With global advances in technology, many organizations are finding it difficult and quite challenging to do business as usual. Japanese companies are on top of the world economy, while many Western companies are struggling to find ways to compete with them (Womack, et al., 1990). The Japanese secret weapon “Lean Production” is no longer a secret; more and more western companies are now learning and adopting Lean techniques to remain relevant and competitive. Lean management is a consistent philosophy and a set of practices that must be maintained over time in order to see the gains (Losonci & Demeter, 2013). Lean is not a quick fix to reduce costs, but a continuous improvement journey that will transform an organization into a cost efficient value-driven system. Lean is still a fairly new phenomenon in South Africa, particularly in the Eastern Cape. The road towards the lean implementation is viewed by many as a challenging and yet rewarding journey. South African organizations are following the trend of implementing lean in order to eliminate waste, improve quality, speed, customer satisfaction and thereby increasing profits. It is however still a long journey towards achieving total perfection. The main challenge facing South African organizations is the ability to sustain the lean improvements over a longer period. This study will focus on identifying and analyzing the main barriers that inhibit many successful organizations from sustaining lean improvement efforts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:8934 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Sidinile, Ayanda |
| 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, 87 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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