A Quantitative Approach of Leanness Assessment in Electronics Manufacturing Firms

Lean is a concept that eliminates all waste and maximizes customer value with fewer resources needed based on the Toyota Production System. The purpose of this study is to identify lean manufacturing practices from the literature review and industrial experts, and to develop a lean assessment tool to measure the level of lean implementation in manufacturing firms. A quantitative lean assessment approach in the form of a Likert Scale questionnaire survey with a total of 19 lean practices were developed and sent to two different electronics manufacturing firms with similar processes and product range. The high values of Cronbach’s Alpha which is more than 0.8 show that the questionnaire is reliable. The Two-Sample T-test was used to compare the level of lean implementation between the two companies as well as to compare the view of Top management and Executive position. The results of statistical analysis show that the average mean score for Hard Lean practice for Company A is 3.63 and for Company B is 3.05, while the mean score for Soft Lean Practice for Company A and Company B is 4.14 and 2.85, respectively. The level of lean implementation of Company A for both category of Lean Practices is significantly better than Company B. Therefore it can be concluded that Company A is having a better lean implementation compared to Company B. This study has implications for the firms as it can explore the extent of lean manufacturing implementation and to compare the leanness of departments within a firm. The limitations of the research were small sample size and lack of involvement from the executive level. For future study, the open-ended interview can be integrated into the research and the contents of the questionnaire can be modified based on firm types.