Lean Research Group

Research Group Summary

Lean involves the minimisation of waste, in whatever form waste occurs: materials, inventory, rehandling, time, people's skills, etc. Lean originated in production engineering as a parallel development to quality. It is a valuable concept and has growing application to other areas including business, operating processes, and project management, to mention a few. The purpose of this research group is to apply LEAN to new areas, and develop new thinking about LEAN.

Key Contact

• Dirk John Pons: Group Leader; Mechanical Engineering

Members - UC Staff

• Dirk John Pons: Group Leader; Mechanical Engineering
• Venkateswarlu Pulakanam: Researcher; Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship
• Timothy James Roosen: Researcher; Mechanical Engineering

• (ORGANISATIONS) High Reliability Organisations
• (LEAN) High value manufacture: Industry projects
• (COGNITION) Knowledge Management in New Product Development
• (LEAN) Value stream mapping including environmental waste
• (MANUFACTURING) Service Quality in Manufacturing
• (ENVIRONMENTAL) Sustainability and Life Cycle Analysis
• (LEAN) JIT and Lean production systems
• (LEAN) Lean production systems: NZ Lean practices
• (LEAN) Open research projects
• Operator intervention and judgement
• Health and Safety Cultures in Manufacturing Engineering
• Representing Safe Processes and Risk to Workshop Operators
• Strategic risk management: manufacturing
• Lean processes in the printing industry

• Engineering and Technology: Engineering Management; Manufacturing
• Management, Human Resources, Industrial Relations, International Business and Other Business: Operations and Services Management