Abstract
Lean manufacturing is one of the most stringent manufacturing productivity tools. Developed
countries have aggressively pursued the strategy of implementing lean manufacturing and other
productivity improvement tools, which has resulted in major improvement in their production
output. Since the late 1990’s Nigeria manufacturing industry has suffered a decline in their
production level which has resulted in low productivity in some factories or in some cases outright
shutting down of the plant. The aim of this study is to investigate the implementation of lean
manufacturing adoption in the Nigerian manufacturing industry. The study was conducted using
primary and secondary data. The primary data were obtained through a questionnaire survey while
the secondary data was obtained from peer-reviewed articles. Results emanating from the study
revealed that most manufacturing companies are not familiar with productivity improvement tools
such as lean and also there is a lack of technical know-how of implementing the tools.