Abstract
Products with low quality, long lead time, and limited variety are no longer acceptable among customers due to the drastic change in the global market during the past years. Customers’ demands are increasing by time and traditional production systems cannot meet this new level of demand. Hence, applying new production methods in order to produce high quality product, in short time, with low price becomes essential for survival in current competitive global market. Lean manufacturing is one of the approaches which has been used by many companies around the world to achieve these competitive advantages. However, lean manufacturing as a competitive advantage tool has not fully been implemented in the food manufacturing industry. Although numerous studies have been conducted over the past decade to address this issue there is still a gap in the current literature. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to theoretically assess status-quo of lean manufacturing. The results of the critical analysis of the current literature clearly demonstrate that there are flows in the current established body of knowledge related to various industry such as the food industry and the small and medium enterprises.