Abstract
Over the past decades, the South African Fast Moving Consumer Goods sector has been facing various challenges than in other developing countries. the reason to this crisis has been largely attributed to failure of implementing the policy which need to be applied but it is not being implemented properly to minimise corruption in the sector and to improve Lean Manufacturing (LM) in the sector, to alleviate corruption, to create more productivity by utilising minimum resources and trying to minimise waste in the industry while will minimise all kinds of pollution and practice all the principles of lean and create more employment. To this end, the overall research aim of this study was the implementation of Lean manufacturing as a tool for optimisation of the South African fast moving consumer goods industry. To achieve this goal, this study made use of two-fold research approaches, firstly the study critically scrutinized a set of existing studies developed on lean phenomena in various organisational sectors over the past decades. This process led to the identification of gap within the existing literature. Secondly, this study employed a single methodology quantitative research to address the identified flaw as mentioned in the above lines. The research findings demonstrated that Lack of top management commitment; Obsoleted process control techniques; Lack of resources; Poor worker participation; Poor project selection; Not enough training provided; Not enough knowledge; Poor supplier involvement; Internal resistance; Variability in raw material supply and quality; High variation of composition, goods, processing techniques and recipes; Variety of product structure; Short throughput time for batches are the main barriers preventing the implementation of Lean manufacturing in the South African Fast Moving Consumers Goods. In light of the above findings, a conclusion was drawn up in this study. Noting that decision makers should start with the implementation of Lean in the Fast Moving Consumers Goods in order to address the current productivity short fall that the sector is facing with.
M.Tech. (Quality and Operations Management)