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Doolen2005 PDF
24/No.Systems~l
2005
55
Journal o/" Manu/2lcturing Systems
Vol. 24/No. 1
2005
the quest for value creation in the manufacture of nizations that focus on volume flexibility, technol-
products. Just-in-time (JIT) production systems, to- ogy leadership, speed to market, and new product
tal productive maintenance (TPM), cellular manufac- development outperform organizations that focus on
turing, single-minute exchange of die (SMED), mixed low cost and quality. Strategies to develop and main-
model production (MMP), and mistake-proofing are tain supplemental capacity within the overall supply
just a few of the many examples of practices that are chain (in direct contrast to the lean philosophy of
associated with a lean production system. The suc- waste reduction) have also been shown to provide a
cessful application of various lean practices has been significant competitive advantage (Mason-Jones,
documented in a variety of industries, such as aero- Naylor, and Towill 2000). Batch production, along
space, computer manufacturing, and automotive as- with craft production methods, were found to pro-
sembly (MacDuffie, Sethuraman, and Fisher 1996; vide automotive suppliers with the flexibility needed
Laughlin 1995; Houlahan 1994). Some manufactur- to be successful when rapid product and process in-
ing organizations, however, have experienced only novation were the norm (Cooney 2002). Finally,
limited success in using lean manufacturing practices James-Moore and Gibbons (1997) determined that
to increase competitiveness. Researchers have ex- the level of lean manufacturing adoption in the aero-
plored the portability of lean practices both within space industry was lower than expected as a result of
and between different manufacturing sectors. A re- high product mix and low volumes.
view of previous research exploring the limitations Previous research has also identified the manage-
of lean manufacturing was completed. Based on this ment of human resources as a significant issue in the
review, there is evidence that factors such as chang- implementation of lean (Agrawal and Graves 1999;
ing economic conditions, high levels of demand un- Bamber and Dale 2000; Nicholas 1998; Yauch and
certainty, high-mix, low-volume product portfolios, Steudel 2002). Bamber and Dale found that "rigid
and rigid organizational structures may limit the ap- hierarchical organizational design" was the single
plicability of lean manufacturing practices or may biggest obstacle to the adoption of lean production
prevent manufacturers from realizing the full ben- practices. Yauch and Steudel showed that cultural
efits of these practices. factors play a direct role in impeding the formation,
Some authors contend that other manufacturing design, implementation, and operation of manufac-
strategies may be superior to lean under certain mar- turing cells. Agrawal and Graves found that hierar-
ket conditions (Cooney 2002; Katayama and Bennett chical organizational practices exacerbated the
1996). In particular, Cooney asserts that market char- separation between design, board fabrication, assem-
acteristics of an industrial sector should influence the bly, and test operations and inhibited the implemen-
type of production strategy chosen. A push system tation of lean practices in electronic manufacturing
utilizing batch production was found to be effective organizations. Similarly, when product designers,
for automotive component manufacturers given un- process engineers, and workers are isolated function-
stable customer demand and short-term customer re- ally, geographically, or across organizations, decen-
lationships. Katayama and Bennett found that some tralization of authority b e c o m e s much more
Japanese manufacturers who adopted a lean manu- challenging, and the ability to effect change through
facturing strategy were faced with problems due to continuous improvement activities is more difficult.
variations or reduction in product demand; success This can also hinder kaizen (continuous improve-
associated with lean in the 1990s was attributed to ment) activities, which are foundational to lean (Detty
favorable market conditions in Japan and the rest of and Yingling 2000).
the world. Today, the electronics industry faces many of the
Several researchers (Cooney 2002; Fliedner and challenges identified in these previous studies. Rap-
Vokurka 1997; James-Moore and Gibbons 1997; Ma- idly rising customer expectations, globalization of
son-Jones, Naylor, and Towill 2000; Yusef and both markets and competition, accelerating pace of
Adeleye 2002) contend that lean practices do not pro- technological change, and rapid expansion of tech-
vide a compelling competitive edge in all operational nology access are the norm for electronic manufac-
environments and have identified alternative opera- turers (Haughey 2002; NGM Project 1997). High
tional practices. Yusef and Adeleye found that orga- levels of competition and shifting market demand
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Journal ~f'Mam(/ctcturing S3'stems
Vol. 24/No. 1
2005
have led to a distributed supply chain. With the ex- ported by a wide range of researchers (Womack,
tensive use of outsourcing, many electronic manu- Roos, and Jones 1990; Bentley, Nightingale, and
facturers are functionally specialized. In the assembly Taneja 2000; Cochran et al. 2000; Detty andYingling
of a printed circuit boards, for example, design, board 2000). Previous researchers have taken an approach
fabrication, assembly, and test are potentially dis- of defining specific lean manufacturing practices and
persed both organizationally and geographically. To relating them to different functions of the manufac-
be able to study the impact of market, operational, turing enterprise. For instance, James-Moore and
and structural factors on electronic manufacturers, it Gibbons (1997) identified five key constructs--waste
is necessary to assess the implementation and use of elimination, flexibility, people, process control, and
lean manufacturing practices within an organization. optimization--in developing a "lean automotive
The remainder of this paper focuses on the develop- model." Other researchers have used similar models
ment of an assessment tool to enable this study and to define lean practices associated with the manufac-
the exploratory study completed to illustrate how the turing function, as well as to define the "lean enter-
assessment tool may be used. prise" (Karlsson and Ahlstrom 1996a; Bentley,
Nightingale, and Taneja 2000). A lean enterprise is
defined as an organization that uses lean concepts
Lean Assessment Tool Development and practices not just in the manufacturing function
Both research papers and practitioner works were but in everything it does (Womack, Roos, and Jones
examined to identify a comprehensive set of manu- 1990). Panizzolo (1998) defined six areas for inter-
facturing practices considered to be essential in a lean vention within a manufacturing enterprise to study
manufacturing enterprise and to identify existing sur- the implementation of lean manufacturing practices
vey instruments that could be used to complete a among Italian manufacturing plants--manufacturing
broad-based assessment of the lean practices used equipment and processes, shop-floor management,
within an organization. The decision to engage in lean new product development, supplier management,
practices is often part of an organization's manufac- customer relations, and workforce management. In
turing strategy. As such, an assessment of the level of the next step of this study, copies of existing lean
a lean implementation should include components of survey instruments were obtained and reviewed in
both a tactical and strategic nature. Hayes and Wheel- an effort to identify an instrument or combination of
wright (1984) d e f i n e d key structural and instruments that might be used for a broad-based as-
infrastructural decision categories to evaluate in de- sessment of lean practices consistent with the
veloping a manufacturing strategy. The four struc- conceptualization of lean as multidimensional.
tural c a t e g o r i e s i n c l u d e d capacity, facilities,
technology, and vertical integration. The four Review of Lean Surveys and Assessment Tools
infrastructural categories included workforce, qual- A number of tools have been developed to help
ity, production planning/materials, and organization. organizational leaders assess their progress toward
In an extension to this framework, Hayes, Wheel- becoming a lean enterprise. For this study, copies of
wright, and Clark (1988) discuss the importance of seven different assessment instruments were re-
external perspectives on manufacturing strategy. viewed. Surveys have also been used by researchers
Similarly, Miltenburg (1995) describes another frame- in previous research studies focused on linking lean
work for manufacturing strategy linking "manufac- practices with organizational performance. Five dif-
turing levers" to m a n u f a c t u r i n g outputs. In ferent research surveys were identified and reviewed.
Miltenburg's framework, six manufacturing levers are In some cases, the complete research instrument was
defined--human resources, organization structure not included in the paper reviewed. Where possible,
and controls, production planning and control, sourc- the author was contacted, and a copy of the actual
ing, process technology, and facilities. survey instrument was obtained. Tables 1 and 2 sum-
Consistent with this concept that manufacturing marize the research surveys and the industrial assess-
strategies must be multidimensional, a central tenant ment tools reviewed. The research surveys tended to
of the lean enterprise is that lean is multifaceted. This focus on assessing a group of lean practices within a
conceptualization of lean as multidimensional is sup- higher-level construct, such as JIT or TQM. The seven
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Table 1
S u m m a r y of Research Surveys Reviewed
Survey Identification Description and Lean Aspects Included
Fullerton, McWatters, and Fawson (2003) This research was based on a surveydevelopedto measure the level of JIT imple-
mentation within an organization.Ten JIT elements were definedfor the research,
and 11 correspondingsurveyitems were developedto assess the level of JIT
implementation.
Nightingale and Mize (2002), This research study describes the structure of an assessment tool created by the
Lean Enterprise Self-AssessmentTool Lean Aerospace Initiative.The tool includes three sections: lean transformation
leadership, life cycle processes, and enabling infrastructure.Fifty-fourlean practices
are included in the tool. These practices were chosen as being indicators of the
behaviors that lean organizationsshould engage in rather than being comprehensive.
Perez and Sanchez (2000) This research was based on a field survey of automotivesuppliers in Aragon. Data
collection includedorganizationaldemographics (number of employees,age of
organization, sales, and ownership), source of technologyinnovation,use of flexible
production technologies(JIT), and workforceand workplaceflexibilitymeasures
(teams, job rotation, and training).
Panizzolo (1998) This research was based on field surveysof Italian manufacturersfrom a wide range
of industrial sectors. The surveyitems were developedto probe the implementation
of lean practices in six differentareas of intervention(process and equipment,
manufacturingplanning and control, human resources, product design, supplier
relationships, customerrelationships). Some of the lean practices includedwithin
the interventionareas includesetup reduction, cellularmanufacturing,error
proofing, leveledproduction,teams, design for manufacturability,JIT, total cost
supplier evaluation,on-timedeliveries, and customerinvolvementin product design.
Shah and Ward (2003) This research study was based on an annual surveyof manufacturingmanagers in
1999 by publishers of bldustryWeek. The surveyincluded questions on the level of
implementationof 22 differentlean practices, includingpractices related to JIT,
TPM, TQM, and human resource management.
industrial assessment tools reviewed included many and item development structure are described further
different lean practices, but were inconsistent in the in the next section.
practices included as well in the mechanism for evalu-
ating the level of implementation. As a result of this Survey Item Development
review, a list of practices and a modified approach A set of defining practices was developed for each
for assessing the level of implementation of each prac- impact area. The set of practices and the correspond-
tice were developed. ing impact areas are summarized in Table 3. Although
An overall structure integrating the multiple di- a universal set of lean practices is not fully specified
mensions of a lean enterprise was synthesized from in the research literature, several studies along with
these previously developed instruments. Within this the reviewed surveys and assessment tools were used
structure, six impact areas were defined and then used to develop a set of representative practices for each
as the basis for the development of survey questions of the impact areas. Womack, Roos, and Jones (1990)
regarding the adoption of specific lean manufactur- documented the importance of setup time reduction,
ing practices. The six areas incorporated into the sur- error-proofing equipment, shop-floor organization,
vey were: manufacturing equipment and processes, total quality management (TQM), and value addition
shop floor management, new product development, in the context of manufacturing processes. Similarly,
supplier m a n a g e m e n t , customer relations, and other researchers have shown the importance of total
workforce management. Each impact area was fur- productive maintenance (TPM), cellular manufactur-
ther specified by defining a family of supporting ac- ing, cycle time reduction (James-Moore and Gibbons
tivities or practices. A synthesized set of impact areas 1997; Panizzolo 1998; Bentley, Nightingale, and
and lean practices is important in assuring that the Taneja 2000; Karlsson and Ahlstrom 1996a). In the
survey assesses the adoption of an overall lean pro- case of product development, the significance o f con-
duction strategy with practices impacting the full ar- current engineering techniques has been studied and
ray of organizational activities. The specific practices found to play an important role in a "lean" product
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Journal of Mamt~dcttH'ing Systems
Vol. 24/No. l
2005
Table 2
Summary of Seven Industrial Assessment Tools Reviewed
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Journal ~/" Manq/~wturing Systems
Vol. 24/No. 1
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60
Journa! ~["Mamgt~zcTuring Systellzs
Vol. 24/No. 1
2005
Table 4
Example Survey Items and Responses
Item Response
Does your organization make an effort to reduce setup times? NO or YES
(If YES, then go to follow-on items)
In your effort to reduce setup times, how often do you engage in
each of the following practices?
• Encourage employees to find ways to reduce setup times RELY
• Educate employees on the importance of reducing setup times ME
VEROF THE TIME
~OwAY
• Use checklists during the setup of a machine ST OF THE TIME
• Use devices to reduce operator error during setup S
• Complete setup operations offline
these manufacturers share two important character- Based on demographic information provided by
istics-utilizing high-technology processes and ma- the respondents, the number of employees was used
terials and being subject to rapid product development to stratify the data to allow comparison between
cycle times and short product life cycles. smaller and larger organizations. Larger companies
have more resources and a broader range of exper-
tise within their organizations. Both of these fac-
Exploratory Study Results and
tors support a supposition that larger companies will
Discussion implement a larger variety and/or a greater number
To test the usefulness of the research instrument of lean practices. The distinction between large and
developed, an analysis of the survey results from the small companies was based solely on the number of
exploratory study was completed. The primary inter- employees working in the organization, as reported
est in the study was to develop an instrument that could by the survey respondent. Because company sizes
be used to assess both the type and extent of practices ranged from very small (less than 10 employees) to
being implemented within organizations as part of their very large (thousands of employees), large compa-
overall manufacturing strategy. As such, the extent of nies were defined as having 100 or more employ-
implementation was determined for the entire sample ees. Of the 13 companies included in this analysis,
by calculating an average score and standard devia- five companies were identified as having fewer than
tion for each of the six impact areas. For each com- 100 employees, and the remaining eight companies
pany, the implementation score was obtained by had more than 100 employees. A two-sample, non-
averaging the level of implementation for all practices parametric test (Mann Whitney) was used to com-
associated with an impact area. Higher scores are in- pare the two samples for each impact area. The Mann
dicative of higher levels of implementation. The re- W h i t n e y statistic (analogous to an i n d e p e n d e n t
suits are summarized in Table 5. The manufacturing sample t-test for normally distributed data) tests
processes and equipment impact area and the customer whether or not two sampled populations are equiva-
relations impact area received the highest average lent in location. The Mann Whitney statistic is a
scores (3.70) for the entire set of completed surveys. conservative test that is appropriate for samples with
New product development received the lowest aver- any underlying distribution. The Mann Whitney test
age score (3.13). The amount of variability observed was used to determine whether or not any differences
was similar for each of the six impact areas. in the level of implementation for larger and small
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Journal ~/'Mam(fitcturing Systems
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Table 5
Average and Standard Deviation for Each Impact 5.0
Area for Sample (n = 13)
Average
4.0
Implementation Standard
Impact Area Level Deviation
Manufacturing equipment
3.0
and processes 3.70 0.651 _=
Shop-floor management 3.49 0.606
New product development 3.13 0.627
_=
2.0
Supplier management 3.41 0.707 Size
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Jottrltal of Mam(fitcturillg Systems
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Table 7
Average Implementation Score for Printed Circuit and Assembly (u = 4), Equipment (n = 4),
and Wafer or Semiconductor (u = 5) Manufacturers
Printed
Circuit Wafer and
and Equipment Semiconductor
Impact Area Assembly Manufacturers Manufacturers p-value
Manufacturing equipment and processes 3.41 3.44 4.15 0.089
Shop-floor management 3.14 3.74 3.61 0.493
New product development 2.53 3.34 3.31 0.137
Supplier management 2.86 3.80 3.53 0.205
Customer relationships 3.25 3.85 3.94 0.180
Workforce management 3.30 3.43 3.72 0.291
2.0
coaster...Many of the advantages an OEM has avail- [ ' - ~ P C B & Assembly
~Equip M fg
able are not available to us, as many of our processes
1.0 ~Wafer & Semi
are dictated by our customers." Perez and Sanchez Mf$ Process Ne~ Prod Dev Cust R¢I
Shop Floor Supplier Mgmt Wkf Mgmt
(2000) found that the level of adoption of flexible
production technologies differed between compo-
Figure 2
nent-level and subsystem assembly automotive sup- Comparison of Average Implementation Scores for Companies
pliers, but they did not find significant differences Based on the Type of Manufacturing Organization. (Lines on/in
box represent upper quartile, median, and lower quartile.)
for the other practices.
At the item level, average scores and standard de-
viations for 26 of the original 29 items are summa- take or error proofing, or design for manufacturability.
rized in Table 8. Question 27 (Does your organization The percentages of respondents implementing at least
have a formal employee evaluation system or not?), some of the activities associated with a particular
question 28 (Does your organization use a perfor- practice are summarized for all 29 items in Table 8.
mance related pay system, or not?), and question 29 Non-parametric testing was completed at the item
(Does your organization have a formal reward sys- level to ascertain which specific practices demon-
tem for personnel who perform well, or not?) did not strated significant differences based on company size
use Likert scales. The average implementation scores and the type of manufacturing organization. The level
for work standardization, shop-floor organization of implementation was found to be significantly dif-
(5S), and total productive maintenance (TPM) indi- ferent between smaller and larger companies for three
cate that the respondents were implementing these practices (value identification, cycle time reduction,
practices most of the time; whereas design for and production scheduling improvement). Significant
manufacturability (DFM) and mistake or error-proof- differences were observed for two practices when the
ing practices were implemented to a lesser extent by type of manufacturing organization was used as the
the responding organizations. grouping variable (cycle time reduction and customer
At the item level, all respondents indicated that requirements analysis). These results are summarized
supplier evaluation, delivery performance improve- in Tables 9 and 10, respectively.
ment activities, and multifunctional workforce de- In addition to completing the structured survey
velopment were being implemented. On the other questions, a number of respondents also added nar-
hand, fewer than 40% of the respondents indicated rative comments, which provide additional insight
that they practiced total supplier cost evaluation, mis- into the implementation levels and the percentages
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Vol. 24/No. 1
2005
Table 8
Summary Statistics and Percentage of Organizations Implementing Specific Practices by Item
Lean Practice Percentage Average Standard Deviation
Supplier evaluation 100% 3.21 1.02
Delivery performance improvement 100% 3.96 0.70
Multifunctional workforce 100% 3.69 0.53
Work standardization 92% 4.70 0.58
Value identification 92% 3.39 0.41
Cycle time reduction 92% 3.68 0.97
Product customization 92% 3.91 0.69
Employee evaluation 92% N/A N/A
Setup time reduction 85% 3.76 0.53
Total quality management 85% 3.44 0.99
Production scheduling improvement 85% 3.54 0.81
Information exchange with suppliers 85% 3.53 0.71
Long-term relationships with suppliers 85% 3.76 0.80
Customer requirements analysis 85% 3.61 1.05
Pay for performance 83% N/A N/A
Lot size reduction 77% 3.34 0.83
Pull flow control 77% 3.70 1.08
Work delegation 77% 3.37 0.53
Total productive maintenance 69% 4.04 0.89
Parts standardization 69% 3.18 0.88
Formal reward system 69% N/A N/A
Concurrent engineering 62% 3.40 0.65
Demand stabilization 62% 3.54 0.85
Services to enhance product value 62% 3.58 0.76
Shop-floor organization (5S) 58% 4.24 0.66
Cellular manufacturing 54% 3.39 1.02
Design for manufacturability 38% 2.67 0.85
Total cost evaluation 31% 3.12 0.64
Mistake or error proofing 27% 2.67 0.29
Table 9
of organizations implementing specific practices. For Average Lean Practice Implementation Score for Small
(n = 5) and Large (n = 8) Companies
example, one respondent involved in the assembly
of printed circuit boards indicated that design-for- Lean Practice and Small Large
Impact Area Companies Companies p-value
manufacturability practices were not implemented in
Value identification
their organization. "Because we are a contract manu- (Manufacturing equipment
facturer, we don't do any design, but we do give feed- and processes) 2.97 3.68 0.004
back to our customers on their designs, but we don't Cycle time reduction
have a formal system." Similarly, another contract (Manufacturing equipment
manufacturer involved in the assembly of printed cir- and processes) 2.80 4.13 0.026
cuit boards indicated that some shop-floor manage- Production scheduling
improvement (Shop-floor
ment practices (pull production) associated with lean management) 2.87 3.92 0.047
were not easily applied within their business envi-
ronment. "JIT (just-in-time or pull production) meth- The differences in the level of implementation,
ods d o n ' t work well in contract m a n u f a c t u r i n g while not statistically significant for all impact ar-
because we don't have a reliable schedule for more eas, are quite interesting when put in the context of
than a week and often less..." Similarly, for smaller the unique challenges faced by the different types of
organizations involved in contract manufacturing, manufacturing organizations included in the explor-
some lean practices, such as cellular manufacturing, atory study. For example, wafer and semiconductor
become much more challenging. "As a small com- manufacturing organizations had the highest average
pany with a lot of different customers and a schedule scores for the manufacturing equipment and processes
that changes all the time, we don't have enough con- impact area, the customer relations impact area, and
sistency to set up cells" the workforce management impact area. Wafer and
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Journal ~/'Manz(fitcturing Systems
Vol. 24/No. 1
2005
Table 10
Average Lean Practice Implementation Score for Printed Circuit and Assembly (n = 4), Equipment (n = 4),
and Wafer/Semiconductor (n= 5) Manufacturers
Wafer and
Printed Circuit Equipment Semiconductor
Lean Practice and Impact Area and Assembly Manufacturers Manufacturers p-value
Cycle time reduction (Manufacturing equipment and processes) 3.27 2.95 4.52 0.016
Customer requirements analysis (Customer relations) 2.63 4.25 4.15 0.048
semiconductor manufacturing are process-intensive differences were not observed for all impact areas or
industries. Thus, the higher level of implementation between all subcategories of organizations. A larger
of lean practices focused on manufacturing equip- study with multiple organizations for each of the or-
ment and processes is not unexpected. The organiza- ganizational types being compared would provide
tions in this category were also all large organizations, insight into whether or not the number and extent of
for example, more than 100 employees. The higher lean practice implementation differs when organiza-
level of implementation of lean practices focused on tional characteristics are taken into account.
workforce management may be related to having or- The second opportunity is related to the adminis-
ganizational resources available, such as human re- tration of the survey. Specific definitions were not
s o u r c e specialists. E l e c t r o n i c e q u i p m e n t provided for the items included in the survey. While
manufacturers' average scores were highest for shop- the items being rated were validated by a small num-
floor management, new product development, and ber of researchers familiar with lean and by survey
supplier management. Equipment manufacturers uti- development experts, it is possible that respondents
lize a variety of assembly processes and often rely were unfamiliar with the terms used. It is also pos-
on outsourcing for subassemblies and components. sible that respondents might be unable to accurately
These factors may explain, in part, the higher imple- assess the level of implementation of a specific prac-
mentation levels for practices related to shop-floor tice because it was identified within the target orga-
management and supplier management. Customers nization with a different name. One indication of
of electronic manufacturing equipment are faced with terminology ambiguity is incomplete surveys or sur-
rapidly changing requirements, which may force veys with missing responses. These problems were
equipment manufacturers to design equipment that not observed in the surveys returned for this explor-
will meet new product and process requirements. The atory study. Respondents did not indicate any con-
higher level of implementation of practices associ- cern with t e r m i n o l o g y or d e f i n i t i o n s in the
ated with new product development may be a result open-ended request for feedback at the end of the
of this cycle. survey. The issue of respondent knowledge and varia-
tion in item interpretation are potential threats to the
Conclusions validity of the findings. One way to mitigate this threat
Based on both empirical and anecdotal evidence would be to include a glossary of terms used with the
contained in the lean literature, it could be argued survey instrument.
that electronic manufacturers are subject to a variety The third opportunity is related to the selection of
of challenging conditions that limit the applicability a simple manufacturing sector to validate the instru-
of lean production practices. This exploratory study ment. While some of the relationships found are con-
established that even though these conditions may sistent with previous research involving other
limit the applicability of lean practices, all of the or- industrial segments, a larger study is needed before
ganizations in this study had implemented lean prac- applying the instrument to a broader spectrum of
tices to some extent. The results of this study suggest manufacturing organizations. The findings from the
that organizational size and the type of manufactur- exploratory study warrant further investigation of the
ing may be significant factors. relationships between organizational characteristics
As a result of the survey development and subse- (product vs. process focus, volume, variety, market
quent exploratory study, three opportunities for fu- drivers, and so on) and the implementation of lean
ture research were identified. First, significant practices. Such research would help determine if the
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Journal ~/' Mant([~tcturing Systems
Vol. 24/No. 1
2005
differences observed hold true for a larger sample of Fliedner, G. and Vokurka, R. (1997). "Agility: Competitive Weapon of
the 1990s and Beyond?" Production and Inventory Mgmt. Journal
electronic manufacturers or for a broader cross sec- (Third Quarter), pp19-24.
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The primary contribution of this paper was to de- tion of the relationship between JIT and financial performance." Jour-
nal o f Operations Mgmt. (v21), pp383-404.
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measure both the number and level of adoption of quarter." EBN (Sept. 24, 2002).
lean practices by an organization. A review of 12 dif- Hayes, R.H. and Wheelwright, S.C. (1984). Restoring our Competitive
Edge, New York: John Wiley and Sons.
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along with a review of related literature on the po- facturing: Creating the Learning Organization. New York: The Free
Press.
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six lean impact areas and to identify 29 unique lean Mgmt. (vl0, n3), pp216-229.
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sample, while small, did encompass a variety of James-Moore, S.M. and Gibbons, A. (1997). "Is lean manufacture uni-
versally relevant? An investigative methodology." hlt'l Journal of Op-
manufacturing organizations from the electronics erations and Production Mgmt. (v17, n9), pp899-911.
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Right Choices. Dearborn, MI: Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
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Karlsson, C. and Ahlstrom, P. (1996b). "The difficult path to lean product
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Lean Enterprise Research Center (1999). www.cfac.uk/carbs/Iondlerc/
ministration of the survey to a larger number of index.htnd.
organizations. Lean Learning Center (2003). wwn:leanlearningcentet:com/.
MacDuffie, J.P.; Sethuraman, K." and Fisher, M.L. (1996). "Product variety
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Journal q(Mam([acturing ~,stems
Vol. 24/No. 1
2005
Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership (2001). ww~:wmep.orgZ research is focused on manufacturing systems design, lean manufactur-
Womack, J. and Jones, D. (1993). Lean Thinking: Banishing Waste and ing, work group effectiveness, and mobile technology in education. Prior
Create Wealth in Your Corporation. New York: Free Press. to seeking her PhD, she gained 12 years of manufacturing experience at
Womack, J. and Jones, D. (2003). Lean Thinking: Banishing Waste and Hewlett-Packard Co. as an engineer, senior member of technical staff,
Create Weulth in Your Colporation. New York: Free Press. and manager.
Womack, J.; Roos, D.; and Jones, D. (1990), The Machine That Changed
the World. New York, NY: Rawson and Associates. Dr. Maria E. Hacker is an associate professor at Oregon State Univer-
Yauch, C.A. and Steudel, H.J. (2002). "Cellular manufacturing for small sity-Cascades Campus. She teaches both industrial engineering and busi-
business: Key cultural factors that impact the conversion process." ness management courses. Prior to returning to the university to earn her
Journal of Operations Mgmt. (v20), pp593-617. doctorate at Virginia Tech, she was a plant manager at one of Procter and
Gamble's largest manufacturing facilities. She now teaches, creates, ad-
Yusuf, Y.Y. and Adeleye, E.O. (2002). "A comparative study of lean and
agile manufacturing with a related survey of current practices in the vises, and applies methods for achieving organizational performance im-
p r o v e m e n t t h r o u g h performance m e a s u r e m e n t s y s t e m s , p r o j e c t
UK." hzl '1 Journal of Plvduction Research (v40), pp4545-4562.
management tools, customer service interventions, total quality manage-
ment, and high-performance work team initiatives. Her work has been
Authors' Biographies published in many journals, including: 1EEE Transactions on Engineer-
ing Management; Operations & Production Munagement; Quali~ Mun-
Dr. Toni L. Doolen is an assistant professor in the Industrial and Man- agement Journal; Public Sector Management; National Productivity
ufacturing Engineering Dept. at Oregon State University. She received a Review; Munaging Service Quality; Measuring Business Excellence; and
BS in material science and engineering and a BS in electrical engineering Team PerJbrmance Management. Her experience includes leading and
from Cornell University in 1987. In 1991, she received an MS in manu- facilitating improvement activities in public, not-for-profit, government,
facturing systems engineering from Stanford University. She received her and international organizations.
PhD in industrial engineering from Oregon State University in 2001. Her
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