Abstract
The South African government is vouching for all products being used in the country to be locally manufactured. With the manufacturing industry thus growing rapidly, companies in the industry are facing challenges. This study focuses on Phaswana Textile and Manufacturing, a small manufacturing company operating in Westonaria, Johannesburg, that is trying to create a footprint in the manufacturing industry. The company mainly manufactures personal protective equipment, corporate uniforms and hospital scrubs.
The company under study has been battling to contain high operational costs, improve delivery time, reduce waste in its manufacturing processes and increase the efficiency of its operations. The aim of this research study is to investigate how lean methodology can improve the organisation’s delivery time by meeting production deadlines, reducing the overall operating costs and eliminating wastage of resources in all the business operations based on the employees’ perceptions.
The perceived impact of lean methodology is examined in an explorative qualitative case study at this company, with the intention to enhance operational efficiency of the factory. The sample size was small (16 employees). Data was collected through interviews from the staff (8 employees) that agreed to participate in this research study. The interviews helped the study to acquire information about the current manufacturing process and other challenges faced by Phaswana Textile and Manufacturing.
The collected data was thematically analysed through determining themes, trends, and relationships among the research variables. Through thematic analysis, the researcher identified patterns (themes) in the data and grouped them together for analysis.
The findings showed the company to be struggling with wastage of material, long lead times, unmanaged manufacturing processes and long idling times. This indicates that no lean methodologies were implemented in this organisation and the manager was unaware of these methodologies. The study recommends that the management of the company train the employees, build a waste-management culture and align the Just in Time principle with the strategic objectives of lean.