with a vari- 603

ety of tasks, implying and requiring that workers stand 604

and walk. According to Hunter [15,16], walking can 605

be beneficial to the workers’ wellbeing, as the walk- 606

ing benefits include the reduction of risk for deep-vein 607

thrombosis, increased bone strength, reduced choles- 608

terol and blood vessel plaque, and healthier hearts. Ad- 609

ditionally, Balasubramanian et al. [24] referred that 610

working in a dynamic standing posture reduces fatigue 611

and promotes the workers’ mobility, this being impor- 612

tant to work in lean cells. 613

Saurin and Ferreira [42] also reported that, when 614

comparing LPS and other production paradigms, some 615

authors revealed that lean production cell was superior 616

concerning some ergonomic aspects, such as posture 617

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8 P.M. Arezes et al. / Workplace ergonomics in lean production environments

adoption and manual materials handling. However, in618

their study carried out in a harvester assembly line,619

they also referred that they did not identify a particu-620

lar focus on the prevention of cumulative trauma in-621

juries, despite the strong emphasis on accident preven-622

tion. Acharya [72], for example, refers a lean manufac-623

turing implementation that lead to a reduction on man-624

power use for material handling.625

4.5. Synthesis of advantages/disadvantages of LPS626

After the previous summary of the literature review,627

it is possible to briefly present the main results regard-628

ing the advantages, or positive points, related to LPS629

and also the main disadvantages, with the indication of630

the authors who cited some of these points. These ad-631

vantages and disadvantages could be classified inside632

each dimension referred to in Table 1, being related to633

specific sections in this paper.634

Tables 1 and 2 were obtained through the literature635

review carried out and by combining the diversity of636

factors cited in the literature.637

It should be noted that the indication of a spe-638

cific combination author(s)/advantage or disadvantage639

in Table 2 does not necessarily means that the indi-640

cated author(s) argue for this advantage/disadvantage,641

but only that the indicated paper refers the particular642

cited aspect of LPS.643

5. Discussion644

The main objective of this paper was the identifica-645

tion of the most relevant impacts of LPS implementa-646

tions from the ergonomic point of view and was based647

on the literature review. Additionally, it was also in-648

tended to include the authors’ experience (and previ-649

ous research) along the following discussion. This dis-650

cussion will be based in the influence that the work or-651

ganization model has on workplace ergonomics and on652

the waste elimination previewed by LPS.653

5.1. Influence of work organization models on654

workplace ergonomics655

Workplace ergonomics is deeply related to work or-656

ganization models and many authors had addressed657

this relationship, for example Angelis et al. [49], Sep-658

pälä and Klemola [50] and Carayon and Smith [56].659

The relationship between ergonomics and the type of660

production strategies is clearly recognized by Dul and 661

Neumann [13]. 662

A brief review about the work organization mod- 663

els showed how those models can influence work- 664

place conditions in different ways. Therefore, it is im- 665

portant to contextualize the (positive/negative) aspects 666

presented in Tables 1 and 2 within the specific work 667

organization models, since it is very different mov- 668

ing from a Fordist system to a LPS or from a Socio- 669

Technical System (STS) to a LPS. 670

Most of the dimensions appear on both sides of Ta- 671

ble 2, i.e., most dimensions are identified as advantages 672

by some authors and as disadvantages by other au- 673

thors, regarding LPS implementation. This fact shows 674

that there is no consensus among the referred authors 675

about the impact of LPS implementations. The rea- 676

sons may be several, but one possible reason may re- 677

sult from the work organization model in place before 678

the LPS implementation. One example is the work- 679

ers’ autonomy that appears on both sides of Table 2. 680

In a LPS this autonomy may decrease when com- 681

pared to the STS, because this autonomy is seen as 682

a goal to be achieved by the balance between the so- 683

cial and technical sub-system [37]. Also, some authors 684

like Kuipers et al. [73], see lean production assem- 685

bly line introduction as a move backwards regarding 686

performance and employees’ involvement compared to 687

a ST system. However, it is possible to have a hy- 688

bridization of the two models, STS and LPS, in or- 689

der to retain some advantages from both [74]. Seppälä 690

and Klemola [50] referred that a combination of socio- 691

technical and lean thinking ideas in Finnish companies 692

resulted, in most cases, in more challenging and en- 693

larged jobs. Additionally, they pointed out that Finnish 694

companies “. . . did not reveal signs of the comeback 695

of Fordism as predicted by some critics of lean pro- 696

duction”. Similar ideas were shared by Eklund and 697

Berglund [45] but related with the Swedish companies 698

that integrated concepts from the Scandinavian tradi- 699

tion of work design (STS) with concepts from Japanese 700

production systems (LPS). Pil and Fujimoto [7] had 701

noticed a convergence between the practices and poli- 702

cies on multiple fronts of Toyota and Volvo, represent- 703

ing the two main work organization models, respec- 704

tively LPS and STS. Paez et al. [75] goes beyond that 705

and considered Lean Enterprise as socio-technological 706

construct because it is based on the combination of hu- 707

man and technological subsystems. 708

Some of the dimensions analyzed in Table 2 only 709

appeared on one side of the table. One example of 710

that is the dimension “stress”, since this dimension is 711

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P.M. Arezes et al. / Workplace ergonomics in lean production environments 9

Table 1Main cited advantages and disadvantages of LPS

Dimension Advantages Disadvantages Section of this paperHuman effort (work intensification; work pace) low A1 high D1 4.1Qualification of the workforce (job enrichment) multi-skills requirements high A2 low D2 4.2Job enlargement good A3 bad D3Stress decrease A4 increase D4Workforce perceived as central element clear A5 not clear D5Hierarchical levels decrease A6 increase D6 4.3Workers’ autonomy increase A7 decrease D7Workers’ participation and engagement high A8 low D8Work pattern flexible A9 inflexible D9Teamwork increase A10 decrease D10Risk of WMSD development low A11 high D11 4.4

Table 2References with citations of the considered advantages and disadvantages of LPS

Advantages∗ Disadvantages∗References A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 A10 A11 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7 D8 D9 D10 D11Zink [65]Carayon & Smith [56]Hunter [15]NIOSH [58]Anderson-Connolly et al. [10]Genaidy and Karwowski [17]Parker [54]Seppälä & Klemola [50]Kazmierczak et al. [11]Conti et al. [51]Colombini and Ochipinti [67]Li [66]Eklund and Berglund [45]Brown and O’Rourke [70]Pil and Fujimoto [79]Hunter [16]Winkel and Westgaard [12]Womack et al. [48]Dul and Neumann [13]Johansson and Abrahamsson [14]Saurin and Ferreira [42]Monroe et al. [59]Vieira et al. [60]

∗See Table 1 for the meaning of each advantage and disadvantage.

never mentioned by any author as an advantage (stress712

decreasing). The other examples are the dimensions713

“Hierarchical levels” and “Teamwork”, since they are714

never mentioned as disadvantages of the LPS imple-715

mentation.716

It is unquestionable that working in teams is an717

important requisite for the current work organization718

models. Johansson and Abrahamsson [14] discussing719

the criteria for “the good work”, pointed out that “. . . an720

assembly line can be organized around a group-based721

organization. . . ”, which is something already done in722

“truly” lean companies. Production teams, like the cell723

layout teams, problem-solving teams, and the Quality724

Circles are in the heart of these companies and, most725

of the time and for most people, they promote a bet-726

ter workplace through an increasing work satisfaction. 727

Nevertheless, in some cases, teamwork may provoke 728

stress to some workers, mainly if they enjoy working 729

on their own or if they see more duties and responsi- 730

bilities as a sign to work more without being paid for 731

it. The solution to this may be to train the workers for 732

teamwork and problem-solving issues. 733

5.2. Influence of waste elimination: Muda, Mura and 734

Muri 735

If looking at the basic principles of LPS it is possi- 736

ble to find concepts like the continuous pursue of waste 737

elimination, called elimination of Muda, as well as the 738

elimination of Muri. Since this paper is also about hu- 739

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10 P.M. Arezes et al. / Workplace ergonomics in lean production environments

man factors, special attention should be paid to the740

concept of Muri elimination. The Japanese word Muri741

means physical strain or overburdening. Any actions742

such as “bending to work”, “pushing hard”, “lifting743

heavy weights”, “repeating tiring actions”, and “waste-744

ful walk” are considered Muri and consequently they745

must be eliminated according to the LPS principles.746

Any implementation of LPS that does not reduce Muri,747

or even worse, if increasing it, as reported in some748

publications, should not be considered as fully repre-749

senting the ‘true spirit’ of the LPS implementation. If750

we look at the very first publication in English about751

TPS [6] we find that TPS is based on two main con-752

cepts. The first one is the reduction of cost through the753

elimination of waste and the second is “to make full754

use of workers’ capabilities”. This second concept is755

referred “in short” by the authors as “treat the workers756

as human beings and with consideration”. Any practi-757

cal implementation that contradicts this concept cannot758

be considered as a truly lean implementation.759

One of the techniques that, at the beginning, may760

lead to some discomfort among workers is the Stan-761

dard Work technique. This technique is strongly re-762

lated to “all work shall be highly specified as to con-763

tent, sequence, timing, and outcome,” which is the764

first out of the four TPS rules presented by Spear and765

Bowen [33]. The operations must be followed exactly766

as it is defined and there is no margin for improvisa-767

tion (referred as inflexible work pattern). According to768

the same authors, “Toyota managers recognise that the769

devil is in the details” and therefore every task must be770

specified in detail to avoid unexpected results. In other771

words, this rule prevents the generation of Mura (vari-772

ability), improving quality, effectiveness of the plan-773

ning, safety, as well as helping preventing WMSD. The774

reasons why improvements in safety and health are ex-775

pected is because when a standard is created, more at-776

tention is given to the design of the operations and777

therefore the issues of safety and prevention of WMSD778

are naturally taken into account. When a worker fol-779

lows the pre-defined and tested job detailed instruc-780

tions, he or she is preventing work hazards and de-781

creasing the risk of WMSD development.782

In many Standard Work implementations it is pos-783

sible to observe workers’ disapproval, since they may784

feel some loss of flexibility and autonomy. In many785

cases, after some time, they may see the benefits of786

such implementations and the initial stress gradually787

disappears. It should be pointed out that in real lean788

environments workers are encouraged to propose new789

standards to be applied if they find better ways of per-790

forming the same task. The improvements must follow 791

the fourth rule, which indicates that “any improvement 792

must be made in accordance with the scientific method, 793

under the guidance of a teacher, at the lowest level in 794

the organization” [33]. 795

The same issue is referred by Jayaram [76] stating 796

that, apart from product, equipment and methods, peo- 797

ple are also one of the main causes of variation due 798

to lack of motivation, fatigue and improper training. 799

According to the author, the lean solution (taken seri- 800

ously by Toyota) is the culture of problem solving de- 801

centralization and of empowering workers to make de- 802

cisions. The workers are encouraged to treat the prob- 803

lems as they arise and to develop suggestions for im- 804

provements in a way that they feel playing a significant 805

role in the production success. 806

To show that the ergonomic issues were taken very 807

seriously by Toyota, which is known to be one of the 808

main sources of the lean production approach, the new 809

ergonomic assessment method was created to be fol- 810

lowed in new assembly lines called “Toyota Verifica- 811

tion of Assembly Line”. In this method several ways 812

are identified to improve the physical work environ- 813

ment [77]. Also, Eswaramoorthi et al. [78] redesigned 814

Lean assembly lines with ergonomics concern in order 815

to eliminate wastes related with unreasonable mental 816

or physical burden. 817

The repetition of the same movements for long peri- 818

ods, increasing the risk of WMSD, is reported in many 819

publications as one of the drawbacks of lean imple- 820

mentations. Any solution that results in these types of 821

disorders is considered as Muri and, accordingly, it is 822

not acceptable under Lean principles. When short cy- 823

cle times are present, some solutions, such as the “rab- 824

bit chase” or forcing the workplace rotation among 825

workers, should be implemented. In some cases, work- 826

ers show some resistance in the beginning but normally 827

the success is achieved after a short period. 828

As a result of lean implementations, some authors 829

pointed out that workers need to be multi-skilled, often 830

implying job enlargement and work intensification. On 831

the other hand some other authors reported, as results 832

of lean implementations, a reduction in the cycle time. 833

Those two effects cannot coexist at the same time since 834

they are conflicting conditions. 835

The reported negative impacts of lean implementa- 836

tions, namely the work pace, increase and the work in- 837

tensification perceived by workers may also be a real 838

issue. Lean implementation also implies a better use 839

of the workforce. Solutions are developed to use the 840

workforce in adding value during most of their work- 841

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P.M. Arezes et al. / Workplace ergonomics in lean production environments 11

ing time. During Lean implementations it is necessary842

to eliminate non-value adding activities, such as peo-843

ple waiting for material, waiting for orders, or search-844

ing for tools, transport equipment, walking, transport-845

ing materials, monitoring equipment, etc. The final re-846

sult will be a greater ‘use’ of people in value-adding847

activities.848

Good lean solutions must be the ones that, although849

increasing the efficiency in the use of the workforce,850

also improve the working conditions resulting in an in-851

crease of team spirit and motivation among workers.852

In this respect, Brown and O’Rourke [70] refer that in853

Lean production a key to worker safety is the develop-854

ment of informed, empowered and active workers with855

the knowledge and opportunity to act in the workplace856

to eliminate or reduce hazards.857

As already mentioned, the LPS principles are fo-858

cused on improving working environments by creating859

appropriate workplaces, team spirit, challenges, moti-860

vation, flexibility, cross skills, responsibility and au-861

tonomy. From the literature review and authors’ expe-862

rience, if some of those goals are not achieved it is863

likely that the developed LPS solutions are not based864

on a real Lean approach. As reported in Womack et865

al. [48], lean manufacturing seeks to define a mini-866

mum number of resources, therefore all the people in-867

volved will have mutual interest that the work is safe,868

the workers have high morale and low injuries preva-869

lence occur. These authors suspected that negative con-870

sequences of lean production in past studies happened871

because lean tools were used in traditional companies,872

i.e., without the broader philosophy implementation.873

This is also the authors’ belief.874

6. Concluding remarks875

This study comprised a comprehensive literature re-876

view of the last decade regarding the possible impact,877

both positive and negative, of Lean Production Sys-878

tems on the occupational ergonomics.879

The core principles of LPS, being the same as the880

ones followed by TPS (Toyota Production System), as-881

sume a constant concern with the ergonomic aspects of882

the workplaces through the elimination of sources of883

physical strain or overburdening. Moreover, the moti-884

vation and welfare issues play a key role in the devel-885

opment of an effective and sustainable environment for886

continuous improvement, required under the LPS ap-887

proaches. Nevertheless, many publications on LPS im-888

plementations reported negative consequences for the889

working conditions.890

From this literature review we ended up recognizing 891

that there is no consensus on the impact of LPS imple- 892

mentations on the working conditions. Some authors 893

referred to negative impacts on dimensions, such as 894

human effort, workers’ autonomy, risk of WMSD de- 895

velopment, job enrichment, and workers’ participation 896

and engagement, while other authors reported exactly 897

the opposite. On the one hand, it is possible to notice 898

that no author has yet reported any improvements on 899

stress reduction through LPS implementation. On the 900

other hand, there were no reports on negative impacts 901

on teamwork or on hierarchical level increase. 902

As aforementioned, the principles of LPS should not 903

lead, by definition, to any of the reported drawbacks 904

in terms of workplace ergonomics. The reported disad- 905

vantages of LPS implementations may result from the 906

misunderstanding of the Lean principles and possibly 907

by implementing similar solutions that may be effec- 908

tive in a specific work context but not suitable to all 909

possible situations. 910

Acknowledgement 911

This work was financed by National Funds – Por- 912

tuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under 913

Project Pest-OE/EME/UI0252/2011. 914

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