Abstract
Abstract : Over the past decade, the snack foods manufacturing industry has been growing and evolving at a fast pace. Due to the fast-paced developments, decision makers within the industry are dealing with the issue of balancing entrenched strategies with short-term solutions. Consumer satisfaction has become crucially imperative for manufacturing operations and consequently product quality has also acquired considerable weight within this sector. To this end, various business organisations in the manufacturing sector have grabbed the advantages linked with the implementation and efficient use of Lean Manufacturing with the goal of improving quality and productivity. However, literature presented in the present study clearly shows that there is a dearth of studies on lean implementation in the small to medium snack manufacturing enterprises. This factor has prompted this study to investigate Lean Manufacturing as a competitive advantage tool for the South African small to medium snack manufacturing industry. To achieve this goal, this study employed two research approaches, firstly the study thoroughly analysed a set of previous studies conducted on lean phenomena within different business organisations during the last twenty years with the aim of identifying gap in the current literature. Secondly, the present study used a single methodology quantitative research to fill the identified gap as presented in the previous paragraph. The results show that the causes behind Lean implementation failure in the South African snack foods manufacturing industry snack foods manufacturing industry were employees slip back to the old method; high employee turnover; lack of employees’ empowerment; lack of management commitment and leadership; employees are not ready to change to new practices; the investment requirement is high for implementation; no proper training is provided to employees; there is no interest shown from employees; management is not interested in implementing lean techniques; company is not fully aware of lean tools and techniques. Additionally, the results demonstrated that key limitations to lean implementation in the snack foods manufacturing industry snack foods manufacturing industry were technological challenges; cooperation with suppliers to establish a lean supply chain; coping with change; cultural and social barriers to change; and commitment from top management. Taking into consideration the factors stated in the previous paragraph, this study reached a conclusion decision makers should start by standardising their processes; developing knowledge sharing culture with employees, providing sufficient training to employees that related to their work and front-line managers should display commitment towards the adoption and implementation of lean through the provision of necessary resources. These have significant impact on the successful lean implementation since Lean phenomena necessitate a profound
M.Tech. (Operations Management)