The Effect of Change Management on Operational Excellence in Electrical and Electronics Industry: Evidence from Malaysia

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the main hypothesis between change management and operational excellence. This empirical research utilizes causal studies as it attempt to ascertain the relationship between the soft systems in the change management and operational excellence.The study focuses on the soft systems (i.e. leadership, human resource, culture) in the change management. Based on the literature review, the authors develop a linkage that the change management factors are likely to contribute positively to the operational excellence of the organization. A survey of a sample of Malaysia's manufacturing leading sector, Electrical and Electronics (E&E) industry was conducted between February 2013 and June 2013. More than 100 organizations responded to the questionnaire survey. Data was analyzed using multiple regressions. The theoretical framework guided by theoretical perspectives which is the resource-based view. There was a significant and positive relationship between transformational leadership style, human resource practices and involvement cultural trait on the achievement of operational excellence. Importantly, this research finding adds value to theory building in both change management and operational management domains. The contribution to a body of knowledge in terms of promoting better understanding of the operational excellence in Malaysian E&E industry. Practical adoption of change management may improve infrastructural decision areas of manufacturing

Operational Excellence in Manufacturing, Service and the Oil & Gas: the Sectorial Definitional Constructs and Risk Management Implication

“…Operational excellence in the manufacturing practice meant optimizing business processes, broadly production and manufacturing [27]. According to [12], operational excellence is the act of increasing productivity within the minimal lead time flexible while being cost effective for improved quality. In the manufacturing industry, operational excellence is a mechanism for a continuous production improvement at the barest minimum cost for profit maximization.…”

“…In the manufacturing sector, management philosophies such as total quality management (TQM) and Lean Management tools-Six Sigma, Business Process Reengineering (BPR) are often used to achieve operational excellence [17,12,27]. OE is the efficient management of people, transactions or hangovers, measurement on quality, cost and time, with a provision of a limited variety of products [18].…”

“…While in the service sector, the emphasis of operational excellence is customer satisfaction and delivery time, for example, researchers like [37,32,29]. Whereas in the manufacturing sector, operational excellence was viewed from the angle of waste elimination (lean), continuous improvement and flexibility [12]. To this end, it is clear that all the industries focused on (manufacturing, service, and oil & gas) in this paper have their unique constructs of what operational excellence is all about.…”

“…Improve quality, reduce cost and waste, minimize lead time, optimize efficient asset utilization and flexibility [10,12,18]. As a result, businesses have realized that it would be challenging for them to excel in a single dimension of business strategy.…”

“…For that strategic perspective, firms now resort to operational excellence as the best option to meet up or reduce the rising pressure from their stakeholders to improve performance result with minimal resources. So as a consequence of this strive for excellence, industries fuse out their unique construct of the main performance metrics to pursue in achieving operational excellence [12,29]. Even at the time of recession, companies that thrived adopted and maintained operational efficiency as a strategy [14].…”