Applying Lean Methodologies in Knowledge Creation: A Case in the

Energy Sector

Raiya Zahir Al Busaidi and Kamla Ali Al-Busaidi

Information Systems Department, Sultan Qaboos University, Alkhod, Oman

Keywords: Knowledge Creation, Lean Methodology, Energy Sector, Interview, Knowledge Management,

Lean Management.

Abstract: This study aims to explore the value of using lean methodologies (LM) on knowledge creation (KC) and

consequently business processes. The need for a proper, efficient, and effective mechanism to create

knowledge is crucial for organizations’ continuous improvement; this triggers stakeholder to utilize new

technological solutions, like LM to boost knowledge creation and consequently sustain a continuous

improvement in business processes. This study utilized semi-structured interview method with several open-

ended and close-ended questions to get in-depth understanding of this stud objective. Five participants (lean

and knowledge workers) of a leading organization in the energy sector were interviewed. Collected data

analysed using thematic analysis. Results indicated that several LM add value to knowledge creation in the

energy organization; Value Stream Mapping (VSM), Six Sigma and the A3 are the most frequently used as

well as the most added value. The findings also indicated that the application of LM in KC, enhances business

processes’ efficiency and effectiveness, but limited on innovation. This study provides insights for researchers

and practitioners to applying the Lean Methodologies in KM to enhance the effectiveness, efficiency, and

innovation of the business processes.

1 INTRODUCTION

Due to the crucial role of knowledge for business

operations and competitiveness, several researchers

want to focus on the Knowledge Management (KM)

and how its practices can be enhanced, utilized, and

sustained (Ode & Ayavoo, 2020). A full KM process

consists of three main stages, Knowledge Creation,

Knowledge Integration and Knowledge Utilization

(Saini & Bhargava, 2020; Martins et al., 2019). “The

knowledge creation process as “a continuous process

in which the knowledge created by individuals

becomes available and amplified within the

organization’s knowledge system” (Majid et al.,

2013, P. 106).

The energy organizations operations are very

customized and relatively expensive (Rachman &

Ratnayake, 2016), and organizations in this sector are

looking toward strategic approaches to maximize the

benefits and minimize the resources like time,

manpower or row materials (Amann et al., 2021). In

practice, Lean Management has become one of the

most popular philosophies for the organizations

where processes’ activities can be managed and

operated quite differently (Gong & Blijleven, 2017).

Lean Methodologies are defined as the approaches or

the tools that institutions should use to shorten

timelines, reduce the effort and the workloads, fix the

work processes, and produce efficient and effective

working environment (Rafi et al., 2020). Despite the

increased interest in lean management and KM,

limited studies have provided practical evidence

which links the lean management to the KM umbrella

(Vlachos et al., 2020; Asif, 2019; Zhang & Chen,

2016; Kropsu-Vehkapera & Isoherranen, 2018). The

objective of this study is to explore the value of using

lean methodologies (LM) on knowledge creation

(KC) and consequently business processes. The

below section provides literature review, followed by

methodology, findings and then conclusion.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Lean Management in Knowledge

Management

There is a strong positive relationship between the

KM and Lean Management. There are two types of

knowledge associated from this relationship, lean

Al Busaidi, R. and Al-Busaidi, K.

Applying Lean Methodologies in Knowledge Creation: A Case in the Energy Sector.

DOI: 10.5220/0010677400003064

In Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2021) - Volume 3: KMIS, pages 169-176

ISBN: 978-989-758-533-3; ISSN: 2184-3228

169

knowledge (Varl & Duhovnik, 2020), and business

processes’ knowledge (Wakode et al., (2015). In the

changing and dynamic business environments, where

organizations focus on implementing new strategies

like lean, a knowledge is considered to be the most

essential resource of the organizations to stay

competitive and ensure business’s efficiency and

effectiveness (Saini & Bhargava, 2020). Also, it is the

main engine for establishing and ensuring the lean

approach within the organizations. KM plays a vital

role in applying Lean Management to the businesses

(Zhang et al., 2020) and in improving the lean

sustainability which focuses on sharing and

transferring the lean knowledge into the organization

(Martins et al., 2019; Wakode et al., 2015). Lean

Management has changed significantly over the time

and organization need to explore the lean knowledge

to learn and get familiarized (Zhang et al., 2020).

An efficient KC process through lean

methodologies’ support assist in enhancing the

business innovations to explore an effective way to

eliminate wastes and stay competitive. It provides the

organization with the future high-level knowledge as

well, which can support the decision-making process,

reducing cost, time and getting better quality (Zhang

& Chen, 2016; Canonico et al., 2020). Lean

implementation highly depends on the steer of the

lean knowledge, where the output is in the format of

explicit knowledge like forms, reports, tables,

graphics, cost estimation tables and many others, or

in the form of Tacit Knowledge, which is impeded

within the individual’s actions, behaviours, and

performance (Zhang et al., 2020). Most of the Lean

researchers emphasize on eight common LM which

are: Six sigma, Value steam mapping, 5 whys, 5S,

Just in Time (JIT), Kaizen, Poka-yoke, Kanban (Varl

& Duhovnik, 2020; Asif, 2019; Kropsu-Vehkapera &

Isoherranen, 2018; Zahari et al., 2019; Tyagi et al.,

2015; Wang et al., 2020). The focus of these

methodologies is to eliminate the waste for the

purpose of enhancing the business quality and securing

the business by sustaining the competitiveness (Zahari

et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2020).

2.2 LM and KM Impacts on Business

Processes

Based on the prior studies, most of the researchers

collectively agreed on the positive correlation of the

Lean methods like VSM (Zhang & Chen, 2016;

Zhang et al., 2020), Kanban (Oliva & Kotabe, 2019;

Zahari et al., 2019; Zhang & Chen, 2016), Kaizen

(Zahari et al., 2019; Galeazzo & Furlan, 2019; Gong

& Blijleven 2017; Zhao et al., 2016), LSS (Baysan et

al., 2019; Asif, 2019), Poke-Yoke (Zahari et al., 2019;

Zhao et al., 2016) and the 5 Whys sessions (Oliva &

Kotabe, 2019; Tyagi et al., 2015) on the KC Process.

Applying these methodologies on the KC Process

would assist the institutions in triggering new

business related knowledge which could be utilized to

improve the daily routine jobs (Zhang et al., 2020),

institution’s strategic plans (Baysan et al., 2019; Asif,

2019), quality of the products (Galeazzo & Furlan,

2019; Zahari et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2020) or the

staff daily activities (Oliva & Kotabe, 2019; Baysan

et al., 2019) and, most importantly, the decision-

making processes (Zhang & Chen, 2016; Zahari et al.,

2019. Consequently, these will assist institutions in

eliminating wastes or process’s defects and

proactively act in any business-related decisions

(Gong & Blijleven 2017; Zahari et al., 2019). Their

results are adopted from various context, especially in

the manufacturing sector. Most of these studies are

wither literature reviews or case studies. Table 1

illustrates prior studies in this area.

Table 1: Prior Studies about applying LM in KC.

LM Si

nificance Source

Value

Stream

Mapping

Production cost reduction,

improved process sustainability

roduction qualit

(Zhang et

al., 2020)

Waste elimination and value

and innovation maximization,

and enhanced decision-making

rocess, cost, an

ualit

(Zhang &

Chen, 2016)

Waste elimination

(Zhao et al.,

2016

)

Kaizen Enhanced business process,

relationships, cost reduction

waste elimination

(Vlachos et

al., 2020)

Enhanced productivity,

innovation, production quality,

decision-making process and

communication

rocess.

(Zahari et

al., 2019)

Enhanced organization’s

learning an

roblem-solving

(Galeazzo &

Furlan, 2019).

Enhanced business processes

efficiency and effectiveness.

(Gong &

Blijleven

2017)

Reduced errors and defects and

rocesses’ delays.

(Zhao et al.,

2016)

Kanban Enhanced knowledge creation

ractice

(Oliva &

Kotabe, 2019

)

Enhanced productivity,

innovation, production quality,

decision-making process and

communication

rocess.

(Zahari et

al., 2019)

Waste elimination and value

and Innovation maximization;

enhanced decision-making

rocess, cost, an

quality.

(Zhang &

Chen, 2016)

KMIS 2021 - 13th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Systems

170

Table 1: Prior Studies about applying LM in KC (cont.).

LM Significance Source

Six

Sigma

Reducing the resources

consumption and cost of

energy.

(Baysan et

al., 2019)

Waste reduction, business

processes improvement and

sustaining low-cost strategies.

(Asif, 2019)

Enhanced products’ quality

and continuous learning.

(Dominic &

Godwin,

2018)

Enhanced productivity,

innovation, production quality,

decision-making process and

communication process.

(Zahari et

al., 2019)

Eliminating waste by

minimizing the processes’

delays and incorrect inventory.

(Zhao et al.,

2016)

Poka-

Yoke

Enhanced productivity,

innovation, production quality,

decision-making process and

communication process.

(Zahari et

al., 2019)

Eliminating the waste by

minimizing the processes’

delays and incorrect inventory.

(Zhao et al.,

2016)

5 whys Enhanced business process,

relationships, cost reduction

and waste elimination

(Vlachos et

al., 2020)

Ensuring best practice for the

daily activities.

(Oliva &

Kotabe,

2019)

Improving the production

performance

(Tyagi et al.,

2015)

3 METHDOLOGY

3.1 Research Design

The main objective of this study is to understand how

the LM foster the KC, and consequently, the business

processes,

For this, the study is followed by the qualitative

approach, in order to gather data and, an analysis to

get an in-depth understanding and answers for the

above-mentioned research objectives.

A great attention is paid to the qualitative

approach as “The qualitative research interviews aim

to elicit the participants’ views about their lives, as

portrayed in their stories, and so to gain access to their

experiences, feelings and social worlds” (Vlachos et

al., 2020, p. 17). Zhang et al, (2020) supported the

qualitative approach to be followed while studying

the Lean methods and KM, due to the wealth data,

that those domains could produce for its study, and,

as a reference for the future studies in the same area.

Semi-structured interview, which consists of

several pre-defined questions to explore the main

research areas, with flexibility for the interviewer and

the interviewees in order to ask or respond in more

details. Open and closed ended questions were

included. Many researchers recommend building the

interview questions based on the existing related

literature to increase the question’s effectiveness

(Ravitch & Carl 2019). Validating the interview

question is an essential step to facilitate the data

collection process (Ravitch & Carl 2019; Kumar,

2018). This validity could be done by conducting a

face validity and pilot-test (Kumar, 2018). This study

presents part of these questions due to size limit.

This research followed the Snowball sampling

approach where the institutions or individuals are

deliberately selected to provide information of KM

and lean management in energy sector that others

cannot provide. Those people are then directed to

another group of people who might provide an

additional and useful set of information related to the

topic. The study follows the thematic analysis

approach’s phases developed by Braun & Clarke in

2006. Steps followed, getting familiarized with the

collected data, forming appropriate codes and themes

and then producing the right report based on those

themes.

3.2 Organization and Participants

Profile

The organization is one of the leading companies in

the energy sector in Oman. LM have been introduced

in one part of the institution, since 2017. Now the

leadership team has decided to apply the LM and

principles across the entire institution’s units. A

successful pilot has been done in around six projects

which were applied in the big business’ processes.

These projects proved to the management that LM

can improve the business processes with lesser

investments in resources.

This on hand study, followed a qualitative

approach where a total of five in-depth semi-

structured interviews have been conducted with this

institution to explore the impact of LM in KC and

consequently, the business processes. These

interviews have been conducted via online WebEx

meeting according to interviewees’ preferences due

to current Covid-19 pandemic status. Many

researchers recommend building the interview

questions based on the existing related literature to

increase the question’s effectiveness (Ravitch & Carl

Applying Lean Methodologies in Knowledge Creation: A Case in the Energy Sector

171

2019; Kumar, 2018; Gill et al., 2008). The research

on hand, follows this strategy to maximize the

questions’ effectiveness. For this study the research

questions were adapted from Canonico et al. (2020)

and Möldner et al. (2020). The demographic

information about the interviewed participants from

institution A. All of them are male and have over 14

years of experience, with Bachelor and master’s

degrees. Most of them have over 10-years of

experience in the Lean Management and are holding

a Lean coach position. Additionally, two leaders from

the lean side and from the engineering and operation

side respectively, have also been interviewed to give

their views about the Lean Impact and KM.

Table 2: Interviewees codes.

Position Overall

Years of

Experience

Years of

experience in

lean

Lean Coach (LC1) 24 years 14 years

Lean Coach (LC2) 20 years 20 years

Lean Coach (LC3) 17 years 14 years

Department lead (DL1) 38 years 4 years

Department Lead (DL2) 30 years 15 years

4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Lean Methodologies

Figure 1 illustrates that most of the participants

agreed that most of the LM were used for KC.

Specifically, all the five interviewees agreed that

VSM, 5 Whys, and Six Sigma assisted the

organization in creating new knowledge. DL1 said,

“The 5 Whys method is mainly a KC methodology, as

it keeps repeating the why question 5 times, in order

to get knowledge of people on that matter”. The

Figure also shows that four out of five participants

agreed on the functionality of A3, Kanban and 5S.

Another open-ended question, within this

question that was asked to all the participants was to

identify any other methodologies which were in use

and not mentioned in the question. The main

methodologies as indicated by the participants are,

Fishbone which was mentioned by three participants.

Furthermore, the other methodology was Leader

Standard Work (LSW) and Gemba-Walk which was

identified by three participants, being in their use to

support KC. Leader Standard Work is a structured

approach which enables the leaders to manage the

specific area with a structure and consistency in that

management area. The structure includes a list of

activities and responsibilities which need to be

achieved by the manager within a specific timeframe

(Biskupska & Ratnayake, (2019). Moreover, Gemba’

is a Japanese term which means ‘the place where

work takes place’. Other questions on the most

frequently used methodology indicated

A3(average=3.8), VSM(2.8),5 Whys (2.8),

Kaizen(1.4) and Kanban (0.8); whereas the most

added value methodologies are in order:

A3(average=4.6), VSM(4.2), 5 Whys(2.2),

Kaizen(1.6), and 5S(0.8).

Figure 1: Existence of Lean Methodologies.

4.2 Lean Methodology on Knowledge

Creation Impact

Close-ended question was included to measure the

impact of the LM in KC consequently on predefined

business processes’ impact by using the three-point

Likert Scale of high, medium, and low. These

predefined business processes’ impacts were

developed based on prior studies presented in table 1.

Table 3 shows that at the bottom of the list is staff’s

moral development; hence it was not much improved

via the knowledge created through the LM. On the

other hand, the top of the impact list are related to

efficiency and effectiveness indicators; it include the

quality improvement, time reduction, enhancing the

decision-making process, enhancing the

communication process, waste elimination, and better

coordination with the stakeholders, the management,

and leadership, scored the highest among the other

listed factors of 2.2. It was all followed by the cost

reduction and optimization, process defect

elimination; promote better and practical problem-

solving behaviour which scored 2. The remaining

listed factors are almost scored the same. Innovation

indicators, such as process innovation (1.2), are

scored low, which indicated that the application of

LM on KC has very limited impact on the business

process innovation.

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Table 3: Impact of Applying LM in KC on Business

Process.

Impact AVG Impact AVG

Quality

Improvement

2.2

Promote process

sustainability

1.8

Time Reduction 2.2

Productivity

maximization

1.8

Enhance decision-

making process

2.2

Value and Gains

maximization

1.8

Enhance

communication

process

2.2

Skills

development

1.8

Waste Elimination 2.2

Process

Innovation

1.2

Better

Coordination with

the stakeholders

2.2

Organizational

learning’

maximization

1.2

Management and

Leadership

2.2

Good, safe, and

suitable working

environment

1.2

Cost reduction and

Optimization

Enable

Continuous

learning culture

within the

institution

1.2

Promote better and

practical problem-

solving behaviour

Staff’s Moral

development

Process defect

elimination

Average is based on scale points: Low=1; medium 2,

high =3

Open ended question was included explore the

impact of the LM in the KC and consequently the

business processes in term of efficiency,

effectiveness, and innovation. Three participants

provided the same example to illustrate the

effectiveness impacts of the LM in the KC. “Gate to

gate” project was aimed to improve the process of

delivering fuel from the refinery to the domestics. The

lean team with business process’ owners and the key

workers were able to draw the full end to end process

using the VSM, 5 Whys and the Visual Management.

This visualization and the root cause analysis using

the 5 Whys, helped them in improving and

streamlining the process by eliminating the wastes

and standardizing the process. According to Bait et

al., (2020); Lindlöf et al., (2013), VSM helps in

identifying the possible alerts in the business

processes and hence assists in defining the wastes.

The main achievement in term of efficiency for

the same project is, the ability to reduce the full cycle

time to 50% with zero investment and hence achieve

high customers’ satisfaction. This is achieved due to

the knowledge created from people’s tacit knowledge

or from the existing documents which explain the

process inputs and outputs. LC2 also commented, “I

can see where we are now with the efficiency, as we

are able to complete any lean project with Lean

Methodologies’ assistance in a period of 90 days or

even less”. Moreover, the complaints’ settlement

issue takes more than 90 days. This process normally

starts with the receiving of the complaint till the

customers get compensated and, so, 90 days is

considered as too much for the customers. With the

LM’s assistance like the 5Whys, VSM and A3, the

lean team and business process’ stakeholders

managed to streamline the process and minimize the

cycle time to 30 days only. Moreover, applying the

Gemba-Walks and VSM in one of the main logistic

activities, enables the lean team to create new

knowledge by drawing the full process and see the

wastes. Henceforth, the institution manages to

eliminate the penalties that occur due to the ships’

movement time and hence reduce the unnecessary

costs. Additionally, in term of effectiveness, the daily

production is also maximized due to these changes.

In terms of innovation, and performance, the

management system was developed as a solution for

the issue where people could show creativity by

providing new suggestions or ideas about certain

business activities, but nobody was able to manage

the ideas or take any action, hence they visualized the

full process using the VSM. The created knowledge

aided them to build the new system to facilitate the

responsible team in reducing the time for reviewing

the actions or the ideas, and to attend to them

whenever possible.

4.3 Linking Lean Methodologies to on

Business Processes Impacts

Another question is intended to explore the LM which

are used to achieve and improve the pre-defined

impacts. Table 4 summarizes the participants’ views

regarding the listed impacts and how LM can help to

achieve or improve the respected impacts.

Additionally, an open-ended question was asked

all the participants to indicate if they knew about any

other impacts, not mentioned in the table. Only DL1

mentioned that the performance management was an

impact which could be achieved and improved via the

5S.

Applying Lean Methodologies in Knowledge Creation: A Case in the Energy Sector

173

Table 4: Linking Lean Methodologies to Impacts.

act The Lean Methodolo

ies Use

Cost reduction

Optimization

VSM and 5 Whys (by 3 participants),

SOP (2

articipants).

Promote process

sustainability

Gemba-Walks and LSW (3

participants); VSM and the SOP (2

articipants), all (one

articipant)

Quality

Improvement

Poke-Yoke, Fishbone and the 5 Whys

(two participants); VSM (one

artici

ant

)

, Six Si

(

one

artici

ant.

Time Reduction

VSM to identify the waste and Kaizen

to eliminate the waste and, hence

reducing the unnecessary time. (All

articipants).

Productivity

Maximization

All the 5 participants indicated about

the VSM.

Process

Innovation

Kanban (one participant)

Enhance the

decision-making

process

Practical problem solving (PPS) and

Gemba-Walks (by 2 participants);

VSM (by one); 5 Whys (by one

articipant).

Enhance

communication

rocess

VSM (by 2 participants); SOP (by

one); A3 and LSW (by two

artici

ants

)

Waste

Elimination

VSM (All participants); Kaizen (by

one); A3 and 5 whys (by one

artici

ant

)

Value and Gains

Maximization

VSM and the Kaizen (by 2

participants); Kaizen, Kanban and 5S

(by one participant); A3 (by one

artici

ant

)

Organizational

learning

Maximization

Gemba-Walks and the VSM (by 3

participants).

Promote better

and practical

problem-solving

ehaviours

Root cause analysis methodologies

like 5 Whys (All participants); A3 (by

2) and PDCA (by one participant).

Process defect

elimination

VSM (by 2 participants); 5 Whys and

Poke-Yoke (by two participants); and

Six Si

(

one

artici

ant

)

Good, safe, and

suitable working

environment

5S and the Gemba-Walks (3

participants).

Enable continuous

learning culture

within the

institution

DL1 and LC3 (by two participants);

VSM (by one); Kaizen (by one

participant).

Staff’s Moral

Development

"All LM” (only one participant); and

Coaching Kata (by one

articipant).

Management

and Leadership

Coaching Kata and the leader

Standard Work (by 3 participants);

Gemba-Walks and Coaching Kata

(by one); and VSM and Kaizen (one

artici

ant

)

Skills

Development

VSM, Kanban and 5S (only one

participant); and most of the LM (by

one

artici

ant

)

5 CONCLUSIONS

5.1 Findings Summary

As the study aimed at identifying the main LM, which

added value to an energy organization in Oman, and

its impact on business processes. The main

methodologies which are most frequently used and

added value to the energy organization are, A3, VSM,

5 Whys, followed by Kaizen, Kanban, and 5S. These

methodologies are implemented in the manufacturing

domain and energy institutions are trying to imitate

their implementation to achieve the intended results.

The major impact of using LM in Knowledge

capture in business processes are mainly related to

efficiency and effectiveness indicators but limited on

innovation.

5.2 Implications

From theoretical perspective, this study contributes to

the KM and Lean Management as a whole, as it

provides a study that combines both areas. There are

very limited studies in this area, specifically in energy

sector, which nobody in Oman has touched yet.

From the practical perspective, this study

concludes by providing several relevant implications

for institutions applying the LM. The findings can be

applicable to other countries’ energy companies that

share a basic profile with the study sample. Thus, this

study provides valuable insights to establish a solid

foundation of LM and principles especially for

complex business’ nature institutions. The managers

and decision makers can utilize the study direction

and the results as a guidance to enhance the current

business processes and to facilitate the decision-

making process.

5.3 Limitations & Future Direction

This study has some limitations and should be

addressed by future research. The study is based only

on one organization; hence more cases should be

included; the study also explores the impact on KC,

hence other KM processes should be investigated.

Generalization of the qualitative study’s results is a

common issue. Hence, a future study may be needed

to check the significance and the validity of the results

by using quantitative approach. More studies may be

needed to explore the enablers and the success factors

of LM in KM.

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