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To cite this article: Wai Peng Wong , Joshua Ignatius & Keng Lin Soh , Production Planning & Control (2012): What is the
leanness level of your organisation in lean transformation implementation? An integrated lean index using ANP approach,
Production Planning & Control: The Management of Operations, DOI: 10.1080/09537287.2012.674308
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2012.674308
School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia; bSchool of Mathematics, Universiti
Sains Malaysia, 11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia
1. Introduction
Lean manufacturing had been engraved in the heart of
manufacturing practices as one of the corporate
strategy to bring the organisation to the forefront of
business excellence. Organisations are striving to be
lean in order to remain globally competitive. From the
lens of lean transformation, organisations aim to
achieve leanness in their operations. There have
been numerous reports on organisations cutting wastages to achieve leanness (Jannes et al. 2009, Vinodh
et al. 2011); however, there is still void in understanding what is leanness for sustainability purpose. This is
mainly due to conflicting deliverable measures of
leanness which leads to non-lean behaviour overall
in the long run (Mahidhar 2005). For instance, each
department may give different emphasis to their people
following each respective key performance indicators
(KPIs). Hence, employees face a dilemma on what is
the focus in lean here. The persistency of this dilemma
among employees could decrease their motivation in
doing their job, and cause a reverse impact leading to
non-lean behaviour. Hence, without a congruent focus,
this has led to many issues in the organisation
e.g., frequent conflicts/arguments among departments
(every department focusing on their own KPI);
employees are not clear of the management objectives
and directions, and experience a decrease in overall
performance. According to Mahidhar (2005), if nonuniform performance measures of lean are used across
various subsystems in the organisation, this will lead to
*Corresponding author. Email: wongwp@usm.my
ISSN 09537287 print/ISSN 13665871 online
2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2012.674308
http://www.tandfonline.com
2. Literature
review:
leanness
manufacturing systems
2.1. Lean and leanness measure
measure
of
Performance determinants
Cost
Quality
On-time delivery
Performance dimensions
EA
Projects & IT
implementation
ED
DA
MP
MS
Resource capability
LS
WS
IP
MC
Performance enablers
Leadership (L)
- Employees work
attitude (EA)
- Communication (C)
Improvement projects
(e.g. kaizen, 5S) (IP)
-Data accuracy (DA)
- Means of information
(EDI)
-Workers scheduling
(WS)
-Machine scheduling
(MS)
-Materials planning
(MP)
Kja
J X
X
I
Pja WD
kja Wkja Sskja :
j1 k1
These managers were then asked to identify the determinants, dimensions and enablers for lean performance.
Phase 4: data collection
Phase 1: preparation
Establish contact with company representatives
Arrange first week interviews or meetings with key
people involved in lean implementation
Understand the company background
Phase 2: familiarisation
Introductory presentation outlining the case study details
Familiarisation with people, processes and plant
Mapping the key information flows
Phase 5: analysis
Computation of lean index
Joint presentation and discussion of results
Report of results and recommendations
matrices
the determinants. Table 1 shows the pair-wise comparison of determinants, and Table 2 shows the pairwise comparison between the determinants and dimensions (e.g. for on-time delivery).
Table 3 shows the pair-wise comparison matrix for
dimension (e.g. resource capability) under the determinants (e.g. on-time delivery). The number of pairwise comparison matrices is dependent of the number
of enablers that are included in the determinant of the
lean performance hierarchy. There are 12 pair-wise
comparison matrices for each determinant required at
this level of relationships (i.e., three enablers per
dimensions four dimensions per determinant).
between
Step
3:
pair-wise
interdependencies
Quality
Cost
Eigenvector
0.714
0.143
0.143
0.806
0.161
0.032
0.455
0.455
0.091
0.658
0.253
0.089
On-time delivery
Quality
Cost
matrices
On-time
delivery
RC
PC
PI
CA
of
To reflect the interdependencies, in network, pairwise comparisons among all the enablers are conducted. Table 4 illustrates one such case.
The last step in pair-wise comparison following the
network hierarchy structure of ANP/AHP (Saaty
1996) is the comparison for each alternative of the
lean paradigms on the determinants, dimensions and
enablers. Table 5 shows an example of a pair-wise
comparison matrix for alternatives impact on on-time
delivery, resource capability and LSs. Note that there
will be a pair-wise comparison matrix for each enabler
under each dimension, for each determinant. Since
there are three enablers per dimension and four
dimensions per determinants, hence, there will be 12
sets of relative weights (or eigenvectors) for every
determinant. And as there are three determinants, in
total there will be 36 sets of relative weights generated
from this pair-wise comparison. These weight (or
eigenvector) values will be used in Table 8 to calculate
the integrated weight.
comparison
Resource
capability
(RC)
Planning
control and
execution
(PC)
Projects
& IT
Implementation
(PI)
Corporate
and intra-organisation
alignment
(CA)
Eigenvector
0.077
0.154
0.385
0.385
0.043
0.087
0.435
0.435
0.031
0.031
0.156
0.781
0.125
0.125
0.125
0.625
0.069
0.099
0.275
0.556
10
Table 3. Pair-wise comparison matrix for resource capability under the on-time delivery determinant.
On-time
delivery
LS
MC
MQ
LS
MC
MQ
Eigenvector
0.714
0.143
0.143
0.806
0.161
0.032
0.455
0.455
0.091
0.658
0.253
0.089
MC
MQ
Eigenvector
MC
MQ
0.833
0.167
0.833
0.167
0.833
0.167
L1
L2
L3
Process
oriented
(L1)
Human
oriented
(L2)
Socio-technical
(L3)
Eigenvector
0.083
0.500
0.417
0.040
0.240
0.720
0.130
0.217
0.652
0.085
0.319
0.596
LS
MC
MQ
WS
MS
MP
IP
DA
MI
EA
0.000
0.833
0.167
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.833
0.000
0.167
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.833
0.167
0.000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.000
0.833
0.167
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.833
0.000
0.167
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.833
0.167
0.000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.000
0.833
0.167
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.889
0.000
0.111
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.889
0.111
0.000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.000
0.889
0.111
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.900
0.000
0.100
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.900
0.100
0.000
11
LS
MC
MQ
WS
MS
MP
IP
DA
MI
EA
0.455
0.403
0.143
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.455
0.403
0.143
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.455
0.403
0.143
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.455
0.403
0.143
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.455
0.403
0.143
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.455
0.403
0.143
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.471
0.406
0.124
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.471
0.406
0.124
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.471
0.406
0.124
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.455
0.403
0.143
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.455
0.403
0.143
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.455
0.403
0.143
Dimension
Resource capability
Pja
Enabler
WD
kja
WIkja
S1
S2
S3
s1
s2
s3
0.069
0.069
0.069
0.099
0.099
0.099
0.275
0.275
0.275
0.556
0.556
0.556
LS
MC
MQ
WS
MS
MP
IP
DA
MI
L
EA
C
0.658
0.253
0.089
0.658
0.253
0.089
0.747
0.189
0.064
0.736
0.211
0.053
0.455
0.403
0.143
0.455
0.403
0.143
0.471
0.406
0.124
0.455
0.403
0.143
0.085
0.692
0.607
0.539
0.679
0.679
0.071
0.071
0.253
0.065
0.063
0.063
0.319
0.084
0.090
0.164
0.079
0.079
0.217
0.206
0.089
0.197
0.256
0.375
0.596
0.223
0.303
0.297
0.241
0.241
0.712
0.723
0.658
0.738
0.681
0.562
0.002
0.005
0.001
0.016
0.007
0.001
0.007
0.001
0.001
0.012
0.003
0.000
0.055
0.007
0.001
0.000
0.005
0.001
0.000
0.021
0.004
0.000
0.037
0.012
0.002
0.089
0.012
0.002
0.000
0.009
0.002
0.000
0.069
0.015
0.001
0.137
0.032
0.002
0.283
12
Alternatives
Weights
Process-focused
Human-focused
Socio-technical
On-time
delivery
Quality
0.658
0.055
0.089
0.283
0.253
0.042
0.094
0.292
Cost
Lean
index
(Lindex)
Normalised
values
for (Lindex)
0.089
0.048
0.119
0.252
0.051
0.093
0.283
0.120
0.218
0.662
Norm
0.606
0.506
Process-focused
0.406
Human-focused
0.306
Socio-technical
0.206
0.106
0
5
Row average
5.2. Implications
From the academic perspective, this research has
extended the theories of RBV and DCs to the area of
lean operations, which to the best knowledge of the
authors had not been explored before. A lean performance framework was constructed using these underpinning theories and this framework has been
validated through the results obtained which were
coherent with the perceptions of the managers. Besides,
the method used in this research is trans-disciplinary,
which combines the operational research technique
e.g., ANP with the theoretical method i.e., using
grounded theories to prove an assertion or certain
assumptions. Hence, this innovative method will pave
the way towards the exploration of more transdisciplinary type of research in future.
From the practitioner perspective, it is proved
through the validation with the managers that the
socio-technical paradigm-based framework is suitable
to model lean performance. Lean should be seen as a
direction, rather than as a state to be reached after a
certain time and, therefore, the focus lies on the
collective decisions on rankings of all managers from a
socio-technical perspective, and not on the actual
values of the individual determinants (performance
indicators). The output from the model which is the
lean index serves as a measure to operationalise lean
implementation for sustainable performance through
creation of a common goal and a direction for the
employees to focus. To achieve sustainability, the lean
index can be further monitored using the concept of
statistical process control (SPC). The lean index values
can be recorded in a chart similar to the SPC charts. A
lower limit range can be imposed to monitor the lean
level. For example, if the lower limit is set at 0.5, and if
the value of the lean index is less than 0.5, this indicates
that the leanness level is out of control. This could be
probably due to natural variations or unassignable
cause (i.e. a particular problem). Hence, investigations
should be carried out to find out the cause of leanness
deterioration. By using such monitoring technique,
managers can sustain leanness performance.
The proposed framework and methodology have
been developed into a simple excel module for the users
13
14
Notes on contributors
Wai Peng Wong is a Senior Lecturer
in
Operations
at
School
of
Management,
Universiti
Sains
Malaysia. She obtained her PhD in
Industrial & Systems Engineering
from the National University of
Singapore. Her research interests
include application of simulation and
optimisation techniques in efficiency
analysis. Her papers have appeared in numerous ISI journals,
such as IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Industrial
Management and Data Systems and Expert Systems with
Applications.
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