The impact of TLE on employees' stress and performance and role of cognitive ergonomics in reducing lean's stressors

Due to the pursuit of competitiveness imposed by the globalization of markets, flexibility and continuous improvement of performance become an ongoing challenge. In this sense, LEAN organization mode is a lever that allows the company to promote the continuous improvement of its processes and meet the growing and diverse needs of its customers. If the positive impact of a LEAN organization mode on company performance has been demonstrated, its impact on employees is not provided. Indeed, several studies have shown that Lean is a stressful mode of organization. Thus, the intervention of cognitive ergonomics in its design and implementation seems important to better manage stress and thus improve the performance of employees in their work. In this article we will, first, present models of stress used in the research and we identify stressors and their classification. Then, we identify the impact of Lean on employees in particular as a stressful mode of organization and we study the stressors generated by LEAN. Next, we focus on the complex relationship stressors-performance. Finally, we propose some factors for cognitive ergonomics intervention to reduce the impact of stressors on employees and improve their performance in a Total Lean Environment. The main contribution of this paper is to allow, on one hand, to gather several negative aspects of LEAN (analyzing the literature) and see to what extent these aspects are generating stress in relation with our study of stressors. The article allows, on the other hand, to emphasize the role of cognitive ergonomics to better manage stress related to LEAN. Indeed, this field is currently interested in other object of research (aviation, road safety ...), but to a lesser extent to LEAN.