James Womack and his colleagues Daniel Jones and Daniel Roos changed the way western civilization approached manufacturing. In 1990, they published a book called ‘The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production’. It was a concept that had slowly filtered from the east but had not made its mark on the manufacturing sector. The concept of lean, born out of the Japanese Toyota Manufacturing System, was first thought to be impossible to duplicate outside of Japan. Since Womack and company popularised this “new” way of producing goods and delivering services it spread across industries finding popularity in the medical, engineering, accounting and especially the manufacturing industries. Over the last few decades lean practices has been synonymous with efficiency, cost reduction, supply chain optimisation and innovative problem solving (Anvari Norzima, Rosnah, Hojjati and Ismail, 2010; Pieterse et al., 2010; Womack et al., 1990). Lean process implementation has been researched in abundance, as has failed attempts at lean implementation. The purpose of this study was to identify and assess enablers of lean sustainability in organisations where lean processes are already being implemented. The literature study found Organisational Culture, Leadership, Employee Engagement and Trade Unions participation as factors that contributed to successful lean implementations. The author developed a model to test Organisational Culture, Leadership, Employee Engagement and Trade Unions as enablers to sustain lean practices in organisations in South Africa’s manufacturing industries. The results proved that Organisational Culture, Leadership and Employee Engagement were considered enablers for lean sustainability. These three enablers have an interlinked relationship and together help sustainability. Lacking just one factor would surely result in unsustainable lean practices. The study was conducted in the quantitative paradigm, as the hypothesised relationship was statistically tested. The data was collected from a homogenous group via an email sent with a link to the questionnaire. The data was statistically analysed with Statistica software and Microsoft Excel.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:21122 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Roth, Benlloyd Koekemoer |
| 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 | x, 112 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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