Lean With a Human Face: Best Practice of Denmark

The consequences for quality of work of lean manufacturing is discussed in the international litterature, and several authors suggest increased work speed, stress, and muscoskeletal diseases as a consequence of lean. The Danish experience with lean has been studied through interviews with managers and employees, and it is a somewhat different experience.

This tra-dition for collaboration has been the framework for the development of lean into a form which is different from the descriptions found in the mainly Anglo-Saxon literature. Many Danish both private and public organizations have experience with a version of lean which is based on employee participation and with quality of work as a goal equal to the traditional productivity goals.

This experience seems to indicate that a local approach based on social capital with employee participation but still with strong management support gives better and more sustainable effects on productivity and at the same time has a positive influence on qual-ity of work.