Lean Manufacturing Practices And Their Barriers In Small And Medium Enterprises (Smes)

Abstract

Although lean implementation has been extensively studied in large companies, research in this area is quietly limited in SME sector. Characteristic of SMEs and large manufacturers are different with respect to structure, policy, resource employee, and culture; therefore, the results of study are significantly different. Lean thinking does not provide easy applications in food industry. This fact raises the question of whether the lean implementation is feasible for companies with different characteristics, such as in food industry, particularly in SMEs. Studies in this area are still evolving and limited; therefore, study investigating lean implementation in SMEs sector is required. This exploratory study attempted to explore lean manufacturing implementation in the context of the SMEs in East Java Province of Indonesia. To collect data, this study used a structured questionnaire. The result of this study showed that lean implementation in food processing SMEs in East Java was quite low. Only 13.3% of SMEs were implementing lean manufacturing practices, and 86.7% of SMEs applied lean manufacturing occasionally. The least lean manufacturing implementation was the use of tools such as statistical process control (SPC) and Full Strategy. The higher barrier to lean manufacturing practice consisted of availability of resources; lack of training; internal resistance; variability in raw materials quality and supply. The barriers encountered by SMEs result from the characteristics of this sector and the characteristics of food processing industry.