Implementing Lean Production system: barriers to change

Implementinglean production

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Management Research NewsVol. 32 No. 1, 2009

pp. 37-49# Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0140-9174DOI 10.1108/01409170910922014

Implementing lean productionsystems: barriers to change

Khim L. SimDepartment of Accounting, College of Business and Economics, Western

Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, USA, and

John W. RogersSchool of Business Administration, American International College,

Springfield, Massachusetts, USA

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is help understand why implementing continuous improvement(CI) strategies can be difficult at times. It also addresses the problem of resistance to change within eventhose firms whose CEO is most fully committed to implementation of CI programs.Design/methodology/approach – The study focuses on a Fortune 500 manufacturing plant locatedin the Eastern USA. A survey was distributed to both salaried and unionized hourly employees.Findings – Results from the survey show that the problem lies primarily with an aging and highseniority hourly workforce and a lack of committed leadership at this research site. For example,salaried employees consistently provided higher positive ratings of CI initiatives. In addition, higherseniority was directly correlated with negative ratings. Finally, the study found that employees do notfeel valued when they contribute to the improvement processes and that 100 per cent of the hourlymale employees disagreed that ‘‘The Company considers the employees as the most important assetand will do what ever they can to keep their people’’.Research limitations/implications – More theoretical questions cannot be added because of someinternal constraints. Another limitation includes a workforce that is high in seniority in the hourlyemployees because of the unique situation in this company. This research paper asserts that bothworkers and unions need to understand that embracing positive change is their only route to jobsecurity in this global economy.Practical implications – This study attempts to answer the following question: given that everycompany needs to improve its processes to remain competitive in the global market, why is it stilldifficult to implement total quality and lean programs?Originality/value – This research addresses an issue that has not been covered in prior research.Most studies of process improvement deal with successful implementation. The data in this studycomes from a firm which, while thoroughly committed to the concept of continuous improvement, hasachieved only partial success due to the persistence of legacy attitudes on the part of unionized andhigh seniority employees.

Keywords Lean production, Continuous improvement, Employment protection, Operations andproduction management, Change management, United States of America

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionIn the intensely competitive environment of the global economy, the survival of eventhe most well-established US-based manufacturer depends on the ability tocontinuously improve quality while reducing costs. The resulting higher productivity –producing more with less – is the key to market leadership and sustainable competitiveadvantage. Changing their production methods from mass-production with highinventory to a leaner operation with low inventory has become an essential practice forsuccessful manufacturers, including General Electric, United Technology Corporation,Honeywell, among others (Womack and Jones, 1994). The message to employees is

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available atwww.emeraldinsight.com/0140-9174.htm

The authors would like to thank Darin Michael for assistance in this research project.

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clear – if goods cannot be produced defect free, on time, and at a reasonable price, theywill be manufactured elsewhere (Womack et al., 1990).

The above story is well known and often told in corporate America. What is lessoften discussed is the depth of resistance to change that impedes the implementation ofessential new approaches to improving quality and productivity. Streamlining anestablished industrial firm can bring management into conflict with many subtle butdeeply entrenched attitudes that resist change and the fundamental shift towardgreater efficiency that these ‘‘lean’’ techniques promise. This is true even in the case offirms whose CEO is fully committed to quality and ready to spend significantcorporate resources in explaining these programs to all levels of employees andtraining them thoroughly in their implementation. ‘‘Legacy’’ costs for benefitentitlements hamper the efforts of established industrial firms to reorganize forsurvival and profitability. In parallel, these ‘‘legacy’’ attitudes that hark back to apaternalistic and hierarchical management model with broadly accepted employeeentitlements create powerful and dangerous currents of resistance to change (Stewardand O’Brien, 2005).

This research project addresses the problem of resistance to change within eventhose firms whose CEO is most fully committed to implementation of continuousimprovement (CI) programs. Collaborators on this research project worked closely inthe implementation of CI initiatives within a major corporation and struggled as theysaw events fall short of their intended goals. Many implemented programs fell back totheir original costly and chaotic mode. Understanding why people are resistant tochange and why CI efforts fail, is the first step to counteract these forces. To develop anunderstanding of these complex organizational dynamics, a survey was conducted togather data directly from the management and workers on the shop floor.

Literature reviewGlobalization and competitionCI programs may be sold as a way to preserve economic activity and employment inthe USA, but their implementation over the period since 1990 has coincided with asharp drop in US manufacturing employment. For example, in 1975, the subjectcorporation had 95 per cent of its employees in the USA; by 2005, 70 per cent ofemployees were outside the USA. This shift is due to many factors, including majoracquisitions and joint ventures, as well as extensive outsourcing. Thus, it becomesmore difficult to convince the veteran workers that CI initiatives are good for thecompany. Nevertheless, the trend is a bone of contention with unions and politicianssympathetic to their cause. It also appears to lie behind many of the negative attitudesthat people in the manufacturing operations exhibit when they are able to talk honestlyand openly – as they were in the course of this data collection – about the way that theysee the corporation’s commitment to establishing a lean enterprise.

CI tools – lean production and total quality systemsFor the purpose of this study, CI is defined as any methodology or program thatcontinually strives to improve any and all processes through an increase in quality,delivery, productivity or customer satisfaction and/or a decrease in lead-time, cycletime, cost or scrap. Thus, CI tools in this study consist of both total quality systems andlean production.


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Total quality systems and lean productionAccording to Dean and Bowen (1994), improving quality has been widely recognized asa competitive advantage in the global economy. Escrig-Tena (2004), on the other hand,suggested that total quality management (TQM) is the most advanced approach in thearea of quality. Research has shown that total quality implementation correlates withquality conformance (Brah et al., 2000; Samat et al., 2006). Lean production or leanmanagement, on the other hand, originated at Toyota in Japan by Japanese engineersTaiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo and has been implemented by many major US firms,including Danaher Corporation and Harley-Davidson (Arnheiter and Maleyeff, 2005).The driving force behind the development of lean management was the elimination ofwaste, especially in Japan, a country with few natural resources.

Both total quality systems and lean production or lean management have nowevolved into comprehensive management systems. Their effective implementationinvolves cultural changes in organizations, new approaches to product and to servingcustomers, and a high degree of training and education of employees, from uppermanagement to the shop floor. Thus, both systems have many overlapping features,such as an emphasis on customer satisfaction, high quality, comprehensive employeetraining, empowerment, management commitment and communication, among others(Arnheiter and Maleyeff, 2005; Bayraktar et al., 2007).

Effective TQM processes can result in marked improvements in both product andservice quality, which drive increased customer satisfaction and organizationalprofitability (Litton, 2001). Total quality implementation also results in employeeinvolvement, improved communication, increased productivity, improved quality andless rework, as well as improved customer satisfaction (Antony et al., 2002). Yet,successful implementation of total quality systems demands full commitment fromvarious parties in the organization and will require some changes and restructuringthat involves a large amount of time (Samat et al., 2006). In contrast, there are relativelyfewer empirical studies in the area of lean manufacturing.

MethodologyResearch siteThis study focuses on a manufacturing plant located in the Eastern USA. It is part of aFortune 500 Company. For nearly a decade, this company has gone through atransformation from a mass production facility to a just-in-time ( JIT) leanmanufacturer. Changes have been met with much resistance from the salaried andunionized hourly workforce.

The CI program implemented at the research site has three major elements:

(1) A philosophy based on the teaching of the company’s Japanese advisor onquality methodologies. This is institutionalized in an in-house university whereweeklong training sessions run continuously to serve each business unit.

(2) A system that helps the organization to identify and solve problems, improveprocesses and assist with strategic thinking.

(3) The competence, commitment and involvement of the entire organization.

A leading Japanese expert was the company corporate quality consultant during itsinitial implementation stage in the early 1990s. During that time, the company alsoworked with a major Japanese consulting firm on ‘‘Kaizen’’ (CI and elimination ofwaste) events for optimization of manufacturing flows. The philosophy of CI was a

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synthesis of these Japanese principles of productivity (or, equivalent to the Toyotaproduction systems) and flow in the processes ( Monden, 1983). Thus, the proposedphilosophy had numerous tools that guide employees through the improvements andin most part are similar to the philosophies of American ‘‘Quality Gurus’’ such asCrosby (1979) and Deming (1986).

SurveyA survey distributed to both salaried and hourly employees spanned three sub-units,including the Engine Center, Small Hardware Parts Center and Compression SystemsModule Center. All of these locations were directly responsible for manufacturing offinished capital goods sold to a global customer base. The survey was conducted on thefirst shift and did not extend to second or alternate workweek shifts. A random samplingof 50 employees was requested to participate in this study. This sample size representsabout 15 per cent of the total employees who work within the first shift. With the co-ordination of a research collaborator, a 100 per cent response rate was attained. A diversegroup participated in this study, including engine mechanics, quality inspectors, leadpeople, material processors, material co-ordinators, material resource planners, co-operative students, process engineers, supervisors, cell leaders and managers[1]. Allrespondents had attended awareness training in CI and thus were in a position to provideinformation on how the specific programs were being implemented in their areas ofresponsibility. The sample was limited because it only included the commercial productlines and did not include the military product line. In summary, the respondents werefairly representative of all of the commercial product lines.

The research collaborator has been working in this plant since 1989 and has takenadvantage of the educational reimbursement program and advanced his careerthrough various positions in the past 15 years and is very much interested andconcerned with the operationalization of the lean production and total quality systemsin this plant. Because of his involvement in this CI program since its inception, we areinterested in understanding why the CI effort in this plant has been less successful ormet with resistance. Our conversation with the research collaborator helps us toidentify five major areas that may provide clues to its lack of success in implementingthe CI program. Accordingly, the survey focuses in these five major areas. First, wewould like to know the extent to which the employees have accepted lean productionand total quality systems as a competitive tool (labeled as business). Second, we wouldlike to understand whether training or development is adequate (labeled as trainingand development). Third, we wish to understand whether the day-to-day practices of CIare consistent with those documented in the literature (labeled as leadership). Fourth,it appears that there are more concerns in the area of coaching, communicationand management support (labeled as communication); understanding this issuecan be valuable to the company. Finally, because of global competition, outsourcing and job loss seem to have created some resentments in this plant (labeledas job security), it is important to collect this information as well. The surveyinstrument was categorized into two main sections. It started with four questionsto obtain demographic data. The second part of the questionnaire included20 statements covering the five major areas discussed above. For each area of interest,four questions were included. Responses to the questions range on a Likert scale from1-5, i.e. strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5). Appendix shows the surveyinstrument.


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ResultsDescriptive statistics based on the demographic information are presented firstfollowed by detailed findings from the survey.

Descriptive statisticsTable I shows the demographic information of the respondents. There were 29 hourlyrespondents and 21 salary respondents. Among the 50 employees who filled out thesurvey, 34 were male, whereas 16 were female. In contrast, 29 were hourly and 21 weresalary respondents. A majority of the respondents (i.e. 56 per cent) have a high schooleducation, 14 per cent with associate degrees, 24 per cent with bachelors degrees andthe remaining 6 per cent of the respondents have masters degrees.

The years of service was further broken down into hourly/salary and male/female,as shown in Table II. It is important to note that all 29 hourly respondents had morethan 20 years of service in this company. In contrast, only eight respondents (8/50¼ 16per cent) with more than 20 years of service were salaried people.

Reliability tests and principal component analysisFirst, reliability tests were conducted on the 20 questions. With the exception of theconstruct ‘‘business’’, standardized Cronbach’s alphas range from a low of 0.74 to ahigh of 0.84. Since ‘‘business’’ has a low alpha value of 0.58, principal componentanalysis with varimax rotation was performed to further understand the data. Resultsof principal component analysis were tabulated in Table III. The 20 items loaded intosix factors all with eigenvalue >1 with total variance explained of 74 per cent. Exceptfor one item (B2) with cross loadings of 0.477 and 0.451, all remaining loadings were>0.50. As a result, B2 was not included in our analysis. Note that all items fromcommunication loaded unto one factor with one additional item L4 also loaded untothis factor. Likewise, all items from training and development loaded unto the samefactor with one additional item (B3) also loaded unto this factor. In addition, three outof four items from job security loaded unto the same factor. The remaining item fromjob security, JS3, loaded unto a new factor together with B4 giving rise to a new factor(i.e. the sixth factor) which was labeled as ‘‘Promises of Lean Tools’’. Finally, B1 and L1loaded unto the same factor, which we labeled as ‘‘Competitive Tool’’. Table IV shows

Table II.Years of service by

gender and job

1-5 years 6-10 years 11-20 years 20-30 years 30þ years Total

Hourly male 0 0 0 5 14 19Hourly female 0 0 0 8 2 10Salary male 7 0 3 3 2 15Salary female 2 1 0 3 0 6Total 9 1 3 19 18 50

Table I.Demographic

information

Job Gender Education Year-of-serviceHourly Salary M F Hs Ass Ba Ms 1-5 6-10 11-20 21-30 30þ

Number of employees 29 21 34 16 28 7 12 3 9 1 3 19 18

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the mean responses from the six resulting factors, standardized alphas were alsoreported. As shown, the alphas range from a low of 0.62 to a high of 0.89.

Since all items were worded in a positive manner with reference to issues related toCI, a mean score of <2.5 (since 3¼ neutral) implies a favorable response, whereas amean score of 3 or more is considered as undesirable or unfavorable. Only four out ofthe 19 questions have mean scores of <3.0. Specifically, the mean score for‘‘Competitive Tool’’ is 1.73 implying that most respondents agreed, ‘‘Our Companyneeds CI tools to compete in a global environment’’ and that ‘‘I would use CI tools if Ihad my own business.’’ CI practices which consists of two items has a mean score of2.77, suggesting that overall, the respondents agreed that ‘‘CI is used to better a

Table III.Principal componentanalysis rotatedcomponent matrixa

Component1 2 3 4 5 6

B1 �0.004 0.065 0.106 0.176 0.876 �0.160B2b 0.477 0.298 0.100 0.451 0.177 �0.107B3 0.208 0.642 0.019 0.169 0.156 0.167B4 0.102 �0.062 0.384 0.116 0.373 0.613L1 0.075 0.160 �0.053 �0.010 0.776 0.345L2 0.026 0.037 0.177 0.690 0.219 0.287L3 0.471 0.086 0.072 0.711 0.007 0.099L4 0.806 0.175 0.189 0.234 0.157 �0.093D1 0.084 0.626 0.211 0.568 �0.086 �0.141D2 �0.028 0.661 �0.054 �0.074 0.270 0.349D3 0.344 0.740 0.224 0.088 �0.176 0.030D4 0.342 0.702 0.298 0.067 0.196 �0.206C1 0.571 0.259 0.376 0.321 �0.069 �0.018C2 0.648 0.268 0.231 0.161 0.007 0.208C3 0.671 0.157 0.545 0.087 �0.096 0.189C4 0.904 0.082 0.031 �0.014 0.014 0.115JS1 0.128 0.030 0.917 0.110 0.099 0.026JS2 0.239 0.254 0.657 0.258 0.115 0.338JS3 0.193 0.428 0.203 0.347 �0.199 0.663JS4 0.462 0.274 0.652 0.084 �0.118 0.145

Notes: aExtraction method: principal component analysis. Rotation method: varimax with Kaisernormalization. ROTATION converged in nine iterations. Total variance explained is 74; bBecauseof cross loading, 0.477 and 0.451, B2 was deleted

Table IV.Descriptive statistics

Description N Minimum Maximum Mean SDCronbach’s

alpha

C. TOOL Competitive tools 50 0.5 3.5 1.73 0.72 0.62PROMISES Promises from lean tools 50 1.5 5.0 3.54 0.94 0.68CI. PRAC CI practices 50 1.0 4.5 2.77 0.86 0.66TRA & DV Training and development 50 1.8 4.6 3.13 0.73 0.79C.C.SP Coaching, communication

and support 50 1.8 5.0 3.62 0.80 0.88JOB SEC Job security 50 2.0 5.0 3.72 0.78 0.84


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company not to just make charts and graphs.’’ Nevertheless, they do not feel stronglyabout the statement which reads ‘‘Management is committed to CI throughout the yearand not just compliant prior to an audit’’[2]. The remaining four factors, training anddevelopment, coaching, communication and management support, promises of leantools and job security have mean ratings of above 3.27, 3.36 and 3.72, respectively.These ratings imply these four areas may require additional attention if a CI programat the research site were to be more successful. Hence, the data were further analyzed tosee whether the above results were driven by differences in gender, job category,education or years of service. Accordingly, one-way ANOVA was performed across allsix factors. Tables V, VI, VII and VIII summarize the results.

Table V compares the ratings between males to females. The results show that thereare no significant differences in the ratings provided by male or female employeesacross the six constructs measured. Table VI reports the ratings based on years ofservice, which was categorized into five levels, 1-5, 6-10, 11-20, 20-30, and more than 30years[3]. Note that training and development is significant at 0.005, whereas coaching,communication and management support, job security and promises from lean toolsare significant at 0.035, 0.017 and 0.045, respectively. It is interesting to note that as

Table V.Analysis of variance –

by gender

Sum of squares df Mean square F Significant

C. TOOL Between groups 0.062 1 0.062 0.116 0.735Within groups 25.543 48 0.532

PROMISES Between groups 0.119 1 0.119 0.134 0.716Within groups 42.801 48 0.892

CI. PRAC Between groups 0.731 1 0.731 0.992 0.324Within groups 35.374 48 0.737

TRAIN & DV Between groups 0.262 1 0.262 0.491 0.487Within groups 25.627 48 0.534

C.C.SP Between groups 1.665 1 1.665 2.700 0.107Within groups 29.602 48 0.617

JOB SEC Between groups 1.365 1 1.365 2.317 0.135Within groups 28.271 48 0.589

Table VI.Analysis of variance –

by years of service



PROMISES Between groups 6.838 3 2.279 2.906 0.045*Within groups 36.082 46 0.784


TRAIN & DV Between groups 6.308 3 2.103 4.939 0.005**Within groups 19.581 46 0.426

C.C.SP Between groups 5.301 3 1.767 3.130 0.035*Within groups 25.966 46 0.564

JOB SEC Between groups 5.867 3 1.956 3.785 0.017**Within groups 23.769 46 0.517

Notes: *Significant at p� 0.05; **significant at p� 0.01

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‘‘years of service’’ increases, the ratings deteriorate in 5 out of the 6 constructsmeasured (although only 4 are statistically significant). These results suggest that thelonger the respondents work, the less happy or less content they are with the CIprogram. Table VII compares the ratings between hourly and salaried respondents.Note that ‘‘Training and Development’’ is significant at 0.026, whereas job security issignificant at 0.016. ‘‘Promises from the Lean Tools’’ is moderately significant at 0.073.Consistently, salary employees provided better ratings than the hourly employees inthe above three factors. We also ran the analysis across all 19 items, except for item L3,consistently salary respondents provided better ratings than the hourly respondents.Consequently, we concluded that the CI program was better received by the salaryemployees. Finally, Table VIII compares the ratings across education levels, thecategories are high school, associate degree, undergraduate and post-graduate degree,except for Promises from Lean Tools, which is significant at 0.03, we did not finddifferences in ratings across education levels. Thus, we conclude that differences ineducation levels are not the driving factor in this study. As reported in Tables I and II,all 29 hourly respondents (i.e. 100 per cent) have been working there for more than

Table VII.Analysis of variance –by job category



PROMISES Between groups 2.800 1 2.800 3.350 0.073Within groups 40.120 48 0.836


TRAIN & DV Between groups 2.549 1 2.549 5.242 0.026*Within groups 23.340 48 0.486


JOB SEC Between groups 3.419 1 3.419 6.260 0.016**Within groups 26.216 48 0.546


Table VIII.Analysis of variance: byeducation levels


TOOL Between groups 0.801 3 0.267 0.495 0.687Within groups 24.804 46 0.539

PROMISES Between groups 7.521 3 2.507 3.258 0.030*Within groups 35.399 46 0.770


TRAIN & DV Between groups 3.060 3 1.020 2.055 0.119Within groups 22.829 46 0.496


JOB SEC Between groups 4.027 3 1.342 2.411 0.079Within groups 25.608 46 0.557



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20 years. In addition, 37 out of the 50 respondents, i.e. 74 per cent of these respondentshave work in this company for more than 20 years. Extrapolate these into thepopulation, the results suggest that there are more resistance to the CI implementationfrom the hourly veterans than the rest of the employees.

DiscussionAt least two important questions arise from this study. First, how can managementmotivate the senior work force to convince them that lean manufacturing is theultimate goal if the company wants to compete in this global economy? Second, andequally important is the question, did management provide adequate support for thesuccessful implementation of lean manufacturing and total quality systems? That is,were the shop floor employees empowered to make changes to operations and weretheir contributions or ideas recognized and valued? Understanding these issues shouldhelp us in drawing conclusions with respect to the lack of success in theimplementation of CI programs.

Based on the analysis of data and our interviews with the collaborator of thisresearch project, we offer numerous suggestions on ways that CI can be moreeffectively implemented in large manufacturing firms with a workforce that is high inseniority and heavily unionized. For example, the average employee in this plant isaware of the need for CI in order for a company to remain competitive in a globalenvironment. They feel strongly that they would use CI tools if they owned their ownbusiness. Most employees also understand that CI is about making the company moreefficient, safer and flexible to customer needs, not just making charts, graphs andfancy metrics. In most cases, however, they do not believe that managers arecommitted to the cause and many feel that management rushes at the last minute to becompliant to a deadline.

Notwithstanding this overall positive view of the purpose of CI, management failsunder the area of coaching, communication and support. For example, more than halfof the respondents felt that management has not and will not follow through with openissues and action items that surface from improvement events. This situation furtheradds to the overall perception of the lack of commitment throughout the organization.Employees do not feel valued although they are the ones who are in the best position tooffer suggestions for improving the efficiency of the processes. Most respondents feelthere is a lack of effective means of communication throughout various levels ofmanagement including providing feedback to employees. In addition, the companyalso fails at sharing best practices throughout its divisions. In fact, this plant hascompany ‘‘road maps’’ that flow down to organizational, business unit and flow lineroad maps. These tie into the department with a linkage chart that describes the goalsthat each employee should strive for in their departments. Employees have ‘‘toolbox’’meetings daily with their supervisors, ‘‘all hands’’ communication meetings withbusiness unit managers, and electronic communications from the CEO of the company.However, these communications are not consistent throughout the departments orbusiness units.

Training and development is another area that needs to be improved. Workers arealso skeptical about being adequately rewarded when they do support CI initiatives.The data also show that people leading improvement initiatives often do not haveproper amount of training to effectively produce the desired results. Employees feelthat the CI training often was not provided in a clear and concise manner with respectto how to best use the tools. In addition, ‘‘Promises from Lean Tools’’ has not been

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realized. For example, employees feel that CI efforts do not always bring in new workthrough the improvement of processes and quality in products and that the expertise ofveteran workers is underutilized for training purposes when new hires replaced anaging and retiring workforce.

Most importantly, the company fails badly in perceptions of job security. It has notconvinced the workers that their job will be better and more secure if they help orsupport the CI program. Unfortunately, job security and CI initiatives have not beenclosely related at this plant. If anything, job losses have been associated with CIpossibly because of the timing of implementation and the overall global economy.Stated differently, CI initiatives did not improve job security or keeping jobs locally andthis has caused resentment and resistance among the employees. Perhaps, the moststriking finding was the response to the following statement: ‘‘The company considerstheir employees as the most important asset and will do what ever they can to keeptheir people’’. One hundred percent of the hourly males strongly disagreed ordisagreed. These employees represent veteran union members with 21 or more years ofservice who have seen many layoffs and strikes after the implementation of the CIprogram.

Managerial implicationsResults show a bulk of the problem lies primarily with an aging and high seniorityhourly workforce. Thus, one challenge for top management is how to get thesetechniques effectively implemented in a workforce that has built in resistance tochange because it sees using fewer workers to produce more product as a negative anda long-term threat to job security? CI is all about change and working with a differentmindset. If training is only about new techniques and metrics, workers who fear fortheir jobs tend to lack motivation for these forms of programs. As observed, salariedpeople consistently provided higher positive ratings of CI initiatives. In addition,higher seniority was directly correlated with negative ratings. These ‘‘legacy’’ attitudesare every bit as costly to the firm as the legacy costs of health and retirement benefits(Hammond, 2005).

Despite the enthusiasm and the support of the CEO, results from this survey showthat there is a lack of committed leadership in following through the day-to-dayoperations at this company. In addition, employees did not feel valued even when theycontributed to the CI process. In a review of 105 prior JIT studies, Ramarapu et al.(1995) conclude that management commitment and employee participation are criticalsuccess factors when implementing JIT. Similarly, other studies (Ahire andO’shaughnessy, 1998; Powell, 1995) suggest that top management commitment andemployee empowerment are crucial elements in the implementation of TQM. Forexample, Emiliani (2003) and Parks (2003) provided support that managementcommitment and empowerment of shop-floor employees are essential to the successfuladoption of the lean philosophy; while Samat et al. (2006) provided evidence thatsuccessful implementation of total quality systems demands full commitment fromvarious parties in the organization.

Conclusions and limitationsGiven the observations and results of this study, it appears that communication playsan essential role for CI initiatives’ maintenance and effectiveness. Every new initiativeneeds to have a clear relationship to the company’s mission and goals. ‘‘Road maps’’and linkage charts can then show how CI projects lead directly to more orders that are


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of higher quality and longer term duration. The results from this study provide someinsights for organizations seeking to implement CI initiatives in difficult organizationalcircumstances.

Several limitations exist in this study. First, we were limited in inclusion ofadditional theoretical questions because of some internal organizational constraintsand requirements. Second, full involvement of all organizational functions did notoccur, e.g. human resources were not included in the planning and implementation ofthis study. Last but not least, at the time when the survey was conducted, all vacanciesfor the hourly positions were filled with recalls from previous layoffs or furloughs[4].This creates a environment with a workforce that is high in seniority for the hourlyemployees, which may bias the sample. More recently, our research collaborator told usthat they now have about 55 brand new hires because of new positions and attritions,this new situation may provide additional opportunities for further research todetermine if turnover of employees and new employee characteristics cause different CIprogram results. One of the major limitations of this study is that it is based on onecase company with a certain culture. Generalization is thus limited, but the study doescontribute to the literature on further development of CI programs in organizations.

Notes

1. Note that the first five categories were hourly employees, whereas the remaining groupswere salary employees.

2. The first item has a mean score of 2.28, whereas the second item has a mean score of3.30.

3. Since there was only one individual with 6-10 years of service, whereas there were threeindividuals with 11-20 years of services, we decided to collapse these four respondentsinto the grouping of 6-20 years of service.

4. This has been the trend over the years due to numerous layoffs in the late 1990s.

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Appendix. Survey questionsBusinessB1. Our company needs CI tools to compete in a global environment.B2. The company is working hard to reduce lead-times and eliminate waste in processes to meet.business goals and objectives that benefit the company and its employees.B3. The company rewards people who work hard to bring lean tools and culture to the area.B4. CI efforts help bring in new jobs due to an increase in quality and process improvements.

LeadershipL1. I would use CI tools if I had my own business.L2. CI is used to better a company not to just make charts and graphs.L3. Management is committed to CI throughout the year and not just compliant prior to an audit.L4. Management follows through with open issues relative to improvement events until they arecomplete.

Development and trainingD1. People leading improvement initiatives have the proper amount of training to effectivelyproduce desired results.D2. My knowledge of CI tools allows me to apply them at work.D3. The company provides me adequate training to be productive during improvement events.D4. CI training is provided in a clear concise manner with many practical examples on how tobest use the tools.


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CommunicationsC1. We have timely and effective communication from all levels of management.C2. The Company values my ideas relative to continuous improvement.C3. The company has shown me that has saved jobs and created new opportunities into thefuture.C4. The company works hard at sharing best practices through out all its divisions.

Job securityJS1. CI has increased our job security.JS2. Utilizing CI tools such as lean manufacturing and kaizen, the company will focus on keepinglocal jobs.JS3. In anticipation of retirements over the next few years, the company will work hard utilizingthe skill sets of experienced employees to train new hires.JS4. The company believes their most valuable assets are their employees and will do everythingpossible to reduce and or eliminate layoffs in the future.

About the authorsKhim L. Sim is an Assistant Professor of Accounting at Western Washington University. Dr Simreceived her PhD in Accounting from Drexel University. She has published widely ininternational and regional journals and conferences on topics related to accounting, costmanagement, lean manufacturing and performance measurement.

John W. Rogers is Dean of the School of Business Administration at American InternationalCollege. Dr Rogers has held management positions with the US State Department and withseveral private firms in both the manufacturing and service sectors. He has written on executivecompensation, international strategy and performance management, and does consulting inthese areas. John W. Rogers is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:[email protected]

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Implementing Lean Production system: barriers to change

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