The Internal Lean Dimensions Impact On The Manufacturing Based Product Quality of Food Processing Companies in Jordan
The Internal Lean Dimensions Impact On The Manufacturing Based Product Quality of Food Processing Companies in Jordan
The Internal Lean Dimensions Impact On The Manufacturing Based Product Quality of Food Processing Companies in Jordan
ISSN 1941-899X
2015, Vol. 7, No. 4
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/jmr.v7i4.7830
Abstract
This paper studies the impact of internal lean dimensions on the manufacturing based quality
of food processing companies in Jordan, variables such as, pull systems, continuous flow,
setup time reduction, total productive maintenance, statistical process control, and employee
involvement were chosen to represent the internal lean dimensions, and were assumed to
have an affect manufacturing based quality.
A survey questionnaire was distributed for that purpose to those who occupy positions in the
production department and eligible enough to give accurate and unbiased responses to the
items of the questionnaire. The results of the study revealed that; the Internal Lean
Dimensions have a significant impact on the manufacturing based product quality, manifested
by, lower food products reprocessing, conforming to high quality standards, lower defects
rate, less interruptive breakdowns, which helped food processing companies in delivering
their products according to agreed upon schedule and the optimization of the utilization of
their manufacturing resources, such as machines and equipments, raw materials, and labor
force.
Keywords: Internal lean, Product Quality, Food Processing, Jordan
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1. Introduction
Lean production has been one of the most popular paradigms in waste elimination in the
manufacturing and service industry, therefore, many firms have grabbed the benefits to
practice lean manufacturing in order to enhance quality and productivity
(Wahab, Mukhtar,et al.,2013), it is an approach that emphasizes attaining value efficiently, its
application in industries, such as the automotive industry, has brought about significant
performance improvement (Womack et al, 1990), it can also be applied to all aspects of a
business from design, through production to distribution of either goods or services. Lean
production's perhaps most unique principle is the relentless pursuit of waste which is
everything that does not add value to the product (Monden, 1983).
The term Lean Production was developed by Toyota executive Taiichi Ohno (1912-90) during
the post-Second World War reconstruction period in Japan, and popularized by James P.
Womack and Daniel T. Jones in their 1996 book 'Lean Thinking, Also called lean production.
The usage of the term "lean" has also been extended to other meanings. Womack and Jones
(1994) use the term "the lean enterprise" to characterize a group of companies. Others use the
term "lean management" to denote general aspects of management (Shadur and Bamber,
1994). Finally, the term "lean thinking" has been used to denote several aspects of
organizational life (Womack and Jones, 1996).
The supported goals of lean manufacturing systems differ between various authors. While
some maintain an internal focus and concern, such as increasing profit for the organization
(Liker, 2004), others still claim that improvements should be done according to customer
preferences (Bechino, 2004).
Today, lean may no longer be luxurious, but its core principles, such as flow, value, pull,
minimizing waste, etc. have become the paradigm for many manufacturing and service
operations (Lewis, 2000), but to measure its impact on organizational performance, it is
necessary to develop competitive skills (Dyer & Singh, 1998) or operational capabilities
associated with quality, flexibility and costs (Ferdows & Meyer, 1990; Flynn & Flynn, 2004).
A study conducted by (Fullerton and Wempe, 2009) provides substantial evidence that
utilization of nonfinancial performance measures such as quality, mediates the relationship
between lean manufacturing and financial performance.
2. The research problem and its background
During the last three decades, Jordanian food industries, have achieved a lot of success in the
technical and economic fields. They have improved quality and have kept up with related
Arab and international developments. At the beginning they prospered under direct
government protection, support, and contribution. In some sub-sectors, including the canned
food production sector, the companies were established by individual and family businesses
with relatively small investments. Later, they took the form of shareholding companies, and
were restricted to Jordanian investments. In an effort to further enhance the investment
environment in the country, Jordan concluded over 35 agreements on protection and
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promotion of investments. Additionally, there have been over (30) agreements on the
avoidance of double taxation with Arab and non-Arab countries (Jordan competitiveness
report, 2008-2009).
A workshop on "the reality of food industries in Jordan; obstacles and suggested solutions"
recommended the adoption of modern food production technologies to reduce the food
production cost and to take advantage of government support in the form of conducting
diagnostic studies and the development of strategies and action plans to raise administrative
and production capacity. They also emphasized on the integration and cooperation among the
elements of food supply chain, particularly at the local level to facilitate the exchange of
available raw materials needed by the food industry sector.(Addustour Newspaper, 2012).
Based on the above statements, conducting a research on the internal lean dimensions
implementation and its impact on the manufacturing based product quality of the food
processing companies in Jordan is a timely one and partially converts the said workshop
recommendations into action, therefore the main research problem is:
What is the Internal Lean impact on the manufacturing based product quality of food
processing companies In Jordan.
3. Review of Related literature and research hypothesis
LP can be defined as an integrated socio-technical system whose main objective is to
eliminate waste by concurrently reducing or minimizing supplier, customer, and internal
variability (Shah and Ward, 2007, p. 791), Lean manufacturing is viewed as an integrated
sociotechnical system, which comprises a package of management practices that can be
applied to eliminate the waste and reduce the variability of suppliers, customers and internal
resources and processes (Anvari, Zulkifli, Yusuff, Ismail, & Hojjati, 2011).A cocktail of
factors are needed for lean success; not only is it necessary to implement most of the
technical tools but an organization's culture needs transforming too (Bhasin and Burcher,
2006)
Womack and Jones (2003) stated that lean principles can be applied in any industry, therefore,
Lean Production has been adopted by many industrial and service organizations, in recent
decades these organizations have subsequently moved forward in its implementation. In
many cases lean production has enabled them to improve their performance and
competitiveness (Moyano-Fuentes and Sacristn-Daz, 2012).
The characteristics of lean manufacturing were introduced by (Carlson and Ahlstrom, 1996)
as the nine variables of leanness: elimination of waste, continues improvement, zero defect,
Just In-Time (JIT) delivery, pull of material, multifunctional term, decentralisation,
integration of functions, vertical information systems and time to market, wile Womack and
Jones (2003) identified the five general principles of lean as: defining the value from
customer perspective, mapping the value stream process to achieve the predefined value,
creating the flow along the value chain, establishing pull system and pursuing perfection.
Shah and Ward ( 2007) identified a key set of measurement items by charting the linkages
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between measurement instruments that have been used to measure its various components
from the past literature, and using a rigorous, two-stage empirical method and data from a
large set of manufacturing firms, they narrowed the list of items selected to represent lean
production to 48 items, empirically identifying 1underlying components. In doing so, they
mapped the operational spaccorresponding conceptual space surrounding lean production.
hlstrm (1998) noted that lean manufacturing consists of eight principles: elimination of
waste, zero defects, pull scheduling, multifunctional teams, delaying, team leaders, vertical
information systems and continuous improvement. He developed a framework for sequencing
the lean production principles in the implementation process.
So as to measure the organizational performance at operational level, the measures have to be
defined in non-financial terms and also should be related to the lean practices (Neely et al.
2005), A significant amount of research has shown that one of the most effective management
control techniques for achieving improved performance is to provide specific, challenging
goals and feedback to individuals (Locke 1982).
In their book total quality management (Ross and Perry, 2009) stated that;
"Manufacturing-based definitions are concerned primarily with engineering an manufacturing
practices and use the universal definition of conformance to requirements. Requirements,
or specifications, are established design, and any deviation implies a reduction in quality,
emphasis on reliability in design and manufacturing tends to address cost reduction as the
objective"
The study of (Kuo, Shen et, al., 2008) on relationship between lean production practices and
manufacturing performance, revealed; suppliers involvement and information feedback,
would help manufacturing performance, aside from that, internally management, such as
controlled process, low setup, productive maintenance and involved employees appears to
make a substantial contribution to manufacturing performance, customer involvement was
also positively related to manufacturing performance. In addition to that (Karim, Azharul,
2009) emphasized that the quality and reliability of the product is the most important
competitive factor for the manufacturers. Product price has become an unimportant factor for
manufacturers and the world market has become a battleground for quality and reliability.
A study conducted by (Hallgren, Olhager, 2009) aimed to investigate internal and external
factors that drive the choice of lean and agile operations capabilities and their respective
impact on operational performance, revealed that, lean and agile manufacturing differ in
terms of drivers and outcomes. The choice of a costleadership strategy fully mediates the
impact of the competitive intensity of industry as a driver of lean manufacturing, while agile
manufacturing is directly affected by both internal and external drivers, i.e. a differentiation
strategy as well as the competitive intensity of industry. Agile manufacturing is found to be
negatively associated with a costleadership strategy, emphasizing the difference between
lean and agile manufacturing. The major differences in performance outcomes are related to
cost and flexibility, such that lean manufacturing has a significant impact on cost
performance (whereas agile manufacturing has not), and that agile manufacturing has a
stronger relationship with volume as well as product mix flexibility than does lean
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manufacturing.
Shah and Ward(2003) argue that, lean bundles such as, just-in-time (JIT), total quality
management (TQM), total preventive maintenance (TPM), and human resource management
(HRM)) contribute substantially to the operating performance of plants, and explain about
23% of the variation in operational performance after accounting for the effects of industry
and contextual factors.
Shahram (2008) conducted a study to investigate the adaptation of lean production and assess
its current state of practice in selected industrial sectors in China, he concluded that the
petroleum industry is in lead among all industries, followed by computer, wireless
telecommunication, and electronics industries. The findings from lean production system
designrelated questions show lower scores in layout design, volume/mix flexibility, setup,
visual factory, and pointofuse delivery. However, plants earned high scores in material flow,
scheduling/control, ontime delivery of finished goods, and overall defect rate.
According to the results of (Rahman, Laosirihongthong, et al.,2010) study, the three lean
constructs namely just in time (JIT), waste minimization and flow management are
significantly related to operational performance. JIT has a higher level of significance in large
enterprises(LE) compared with small and medium enterprises (SMEs), whereas for waste
minimization there is a higher level of significance for SMEs compared with LEs. Flow
management has a much lower level of significance for both SMEs and LEs.
The study of (Dora, Manoj, et al., 2013) analyzed the application of lean manufacturing, its
impact on operational performance and critical success factors in the food processing SMEs.
The respondents indicated improvement in operational performance, especially with overall
productivity from the application of lean manufacturing. Skill of workforce, in-house
expertise and organizational culture are critical factors for successful implementation of lean
manufacturing practices.
Prattana Punnakitikasem (2014) shows the result of the multiple regression of all lean
practices and organizational commitment regressed on the dependent variable operational
performance.(Graban 2009) identified operational performance of health care organizations
impacted from lean implementation. He summarized operational performance in five
categories including speed, cost, overall productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction.
Anvari, Zulkifli, and Yusuff (2013) examined the impact of specific influences on the
leanness of a manufacturing system. They found that the most crucial components to leanness
are defects, cost, lead time and value, (Wan and Frank Chen, 2008) supported the findings of
Anvari et al. By emphasizing on cost, value and time in order to evaluate leanness.
Hofer, Eroglu, and Rossiter Hofer (2012) investigated the impact that lean production has on
the financial performance of an organization and the mediating role of inventory leanness in
proving the economic benefits associated with the deployment of a lean strategy. They found
that inventory plays a significant role in the relationship between financial performance and
lean production. Furthermore, it turned out that, external lean practices do not have a
significant direct effect on financial performance, but that external lean practices affect the
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inventory leanness.
Shah and Ward (2007) developed 10 dimensions of a lean system. They are: "SUPPFEED
(supplier feedback): provide regular feedback to suppliers about their performance, SUPPJIT
(JIT delivery by suppliers): ensures that suppliers deliver the right quantity at the right time in
the right place, SUPPDEVT (supplier development): develop suppliers so they can be more
involved in the production process of the focal firm, CUSTINV (customer involvement):
focus on a firms customers and their needs, PULL (pull): facilitate JIT production, including
Kanban cards which serves as a signal to start or stop production, FLOW(continuous flow):
establish mechanisms that enable and ease the continuous flow of products, SETUP (set up
time reduction): reduce process downtime between product changeovers, TPM (total
productive/preventive maintenance): address equipment downtime through total productive
maintenance and thus achieve a high level of equipment availability, SPC (statistical process
control): ensure each process will supply defect free units to subsequent process and
EMPINV (employee involvement): employees role in problem solving, and their cross
functional character."
In this study, the researcher defines the internal lean manufacturing dimensions as those that
can be implemented on the factory shop floor by people who belong to the same
manufacturing firm, these dimensions are, pull, continuous flow, setup time reduction, total
productive maintenance, statistical process control, and employee involvement..
Based on what have been stated in the previous literature and studies above, the study
hypothesis will be summarized as follows;
H01; The internal lean production dimensions; pull, continuous flow, setup time reduction,
total productive maintenance, statistical process control, and employee involvement have no
impact on the manufacturing based product quality of the food manufacturing companies in
Jordan.
4. The conceptual Framework of the study
Pull System
Continuous Flow
Manufacturing Based Quality
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questionnaire based on Shah and Ward 10 dimensions of the lean production systems six of
which were chosen to represent the internal side of the lean system, some of the items of the
questionnaire were modified based on the suggestions of some academicians specialized in
the field of industrial management, and practitioners who belong to the food processing
sector, the instrument was translated carefully to Arabic to allow those respondents who are
not proficient enough in english to give accurate and reliable responses.
5.1 The population of the study
The population of the study is consisted of employees who occupy either supervisory or
managerial positions at the production department of eight major food processing companies
that are currently members of the Amman chamber of industry, their total number is 523
employees, therefore, it is possible for the researcher to cover them all and eliminating the
need for employing any sampling technique.
The researcher reached only 380 respondents, retrieved 330, and excluded 53 questionnaires
for not meeting the statistical treatment criteria, thus only 227 questionnaires were valid for
statistical analysis, the table below shows the distribution of the respondents to their
respective companies
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41
37
29
31
22
33
36
17.9
16.2
12.6
13.5
9.6
14.5
15.7
163
66
71.2
28.8
41
144
35
9
18
62.8
15.3
3.9
71
98
39
21
31
42.8
17.1
9.1
6
19
43
67
94
229
2.6
8.3
18.8
29.3
41
100
Table (1) shows that the food processing companies are sufficiently represented by the study,
the industrial sector in Jordan is male dominated due to its unattractiveness to female
population and some managerial constraints that view the female worker as someone who
lacks the flexibility and strength which the nature of the industrial job requires. With regards
to the educational attainment and work experience, the table shows; most of the respondents
possess the proper education and experience needed for the job.
6. Data analysis and hypothesis testing
The data analysis process involves three stages, that began with the normal distribution test
using (K-S) (Kolomogrov-Smirnov Z), then the internal consistency test for the research
instrument by applying Cronbach's alpha, and lastly the hypothesis test using multiple
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regression analysis.
6.1 Normal distribution test
The test on how close the data of the study to normal distribution using (K-S)
(Kolomogrov-Smirnov Z) states that; the null hypothesis is rejected if the statistical
probability of (K-S) 0.05, as shown in the table below
Table 2. Normal distribution test of the study variables
Variable
Normality tests
(K-S)
P-value
The Independent Variables: The Internal lean system dimentions
Pull
1.014
0.255
Continuous flow
1.22
0.106
Setup time reduction
1066
0.206
Total productive maintenance
1.30
0.071
Statistical process control
1.44
0.064
Employee involvement
1.28
0.078
The dependent Variable: Manufacturer perceived quality
Manufacturer perceived quality
1.046
0.225
The result of normality tests in table (2) shows that the values of (K-S) test are high, with a
significance level of more than 0.05 for all variables, therefore we reject the null hypothesis
and accept the alternative hypothesis that states; the data are normally distributed, which
makes it valid for further statistical analysis.
6.2 Internal consistency test
The study applied the cronbach's alpha measure of internal consistency to find if the items of
the research instrument for each variable are closely related, according to (Sekaran, 2002),
alpha must be more than 67% for the research instrument to be considered reliable, The
measurement results show that the value of Alpha is 79% for al of the seven items of the
study which is higher than the minimum value of 67%.
7. Data analysis and research findings
Table 3. The result of the main study hypothesis test
Hypthesis
H1
0.358
t
5.75
P-value
0.000
R
0.62
R2
0.384
Degree of freedom (n-1) = 228, level of freedom (0.05), tabulated t value (1.96)
Table (3) shows a strong positive correlation with a value of (R=0.62) and a coefficient of
determination (R2= 0.384) between the independent and dependent variables, taking the main
study null hypothesis (H01) that states; the internal lean production dimensions have no
impact on the manufacturing based product quality into consideration, and based on the
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calculated value (t=5.755) which is more than the tabulated value (t=1.96), and a calculated
probability (p-value=0.000) which is lower than (0.05), we accept the alternative hypothesis;
the internal lean production dimensions have an impact on the manufacturing based product
quality of food processing companies in Jordan.
Table 4. The results of the sub-hypothesis test of the study
Sub-hypothesis T
H01a
2.353
H01b
H01c
H01d
H0e
H0f
3.418
4.52
2.93
3.040
8.030
P-value
0.020
R2
0.001
0.000
0.004
0.002
0.000
0.65
0.42
0.55
.590
0.69
0.66
0.47
0.30
0.35
0.48
0.44
0.22
Degree of freedom (n-1) = 228, level of freedom (0.05), tabulated t value (1.96)
Table (4) shows the results of the sub-hypothesis tests of the study, based on the (t) tabulated
values, a calculated probability (p-values), correlation values (R) and coefficient of
determination(R2) for each sub-hypothesis, we reject the null hypotheses and accept the
alternative hypotheses which conclude that, 0.42 of the total variations in manufacturing
based product quality can be explained by its linear relationship with pull systems,0.30 of the
total variations in manufacturing based product quality can be explained by its linear
relationship with the continuous flow,0.35 of the total variation in the manufacturing based
product quality can be explained by its linear relationship with the setup time reduction, 0.48
of the total variations in the manufacturing based product quality can be explained by its
linear relationship with the total productive maintenance, 0.44 of the variations in the
manufacturing based product quality can be explained by its linear relationship with the
statistical process control and 0.22 of the variations in manufacturing based product quality
can be explained by its linear relationship with the total productive maintenance.
8. Discussion of results and research conclusions
The results of the study show a strong effect for internal lean system elements on
manufacturing based quality, which is manifested by, lower food products reprocessing,
conforming to high quality standards, lower defects rate, less interruptive breakdowns that
help food processing companies in delivering their products according to agreed upon
schedule, in addition to that, companies are able to optimize the utilization of their
manufacturing resources, such as machines and equipments, raw materials, and labor force,
This is quite similar to the study finding of (Dora, Manoj, et al., 2013) that indicated
improvement in operational performance, especially with overall productivity from the
application of lean manufacturing at the food processing MSEs.
The effect of pull systems on the manufacturing perceived quality, emphasizes the importance
of answering questions of what, how, when, and why to produce, to guarantee that no form of
waste will be accumulated and high quality standards can easily be implemented.
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When food processing companies classify their products into groups with similar processing
and routing requirements, then the chances of producing defective products become lower,
and food manufacturing process falls within the control limits, in addition to that, the results
indicate; the plant layout and the grouping of equipments is determined mainly by their food
product families, and employees practice and work to lower setup times to prevent any delay
in the production cycle that leads to delay in production.
Food processing industry in Jordan believes in the power and the influence of statistical
process control (SPC) on the quality of their outputs, therefore, a large number of their
equipment on the plant floor are currently under SPC and process capability tests, which is
manifested by, extensive utilization of different statistical methods to lower process variance.
The results of the study show optimism when it comes to employee involvement in internal
lean related decisions; food processing companies in Jordan consider their employees when
they form problem solving teams, seek their suggestions regarding the product or process
improvement programs, and adopt cross functional training to shop-floor employees to
guarantee the continuity production process.
The food processing sector in Jordan dedicates an adequate portion of their daily operation
time to planned equipment maintenance related activities and follow a regular schedule for
preventive maintenance to avoid any enterruptive breakdown, forth more, they maintain
maintenance records and share them with employees to lower the cost, efforts and time
needed for routine and nonroutine breakdowns.
9. Study recommendations and future researches
The food industry in Jordan is advised to improve its supply chain performance by
developing partnership with their major suppliers through long term contracts and any other
possible way that may lead to the improvement of their lean practices in general and internal
lean practices in particular.
Jordanian food industry must consider the internationalization option to gain access to foreign
markets, benefit from the abundance of agricultural supply in some countries and lower the
impact of the political instability in some neighboring countries.
The food sector is advised to be more consolidated through group collaboration and
negotiation to reap the benefit of the synergy among its members, which will possibly help
them deal with any arising problems and future challenges.
This paper tackled one of the many topics that can still contribute to the competitiveness of
the food processing sector in Jordan, hence, the researcher hopes that future papers handling
topics such as, Lean operations and supply chain performance and operations agility and
quality will also be conducted to increase the efficiency of this sector.
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