Lean implementation within South African aircraft maintenance organisations

Abstract

Globally, the implementation of Lean techniques has proven to be successful in improving quality while reducing turnaround times and costs within aircraft maintenance organisations (AMOs), including those organisations that are of a competitive threat to South African companies. Limited research has been conducted on Lean implementation in South African AMOs, leading to the motivation for this study: to determine the status of Lean implementation within South African AMOs. Quantitative and qualitative data were derived from interviews with senior management from a sample of Gauteng-based organisations. The results provided an indication of both their understanding and the status of Lean within their organisations.

Application of Lean Principles in Five-Star Hotels in Egypt

“…The reason for selected five-star hotels because it delivers a unique hospitality service in Egypt and due to its well-known reputation, it also offers the best service outcome, as well as putting the customer requirements and their needs first. The questionnaire design was based on the five principles of LEAN that modified by Othman and Ghaly (2014) and Sunjka and Murphy (2014), so the questionnaire was broken into four sections including; the respondent's demographic profiles, the knowledge of Lean, Lean principles including; value, value stream, flow, pull and perfection (see Table1) and the importance of lean application. The first version of the questionnaire was written in the Arabic language and then translated into the English language.…”

“…Each of these will be discussed in turn: Principle 1-Value: requires to understand what is of value to the customer (Engelund et al, 2008), and understand his/her requirement (Othman & Ghaly, 2014). As well as, it needs to identify the customer expectations of the product (Sunjka & Murphy, 2014). In addition, Othman and Ghaly (2014) the concept of customer value aimed to identify the internal and external factors that effect on the decision of customers.…”

“…Value can be identified in terms of the activities that add or do not add value to eliminate waste (Dudbridge, 2011). Principle 2-Value stream: is determining all activities required for the right product (Sunjka & Murphy, 2014). The value stream helps to identify the waste and eliminate it (Kollberg et al, 2006).…”

“…This step refers to determine the activities and the route of products from start to finish (Saboo et al, 2014), when done correctly will produce product and service that achieve customer value (Othman & Ghaly, 2014). Principle 3-Flow: aims to create a constant flow of product without interruptions from start to finish, such as: avoiding any "bottlenecks" or "Batch and queue" (Sunjka and Murphy, 2014). Saboo et al (2014) and Othman and Ghaly, (2014) reported that this step required that all effort would be made to reduce the barriers that prevent such flow.…”

“…There are several factors required for perfection process including; adding value, available, adequate, flexible and continuous flow. If one of these factors fails the waste will appear (Othman & Ghaly, 2014;Sunjka & Murphy, 2014).…”