Abstract
Lean production is one of the systems adopted by most manufacturing companies. Manufacturing and service organisations are amongst the industries that have successfully implement lean principles, but their application in the printing industry is less visible. Competition in the printing industry is very high; proper management of waste assists the organisation to remain competitive in the global market. Several industries are looking for ways to improve their business’ efficiency and adopt Lean Principles. The Printing industry in South Africa is no stranger to this as more businesses begin adopting global trends. The literature review stated that the printing industry faces a high waste rate during processing and manufacturing. Consequently, the printing industry is obliged to identify continuous improvement opportunities such as the implementation of lean principles during the manufacturing process. The purpose of the research is to identify success factors and strategies that would allow the successful implementation of lean principles in the South Africa printing industry recommend an implementation strategic plan. The study aims to support other organisations through a recommendation on how to approach the process of implementing lean principles successfully to advance the business and save costs. The successful implementation and practice of lean tools in the printing industry will reduce waste in the process, save cost and empower employee’s knowledge by acquiring new skills. The method followed by the study is the adaptation of the quantitative research approach. The survey is composed of multiple-choice answers, short answer responses and paragraphs. The type of survey conducted, is an online survey. The study was limited to the printing industry but is not to a specific product. The aim is to obtain reliable data from participants who work in printing by conducting research systematically to produce quality results and detailed reporting. The survey adopted the snowball sampling method to obtain data. Administration of data collection is dome though the use of Google form tool and the results are analysed using Google Sheets. Google Sheets can manage and arrange results well. Google form uses graphs as histogram, pie, and pivot charts to analyse results from participants. Data interpreted based on the number of feedback received from the participants. Emails and social v media platforms (LinkedIn) used to approach Participant. Questionnaires distributed, accompanied by an introductory letter that considered all the ethics protocols as approved by the University of Johannesburg. The study targeted a population size of 50 participants, consisting of employees in different areas and levels of printing. The targeted population was could be more or less depending on the snowball approach of the participants that acknowledge the invitation. The target population according to the following study is the employees in the South African printing industry from all levels of occupation. Cronbach's coefficient alpha (α) method measures the internal consistency of the questionnaire. Twenty (20) Questionnaires sent through email and LinkedIn. Thirsty four (34) response was received, from participants of the surveyed printing industries. The roles that participants occupy are; printers, team leaders, engineers, managers, production support and executives. The majority of respondents are printers at 44%, managers, Engineers and production support at 14%, followed by team leaders and executives. The results from the surveyed organization regarding the implementation of lean show that 38% of participant work in organisation that has implemented lean while 44.1 % of the participant are working in an organisation that has not implemented lean and 17.6% have no, knowledge of in lean implementation in their organisation. 44.1% of participants work in the organisation that has not officially implemented lean but use some of the lean tools such as 5S and root cause analysis. The researcher acknowledges the low response rate. The study recorded Cronbach’s coefficient value of 0.866 and that suggests the reliability of the research acceptable. Cronbach’s coefficient alpha, suggested that the recommended limit value of 0.7 and above are values that indicate a high level of consistency. The findings of the study into the printing organisation in South Africa could be adopted during lean implementation. The organisations that are interested to reduce costs attributed to unnecessary waste can benefit through the adoption of lean principles. The researcher observed similarities with researched information from the literature review and the collected data from the search survey. Factors like training, leadership, behaviour, methodology, organisational culture and resource are important during the implementation phases. Poor involvement and lack of lean champions affect the vi implementation process. It is important for management to show support and team members to work together effectively. The behaviour of team member plays an important role, any resistance by members lead to implementation failure. Cultural differences slow the process if not well managed. The results also show that hiring an expert to support the initiative is important to implement lean successfully. The researcher concludes that the research achieved the objectives of identifying the success factors and recommending implementation strategy. Based on the collected data, the researcher concludes that there is still less visibility of lean implementation in the South African printing industry, therefore more research is required. Further research could look into expanding the research to other printing organisation across the globe. The surveyed South African printing industry has the opportunity to adopt lean to reduce waste, improve productivity and more research is required to close the gap. The researcher presents the data, but acknowledges that the numbers of respondents do not allow for generalization of the finding. The researcher believes that the outcomes of the study have been met.
M.Phil. (Engineering Management)