Human critical success factors for kaizen and its impacts in industrial performance

This article presents the results of a survey with 13 main activities related to human factors that are executed during kaizen implementation process and were integrated in four independent latent variables (management commitment, education, communication and motivation) that are associated to 14 benefits obtained after its implementation that were grouped in three dependent latent variables (process, workers and customers). The survey was applied to persons with responsibilities in continuous improvement programs and projects in companies located in Mexico. Independent and dependent variables were integrated in a structural equation model that was evaluated using partial least squares algorithms WarpPLS® for finding causal relations among them. Results indicate that management commitment and education are the main factors that guarantee the success for kaizen implementation programs, but that is moderated by a good communication for having good operational process performance for better workers and customer satisfaction.

[1]  S. Wold,et al.  Some recent developments in PLS modeling , 2001 .

[2]  J. Rockart,et al.  A primer on critical success factors , 1981 .

[3]  Cheryl Tanner,et al.  Kaizen leads to breakthroughs in responsiveness—and the shingo prize—at critikon , 1994 .

[4]  Mohammad Samaun Safa,et al.  HRM and TQM: association with job involvement , 2007 .

[5]  Detmar W. Straub,et al.  Specifying Formative Constructs in Information Systems Research , 2007, MIS Q..

[6]  Kristin N. Cuscela.  Kaizen blitz attacks work processes at Dana Corp , 1998 .

[7]  Amrik S. Sohal,et al.  Teamwork and Total Quality Management: A Durable Partnership , 2004 .

[8]  Amrik S. Sohal,et al.  The Sustainability and Evolution of Quality Improvement Programmes – an Australian Case Study , 2004 .

[9]  John Bessant,et al.  What challenges lie ahead for improvement programmes in the UK? Lessons from the CINet Continuous Improvement Survey 2003 , 2007, Int. J. Technol. Manag..

[10]  Masao Nemoto.  Total Quality Control for Management: Strategies and Techniques from Toyota and Toyoda Gosei , 1987 .

[11]  Søren Bisgaard.  Quality management and Juran's legacy , 2007, Qual. Reliab. Eng. Int..

[12]  R. E. McQuater,et al.  Sustaining total quality management: what are the key issues? , 1997 .

[13]  Frank Huber,et al.  Capturing Customer Heterogeneity using a Finite Mixture PLS Approach , 2002 .

[14]  Michel Grabisch,et al.  Measure and integral with purely ordinal scales , 2004, ArXiv.

[15]  Harry Boer,et al.  Development of a team‐based framework for conducting self‐assessment of continuous improvement , 2002 .

[16]  Halvor Holtskog,et al.  Continuous Improvement beyond the Lean understanding , 2013 .

[17]  Roger G. Schroeder,et al.  Relationship Between JIT and TQM: Practices and Performance , 1995 .

[18]  Nihat Kaya,et al.  The impact of human resource management practices and corporate entrepreneurship on firm performance: evidence from Turkish firms , 2006 .

[19]  Mick Marchington,et al.  Embedding employee involvement and participation at work , 2006 .

[20]  M. Giaquinta,et al.  Mathematical Analysis: An Introduction to Functions of Several Variables , 2004 .

[21]  N. Bateman.  Sustainability: the elusive element of process improvement , 2005 .

[22]  Kannan Govindan,et al.  Environmental management and operational performance in automotive companies in Brazil: The role of human resource management and lean manufacturing , 2013 .

[23]  C. Fornell,et al.  Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. , 1981 .

[24]  Christian N. Madu,et al.  A structural equation model of supply chain quality management and organizational performance , 2005 .

[25]  Ralph L. Rosnow,et al.  Essentials of Behavioral Research: Methods and Data Analysis , 1984 .

[26]  Rex B. Kline,et al.  Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling , 1998 .

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

[28]  Nadia Bhuiyan,et al.  A sustainable continuous improvement methodology at an aerospace company , 2006 .

[29]  Katsuki Aoki,et al.  Transferring Japanese kaizen activities to overseas plants in China , 2008 .

[30]  Richard J. Long,et al.  Best practice or best fit? High involvement management and base pay practices in Canadian and Australian firms , 2005 .

[31]  R. Schroeder,et al.  Relationships between implementation of TQM, JIT, and TPM and manufacturing performance , 2001 .

[32]  Rajeev Sawhney,et al.  Implementing labor flexibility: A missing link between acquired labor flexibility and plant performance , 2013 .

[33]  Jörgen Eklund,et al.  Sustainable development of improvement activities--the long-term operation of a suggestion scheme in a Swedish company , 2002 .

[34]  Mikko A. Junttila,et al.  A resource-based view of manufacturing strategy and the relationship to manufacturing performance , 2002 .

[35]  R. Likert.  “Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes, A” , 2022, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[36]  M. Sarstedt.  A review of recent approaches for capturing heterogeneity in partial least squares path modelling , 2008 .

[37]  David Upton,et al.  Mechanisms for Building and Sustaining Operations Improvement , 1996 .

[38]  Toni L. Doolen,et al.  Critical success factors for the sustainability of Kaizen event human resource outcomes: An empirical study , 2011 .

[39]  J. Bessant,et al.  High-involvement innovation through continuous improvement , 1997 .

[40]  N. Nayab.  Kaizen: The key to Japan‚s competitive success , 2009 .

[41]  Ronald T. Cenfetelli,et al.  Interpretation of Formative Measurement in Information Systems Research , 2009, MIS Q..

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

[43]  John F. Rockart,et al.  The rise of managerial computing: the best of the Center for Information Systems Research , 1986 .

[44]  R. Sitgreaves.  Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). , 1979 .

[45]  Kent D. Messer,et al.  Mathematical Programming for Agricultural, Environmental, and Resource Economics , 2012 .

[46]  Raymond N. Cheser,et al.  THE EFFECT OF JAPANESE KAIZEN ON EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN U.S. MANUFACTURING , 1998 .

[47]  Steven A. Melnyk,et al.  Short-term action in pursuit of long-term improvements: Introducing Kaizen events , 1998 .

[48]  Mike Kaye,et al.  Continuous improvement: the ten essential criteria , 1999 .

[49]  Rolph E. Anderson,et al.  Multivariate Data Analysis (7th ed. , 2009 .

[50]  Julian Barling,et al.  High-performance work systems and occupational safety. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[51]  T. McNichols,et al.  Quick and continuous improvement through kaizen blitz. , 1999, Hospital materiel management quarterly.

[52]  D. Whitson,et al.  Applying just-in-time systems in health care , 1997 .