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Determining the critical success factors for implementing lean manufacturing in South Africa: a case study

The lean manufacturing system that evolved in Japan since World War II has leapt across the globe to North America and Europe. The secret success of Japan’s manufacturing machine has been shared. In Europe and America, lean has been identified as a manufacturing best practice that should be adopted to ensure competitive manufacturing efficiency. Many success stories have been told of American companies adopting the Japanese lean tools and techniques. Now, South African manufacturers are implementing the lean manufacturing philosophy, some with more success than others. This research paper explores lean manufacturing implementations at two South African automotive component manufacturers and identifies the critical success factors that have driven the implementation process forward. Commitment from top company executives, extensive training, worker empowerment and other critical success factors for implementing lean manufacturing into a South African environment are identified as a result of the research conducted.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:8915
Date January 2006
CreatorsPitout, Callum John
PublisherNelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis, Masters, MBA
Formatvi, 74 leaves, pdf
RightsNelson Mandela Metropolitan University

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