The implementation of lean manufacturing in the furniture industry: A review and analysis on the motives, barriers, challenges, and the applications Falah Abu a, b , Hamed Gholami a, * , Muhamad Zameri Mat Saman a , Norhayati Zakuan c , Dalia Streimikiene d a Department of Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor 81310, Malaysia b Faculty of Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), 40450 Shah Alam, Malaysia c Department of Business Administration, Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor 81310, Malaysia d Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos 3, Kaunas, LT-44403, Lithuania article info Article history: Received 29 January 2019 Received in revised form 22 June 2019 Accepted 24 June 2019 Available online 25 June 2019 Handling Editor: Cecilia Maria Villas B^ oas de Almeida Keywords: Lean manufacturing Lean tools Lean implementation Lean barriers Furniture industry abstract Although research on the adoption of lean manufacturing in the furniture industry in emerging econ- omies is slowly progressing, its implementation has been emphasized by researchers and practitioners. Research on this scope is therefore limited, particularly when compared to the vast amount of scholarly studies contributed to successful implementation of lean in the developed countries. To support the narrow body of knowledge on this under-researched scope, this paper presents the current shortfalls of implementing the lean manufacturing in terms of motives, barriers, challenges, and applications. To address these issues, a methodological approach was implemented in two tiers. Firstly, a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art literature on the issues was performed followed by an analytic approach using a survey on 148 companies in Malaysia to finalize the research. Upon validation of the analyses, the results revealed that most of the lean companies agreed that the reasons for lean implementation are to increase efficiency, to clean up and organize the workplace, and to increase utilization of space. Non-lean companies believe that issues related to knowledge are the reasons for not undertaking lean imple- mentation. However, lean companies believe that the obstacles are more about employee-related issues including lack of labor resources, lack of implementation know-how, and employee resistance to change. Lean companies also face challenges in the form of technical knowledge, training, and financial resources during the early phase of lean implementation. In addition, only three applications e 5S, employee training, and quality control e were found to be useable in the Malaysian wood and furniture industry. These findings present a critical view of the current shortfalls of lean implementation in the wood and furniture industry throughout Malaysia and other emerging economies. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction After the publication of the ground-breaking work “The Ma- chine that Changed the World” (Womack et al., 1990), lean under- went a significant and unprecedented evolution over the years, subsequently being unanimously accepted as a highly beneficial practice (Bhamu and Singh Sangwan, 2014). Over the course of time, a number of prominent researchers have explored the various range of tools for lean manufacturing (LM), since it has successfully proved in a large variety of industries with many successful cases recorded in the literature (Pearce et al., 2018a). An increasing number of literature studies have found that LM has significantly contributed to the success of companies in developed countries (e.g. Japan, the US, the UK, Germany, and Italy). Until now this methodology has only been applied to developed countries, and there is little effort taken to investigate LM imple- mentation in developing countries (Amoako-Gyampah and Gargeya, 2001; Nawanir et al., 2013). On the other hand, the in- fluences of lean manufacturing in the furniture industry is not * Corresponding author. E-mail address: ghamed@utm.my (H. Gholami). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.06.279 0959-6526/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Cleaner Production 234 (2019) 660e680