Periodicals of Engineering and Natural Sciences ISSN 2303-4521 Vol.6, No.1, June 2018, pp. 130-143 Available online at: http://pen.ius.edu.ba DOI: /10.21533/pen.v6i1.45 130 Lean Manufacturing: Trends and Implementation Issues Benjamin Durakovic 1 , Rukiye Demir 1 , Kemal Abat 1 , Celal Emek 1 1 Industrial Engineering, International University of Sarajevo Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received March 25, 2018 Revised May 22, 2018 Accepted June 10, 2018 Many manufacturing cost reduction initiatives have been introduced over past three decades including lean manufacturing. Waste reduction and efficiency improvement are the main objectives of this initiative. It is developed from a set of tools and techniques and can fit nicely in cost focus or cost leadership competitive advantage strategies. But, keeping competitive advantage under the market circumstances are getting harder with growth of production quantity and product diversity. Therefore, paper's focus is lean manufacturing implementation trends and issues within the various manufacturing sector. Successes and failures of implementation of lean manufacturing in some industries are discussed. It was found that lean principles are good source of competitive advantage, it is applicable for many industries and its expansion and discussion are significantly progressing. The biggest threat in implementing lean is lack of understanding the concept but those who engage consultants were more successful. Keyword: Lean manufacturing; Lean implementation; Trends; Lean issues; Competitive advantage Corresponding Author: Benjamin Durakovic, Industrial Engineering, International University of Sarajevo, Hrasnička cesta 15, 71000 Sarajevo, Bosnia Email: bdurakovic@ius.edu.ba 1. Introduction The future of the manufacturing industry is the lean manufacturing and lean practice is one of the best methods used by manufactures around the world to increase their competitiveness [1]. Lean manufacturing is set of methods and techniques developed by engineers of Toyota and it is very popular in today’s world companies to increase value of product though waste elimination. Managers attempt to increase productivity and eliminate waste by applying lean tools such as quality [2], cost, just-in-time (JIT) delivery and continuous improvement to produce with higher quality, JIT delivery and to be cost effıcıent. Lean manufacturing is simple, flexible, ergonomic, compact, low cost, proper fit, green and requires less energy [3]. The basis of lean manufacturing can be found in the Japanese company of TOYOTA. Lean manufacturing is a successor of Toyota Production System (TPS). The creator of the system was Sakichi Toyoda and his sons: Kiichiro Toyoda and Eiji Toyoda as well as Taiichi Ohno. Sakichi Toyoda was working in Textile industry, he invented a motor-driven loom with a specialized mechanism devised to stop in case of breaking of the thread. This mechanism pioneered Jidoka (automatization with human manufacturing). In 1929, Kiichiro Toyoda went to the USA and was impressed by Ford production system and Kiichiro Toyoda decided to apply solutions which he learned in the USA [4]. Taiichi Ohno was a manufacturing engineer and was working on TPS in the 1940 and carried on its improvement in the late 1980s by the advancements in computers [5]. Lean manufacturing is not only applicable for automotive industry, it can be applied many other industries. Lean manufacturing spread rapidly in all over the world. Manufacturers implemented this method in order to