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This paper aims to investigate the impact of adopting lean manufacturing principles on operational efficiency by eliminating seven major lean wastes (or Muda) in a Malaysian stationery manufacturer. Much of the research on lean considers its application to larger organisations with stable demand patterns. This research examines a small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) with a volatile demand pattern.

A process activity mapping (PAM) methodology was utilized to identify the potential for waste elimination. PAM is a visual tool that considers every step in a production process. Value-added and non-value-added activities are therefore examined to understand hidden wastes and their sources.

The results revealed that the adopted lean principles significantly reduce the waiting times. This time reduction resulted in savings (reduction of cycle time) and to a certain extent, can be a crucial driver in continuous improvement sustainability in the production process.

The study focuses on a single case study and provides a springboard for further research. Future studies examining the results across a broader sample of organisations would develop the findings further.

The extant literature cites mixed success for lean implementation programmes. The results demonstrate that lean is still recognised as a powerful approach to improving operations in SMEs.

This paper reflects on the application of lean in a real case study showing the impact of lean on operational performance of an SME.

New product development (NPD) is the cornerstone of manufacturing companies. An engineer‐to‐order (ETO) company can achieve its business objectives by reducing design iterations and rework, recognizing customer’s requirements up‐front and building quality into design and manufacturing. This paper discusses differences between ETO and make‐to‐stock (MTS) companies and justifies the need for a separate framework for ETO in NPD. Four frameworks from published literature were analyzed and it was found that the frameworks were not suitable for ETO companies due to the differences in operations and product design activities. This paper proposes a set of requirements for establishing a design and manufacture framework specifically for ETO companies. The framework can aid design and manufacturing engineers to plan their work to include customers, suppliers, consultants, contractors and manufacturing concern during the design stage. The framework requirements can serve as a foundation of further work to be carried out in this area.

The case study method has been widely used as a research instrument for data collection to build theory. Reports on the use of case study method for new product development (NPD) in an engineer‐to‐order (ETO) organization. Discusses previous work on NPD in the literature in order to determine the knowledge gap that exists. Discovers that NPD work in an ETO organization is lacking despite its importance. Proposes a case study method as a tool to bridge this gap. Explains and justifies the reasons for choosing the case study method. Also describes case study design with the case study protocol. Then discusses the execution of the case study, method of analysis and the limitations of case study research. The findings will assist researchers who are interested in pursuing future research work in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework to assess the agility of manufacturing companies.

Particularly, three supply chain logistic drivers (facility, transportation and inventory) along with three cross-functional drivers (information, sourcing and pricing) are selected as the main sets to classify all required activities of agility. In addition, supply chain contracts, as an important indicator of supply chain agility, is also considered to categorize the activities. These activities are ranked using an (AHP) and then categorized based on the major perspectives of agility. Finally, using a cycle view of supply chain, the developed activities are categorized as the major policies of supply chain’s echelons.

This study developed a framework to evaluate the agility of manufacturing companies. Operational activities of agile supply chain strategy (ASCS) in addition to supply chain contracts are determined and categorized with regard to supply chain drivers.

This study contributes to recognizing, ranking and classifying the operational activities of ASCS with regard to logistics and cross-functional drivers of supply chain. In addition, this study considers the supply chain contracts in conjunction with supply chain drivers. From the theoretic and methodological features, to the best of authors’ knowledge, this study contributes to offer new insights to this area as no similar research has been conducted before.

Machine design and manufacture is the key to the advancement of manufacturing industry. Before any machine can be designed, it is important to establish requirements of the machine. Identifies quality function deployment (QFD) as one of the tools that can be used to identify customer needs and link the needs to product design. By bringing forward customers’ requirements into the design process, design rework and unnecessary iteration between design and manufacture can be reduced. In this project, QFD for a pultrusion machine design has been chosen as a case study. QFD was applied at the front end of the design process. The QFD process started with identifying the customers and determining their needs. These needs were translated into engineering requirements which were then used to formulate general specifications of the machine. A step by step approach was introduced to make the QFD process more manageable. Reports on the first phase of a research project in which QFD was used to capture all vital information from the customers and translated that into engineering requirements.

The purpose of this study is to integrate and synthesize the Islamic marketing literature, understand the phenomenon and related concepts and provide suggestions for future research.

The study uses an integrative review method that emphasizes summarizing and synthesizing the previous literature related to a phenomenon.

The findings indicate the emergence of five major themes, namely, Islamic marketing and its perspectives, activities in Islamic marketing, opportunities, controversies and challenges in Islamic marketing, Islamic principles and determinants of consumers’ behavior and awareness toward Islamic products. Each of the major themes consists of sub-themes discussed in detail in the results and discussion sections.

Like other studies, this integrative literature review has some limitations. These include the methodology undertaken, the lack of explanation of inter-relationship among themes and lack of Islamic theory-based review. These limitations lead to future research directions.

Marketing managers need a thorough understanding of the Islamic standards and need to develop strategies. Further, there are inter-differences among Muslims, which need to be thoroughly understood by managers. Moreover, marketers can effectively use advertising in creating awareness and increasing demand of halal products.

This study provides an integrative review of the literature and synthesizes the Islamic marketing literature, which has not been done before.

Islamic finance and Halal product sectors are thriving successfully. This chapter is a general review of the perception of Asian consumers on Islamic finance and Halal sectors in the global Halal economy.

The first section will briefly describe the Halal concept in both Islamic finance and Halal industries, and the growth of both sectors in Asian countries. The second part highlights the review of Asian consumers’ perception towards Islamic finance products and Halal products.

The review found that the consumers’ perception towards the Islamic finance products and Halal products is distinctive. This is due to the diversity of Asian countries in terms of geography, religion, culture, ethnic, school of thoughts (madzahib), income per capita and government’s involvement.

The third part of the chapter concentrates on planning towards Halal marketing, which involves the move and future challenges in different layers of industries to gear up and strengthen the Halal economy.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and measure the business model of the state welfare organization in assisting and ensuring the business success of its entrepreneurs or zakat recipients.

A survey was employed to obtain feedback from the recipients of zakat for small businesses under the scheme of entrepreneurial asnaf zakat.

The respondents, in general, agree that the variables for the study – capital, courses or training and knowledge or know‐how – are important to them in helping the zakat recipients to succeed in their businesses, which then translates into a better standard of living. Positive correlation is shown for the three variables in determining the success rate of the programme and regression analysis shows that only capital and an asnaf's knowledge is significant in determining an asnaf's entrepreneurial success, which leaves training as insignificant.

This paper explores the other side of zakat distribution, in the sense that many studies focus on the distribution of zakat collection from the zakat payers to the asnaf whereby the distinction of this study is that it evaluates the asnaf that want to transform their condition through the entrepreneurial asnaf programme. This is rarely investigated due to the lack of a similar programme in other places, even within Malaysia. The limitation for the study is in terms of solid support from the respective parties. This includes the management of Lembaga Zakat Selangor, due to the bureaucratic process, albeit understandable, to protect certain confidential information, and also unfavourable respondents' attitude when being questioned, which is a normal phenomenon in survey study.

This paper provides insights into the implementation of entrepreneurial zakat, which can be emulated by other zakat collection agencies to develop similar or better innovative programmes for the benefit of the community.

This paper is unique since the feedback is given by the entrepreneurs who receive financial assistance from the state zakat organization in Malaysia, which means the information is derived from the original source. The findings provide good information for practitioners as well as for academicians and students.

This study aims to assess the extent of the mandatory and voluntary Shariah compliance disclosure in the Shariah Committee Report of Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) in Malaysia. The study highlights the accountability and transparency of the Shariah Committee members to provide full disclosure of relevant Shariah compliance information to the stakeholders.

The study adopts content analysis to quantify and code the number of sentences in the Shariah Committee Report disclosed in the 2016 annual report of 47 IFIs in Malaysia. The extent of Shariah compliance disclosure in the Shariah Committee Report is measured based on the Standard (S) and Guidance (G) items outlined in the Shariah Governance Framework (SGF) as well as the Financial Reporting for Islamic Banking Institutions and takaful operators guidelines issued by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) as the reference.

The findings indicate that majority of IFIs complied with the minimum mandatory disclosure requirement based on the Standard (S) items in the Shariah Committee Report as required by the SGF. Highest information on the purpose of Shariah Committee engagement and scope of work performed is disclosed to the stakeholders in almost all IFIs. Only two prominent full-fledged Islamic bank and Islamic banking business in development financial institutions have shown highest accountability to go beyond the minimum disclosure requirement. This includes disclosing higher voluntary information on Shariah governance processes in the Shariah Committee Report of these two IFIs.

This study adopts the SGF (Bank Negara Malaysia, 2010), Financial Reporting for Islamic Banking Institutions (Bank Negara Malaysia, 2016) and Financial Reporting for Takaful Operators (Bank Negara Malaysia, 2015) as the reference to develop the measurement of Shariah compliance disclosure in the Shariah Committee Report. These guidelines issued by BNM are still effective during the period of study, i.e. the year 2016.

The findings contribute towards the relevance for BNM as the regulator to enhance the current disclosure requirement in the Shariah Committee Report as stated in the SGF especially in Islamic windows and takaful operators. The main argument of this paper is that the more information being disclosed in the Shariah Committee Report will lead to better Shariah assurances. The issuance of Shariah Governance Policy Document in 2019 is expected to enhance the credibility, accountability and transparency of the Shariah Committee members concerning their oversight responsibility towards Shariah matters in IFIs’ business operations.

After five years since the issuance of the SGF in 2010, further study on the extent of mandatory and voluntary Shariah compliance disclosure is important to highlight the accountability and transparency on the implementation of the Shariah governance across various types of IFIs in Malaysia.

This article examines the experiences of women leaders and their challenges in Brunei Darussalam. Globally, women are underrepresented in leadership positions. Though the Brunei government does not discriminate against any gender in delivering free education, medical facilities and healthcare, women in leadership positions are as well underrepresented. I try to understand the factors that challenge as well as motivate women to become leaders in Brunei. For this research, I conducted qualitative interviews with some respondents selected purposively. The study results show that women leaders in Brunei face challenges in obtaining financial support and accessing resources. Despite the challenges, there are some women who have been assuming and excelling in their leadership roles. The study identified that personal strengths have also been critical in contributing to their successful leadership.