This introduction to the special issue discusses the changing role of information technology (IT) in advancing lean production. Lean principles and techniques have been applied in a wide variety of organisations, from make-to-stock to engineer-to-order industries, and even in typical service sectors, such as healthcare. In order to apply lean principles in various areas, variants were developed of well-known techniques, such as Kanban, Kaizen, SMED, and 5S. IT is used to develop such variants. Over the years, the role and use of IT in the application of the lean principles has changed. In this introduction, we discuss the main findings of the papers that were selected for publication in this special issue. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.