An analysis of the status of resource flexibility and lean manufacturing in a textile machinery manufacturing company

Abstract

Purpose – As the manufacturing industry is under pressure to face the global competition, it is necessary to improve productivity and reduce costs through minimization of wastage of resources for their survival. This paper aims to present an analysis of the status of resource flexibility and lean manufacturing through conducting a case study in an Indian textile machinery manufacturing company and also demonstrate the various areas of future scope for improving lean manufacturing. Design/methodology/approach – The case study has been conducted using the flexible system methodology (FSM) framework (Sushil, 1994). For measuring resource (labour and machine) flexibility and lean manufacturing, various factors contributing towards labour flexibility, machine flexibility and lean manufacturing are identified. To determine their relative weights, an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) has been used. A specially designed questionnaire is used to collect the information during case study on different aspects of resource flexibility and lean manufacturing. SAP-LAP analysis has also been carried out to look in to the ways the company is building up resource flexibility and lean manufacturing. Findings – The status of labour flexibility, machine flexibility and lean manufacturing is merely 49.30, 47.10 and 47.40 per cent, respectively. The most important factors of labour flexibility and machine flexibility attained a value of 59.50 and 61.17 per cent, respectively. Similarly, only 39.09 per cent wastes are eliminated through lean manufacturing. There is a huge scope to achieve a higher degree of lean manufacturing through focusing on continuous improvement, just in time (JIT) and resource flexibility factors. Research limitations/implications – The present study includes only labour and machines to compute the resource flexibility. Other resources may also be included to compute the overall resource flexibility. Practical implications – The present study provides guidelines to analyze the status of resource flexibility and lean manufacturing. According to conclusions, frail areas in the manufacturing system can be identified and a suitable course of action could be planned for the improvement. Hopefully, this study will help the firm’s management to identify the problems to manage resource flexibility and implement an effective lean manufacturing. Originality/value – In this work, the theoretical perspective has been used not only to update the original instrument, but also to study the subject from a perspective beyond that usually associated with resource flexibility and lean manufacturing.

The quality movement from six perspectives

“…Consistent with the scale of this movement, the business literature (both general and industry-specific) has grown to be replete with quality books and articles, prescribing how quality should be managed and describing how quality has been managed in individual organizations (Dobyns and Crawford-Mason, 1991;Garvin, 1988;Deming, 1986;Gitlow and Gitlow, 1987;Juran, 1978aJuran, , b, 1981aNair, 2006;Sila, 2007;Wayhan and Balderson, 2007;Chauhan, 2016;Dahlgaard-Park and Dahlgaard, 2007;Naslund, 2008;Ward and Zhou, 2006).…”

“…By providing goods and services that better meet the customers' needs and using processes that produce these goods and services at lower costs, a firm can gain a competitive advantage over its rivals in the short run. An organization may use continuous process improvement to become more customer focused, or emphasize the training and certification in Six Sigma, Lean manufacturing, or supply chain management (Chauhan, 2016;Heavey et al, 2014;Naslund, 2008). As time goes on and other firms in the industry recognize the need to change and compete using these new techniques, organizations will accept the principles and procedures associated with this movement in order to stay in the market.…”

Cleaner production practices at company level enhance the desire of employees to have a significant positive impact on society through work

“…However, we argue that lean manufacturing principles are primarily grounded on the philosophy of maximizing productivity by minimizing the ordeal of industrial waste ( Botti et al., 2017 ; Cortez et al., 2020 ; Maia et al., 2019 ; Thomas et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, we assert that although industrial waste can be minimized by implementing the lean manufacturing principles ( Andrade et al., 2020 ; Chauhan, 2016 ; Manfredsson, 2016 ; Shrafat and Ismail, 2019 ). Yet, the essence of organizational concern towards environment protection is much noteworthy in CPP ( Aranda-Usón et al., 2020 ; Cesar da Silva et al., 2021 ; de Oliveira et al., 2019 ; Ramos et al., 2021 ; Scarazzato et al., 2017 ) which makes former significantly less industrious in terms of our environmental safeguard measures ( Botti et al., 2017 ; Cong and Shi, 2019 ; Psomas and Antony, 2019 ; Salam and Farooq, 2020 ).…”

“…In this backdrop, other studies (e.g. Chauhan, 2016 ; Dieste et al., 2019 ; Jesemann et al., 2020 ; Ünal and Bilget, 2020 ) have also agreed that the impact of the implementation of lean manufacturing principles for abating environmental pollution is not clear to date ( Alefari et al., 2020 ; Costa et al., 2021 ; Guillen et al., 2020 ; Sadiq et al., 2021 ).…”

Propuesta de mejora en el proceso de compras de las pymes exportadoras del sector textil de confecciones de prendas de vestir de tejido de punto de algodón, aplicando herramientas de lean manufacturing

“…Una variedad de conductores tiene un impacto en la manufactura, incluyendo el aumento de la competencia, presiones, clientes más exigentes, ciclos de vida del producto más cortos, mercado y la llegada de un gran número de tecnologías que permiten el manejo de costos, la calidad y la eficiencia de los activos, pero otras métricas, como la agilidad, flexibilidad y rapidez al mercado, se han vuelto críticas. La manufactura esbelta es algo más que simplemente reducir costos en la fábrica (Chauhan, 2016) .…”