Track: Lean

Abstract

The success of manufacturing organizations at large is assessed through the ability to perform day to day business employing efficient methods and techniques of working. Lean manufacturing comprises of several essential principles for executing production in an organization. Several organizations have explored the need to implement lean principles in pursuit of improving productivity thus achieving a competitive advantage in the volatile global business space. This paper investigates the factors which affect the sustainability of lean manufacturing principles in a production system. To obtain an insight on the factors affecting the sustainability of lean manufacturing, a literature study on lean holistically and the principle is explored. The purpose of the literature is to learn proposals made in literature in relation to sustaining the practice of lean principles. The remediation suggested in literature is used to explore possible best practices that can be embedded in the daily business of an organization to promote lean principles sustainability. The literature in this study brings into attention significant themes essential to arrive to significant outcomes. The themes of study range from organizational leadership and culture followed by the organization to promote the best application of the principles. To gather research data, observations are used as the main data collection method. A checklist is used to provide a structure on the observations under the different themes. Without overlooking the other themes of the research, the research reports that of all the observed themes with different observable items the main themes which need attention are shop-floor meetings, training and problem solving. The analysis of the entire research reveals that if the manner with which training is conducted improves could alleviate many other problems as training proves to be the main contributor towards other factors.