Lean Manufacturing: Context, Practice Bundles, and Performance

Jaykumar Patel

Writing Sample

This writing sample is from World Class Manufacturing assignment-1 where I was assigned to write summary of two articles in my own words.

Article - 1

Lean manufacturing: context, practice bundles, and performance

Rachna Shah and Peter T. Ward (2002), in their article “Lean manufacturing: context, practice bundles, and performance,” evaluate influence of plant size, plant age and unionization status on adopting 22 different advanced manufacturing practices to become world class facility. To make research simple they have grouped these 22 different manufacturing processes into four bundles namely just-in-time (JIT), total quality management (TQM), total preventive maintenance (TPM) and human resource management (HRM). Previous researchers have shown mixed outcomes of having positive or negative impact of these three parameters on any industry for implementing lean practices.

        The study is done on surveys filled by executives of companies across many types of     industries and it is observed that number of surveys taken from each industry is apparently in proportion to their total presence in US manufacturing sector. Different tools used for these studies are Spearman’s correlations, Extraction method, Rotation method, Pearson’s method, Hierarchical regression model and Pair wise deletion method.

        Overall analysis concludes that all four lean bundles are effective in improving organizational performance. Larger plants results into to easiness of implementing lean practices thanks to availability of resources required for putting practices in work but it decreases operational efficiency. Older plants tend face difficulty to adopt lean practices and also it give negative impact on efficiency of organization. Unionisation doesn’t have any    significant effect on either getting acquainted with world class practices or on operational efficiency.      

References

Shah, R & Ward, PT 2003, 'Lean manufacturing: context, practice bundles, and performance',      Journal of Operations Management, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 129-149.

  Retrieved from

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0272-6963(02)00108-0

Article - 2

 The implementation of world class manufacturing techniques in Egyptian manufacturing firms: An empirical study

The study by Salaheldin Ismail and Riyad Eid (2007), explores the current existence level of world class manufacturing (WCM) in Egyptian industries, adoptability towards these practices and resistances to adopt them. To get holistic picture in current market, the questionnaire related to world class processes was developed with extreme care and it was circulated to 200 public companies covering almost all industries. Based on the genuine reply of 98 companies’, scale of 17 different factors affecting growth and resistance to implementation of WCM is developed.