Structural Equation Modelling of lean manufacturing practices

The purpose of this research study is to analyse lean manufacturing practices in different industries and to identify the critical factors for its success implementation. Despite the fact that lean manufacturing has been frequently promoted as a means of improving business competitiveness, little empirical evidence exists in the literature validating its positive link with organisational performance. Lean manufacturing practices not only help in reducing the number of defects but also reduces the cost of production. For this purpose, empirical data is collected to measure the lean manufacturing practices prevailing in different industries located in Tamil Nadu, India. A Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique is used to build the measurement and structural models. Later, statistical estimates are used to validate the model that has been built. The data analysis helps to determine whether to accept or reject the hypothesis that has been stated based on the structural model. The result shows how lean manufacturing practices are correlated and help in improving the organisational performance among the industries being surveyed.

[1]  Basheer M. Khumawala,et al.  Global manufacturing practices: an empirical evaluation , 1999 .

[2]  Sime Curkovic,et al.  Environmentally Responsible Manufacturing: The development and validation of a measurement model , 2003, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[3]  Michel Tenenhaus,et al.  PLS path modeling , 2005, Comput. Stat. Data Anal..

[4]  Rachna Shah,et al.  Use of structural equation modeling in operations management research: Looking back and forward ☆ , 2006 .

[5]  Gilbert A. Churchill.  A Paradigm for Developing Better Measures of Marketing Constructs , 1979 .

[6]  Rachna Shah,et al.  Defining and developing measures of lean production , 2007 .

[7]  Ossama Salem,et al.  Lean Construction: From Theory to Implementation , 2006 .

[8]  Richard C.M. Yam,et al.  Supply chain integration and product modularity: An empirical study of product performance for selected Hong Kong manufacturing industries , 2010 .

[9]  Jt Black,et al.  Design rules for implementing the Toyota Production System , 2007 .

[10]  Jon C. Yingling,et al.  Quantifying benefits of conversion to lean manufacturing with discrete event simulation: A case study , 2000 .

[11]  Matthias Holweg,et al.  The genealogy of lean production , 2007 .

[12]  M. S. Putterill,et al.  Empirical Analysis of Quality Improvement in Manufacturing , 1994 .

[13]  Le Chen,et al.  Identifying key enablers to improve business performance in Taiwanese electronic manufacturing companies , 2010 .

[14]  R. Bagozzi,et al.  On the evaluation of structural equation models , 1988 .

[15]  J. Nunnally.  Psychometric Theory (2nd ed), New York: McGraw-Hill. , 1978 .

[16]  L. Cronbach.  Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests , 1951 .

[17]  Ben J. Hicks,et al.  Lean information management: Understanding and eliminating waste , 2007, Int. J. Inf. Manag..

[18]  Manoj Kumar Tiwari,et al.  Lean tool selection in a die casting unit: a fuzzy-based decision support heuristic , 2006 .

[19]  Nick Rich,et al.  The seven value stream mapping tools , 1997 .

[20]  Nick Rich,et al.  Value stream mapping , 1999 .

[21]  H. Goldstein.  Multilevel mixed linear model analysis using iterative generalized least squares , 1986 .

[22]  Vaibhav Gupta,et al.  Application of value stream mapping for lean operations and cycle time reduction: an Indian case study , 2005 .

[23]  Yuqing Chen,et al.  Research on the evaluation of academic journals based on structural equation modeling , 2009, J. Informetrics.

[24]  D. Prajogo.  The comparative analysis of TQM practices and quality performance between manufacturing and service firms , 2005 .

[25]  Marcello Braglia,et al.  A new value stream mapping approach for complex production systems , 2006 .

[26]  Riyad Eid,et al.  Factors affecting the success of world class manufacturing implementation in less developed countries: The case of Egypt , 2009 .

[27]  Jeffrey K. Liker,et al.  The Toyota Production System and art: making highly customized and creative products the Toyota way , 2007 .