Lean philosophy is based on the continuous quest to improve the organisation’s processes by creating a culture and operating principles which eliminate all non value adding activities within organisation‘s processes. Manufacturing firms consider the adoption of the Lean tools as basic requirements for achieving World Class operational excellence or Best Practice. For some time, lean has been used by the manufacturing organizations. Most organizations understand that lean will help them survive global competition and stay in business. According to Hanna (2007:1), service industries, in general, are a long way behind manufacturing in terms of operations and improvements, and not all lean manufacturing ideas translate from the factory floor to office cubicle. The objective of this study is to investigate how lean manufacturing tools can be used to improve efficiency, customer service and enhance the embedding of a continuous improvement culture in the South African Revenue Services East London office Taxpayer Service business area. The activities that took place in the Taxpayer Service business area from 21 July 2008 until 31 October 2008 were observed. During the observation period, taxpayer services staff members were engaged formally, using surveys to assess their underlying mindset and behaviour as well as informally, using unstructured interviews to solicit more information on activities taking place and the reasoning behind certain actions. The movements of taxpayers who visited the branch office were monitored and the time it took for taxpayers to be assisted was measured as well as the time it took taxpayers to be assisted by a service agent or service consultant. To see if the available resources were used efficiently, the numbers of service channels available were compared to the number of service channels occupied. The results of the survey and observations are analysed and interpreted.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:8726 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Vazi, Malibongwe Matthews |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MBA |
| Format | vii, 98 leaves ; 30 cm, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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