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The purpose of this paper is to present empirical findings of the effect of continuous improvement (CI) on shop-floor employees’ job performance in the Lean production system-implemented textile and apparel firms.

A random sample of 657 shop-floor employees engaged full-time in Lean production systems-implemented textile and apparel firms in Sri Lanka responded to the survey. Statistical methods were used for data analysis.

It was revealed that CI significantly and positively influences shop-floor employees’ job performance, and the duration of Lean production in operations (termed as Lean duration) moderates this relationship.

Investigations on the ways in which CI initiatives influence employees is important in creating an environment to sustain the improvement efforts over a longer period. Such lessons would be valuable for academics and practitioners alike worldwide.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of lean production practices and lean duration (the duration for which lean production is in operation) on manufacturing performance.

The survey was used as the main method of data collection. In addition to survey data collected from 1,189 respondents from export-based textile and apparel firms operating in Sri Lanka, longitudinal data were collected over a period of seven months from a firm in the study sample to corroborate the survey findings.

The findings revealed that lean production practices significantly enhance manufacturing performance. Further findings revealed the importance of the duration of lean production in operation in achieving higher levels of manufacturing performance. This provides empirical support for the contention that the adoption of lean production can only be achieved through time.

Findings have implications for practices of export-based textile and apparel producing countries from Asia, Latin and Central America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and North Africa, which are competing intensively with each other for their market share in the global export-based textile and apparel production.

Manufacturing firms are adopting production methods and management practices to become leaner and fitter to create a new labour intensive production model that generate distinctive internal capabilities for survival and growth in international markets. Academics and practitioners in the field of manufacturing technologies will be interested in better understanding how lean production practices would enhance manufacturing performance from a non-western developing country context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating effect of perceived organisational support (POS) on the relationship between participation in decision making (PDM) and affective commitment, and PDM and job satisfaction in lean production in Sri Lanka.

A random sample of 616 shop‐floor employees engaged full‐time in export‐apparel manufacturing firms, which have implemented a formal lean production system in the whole manufacturing function and where lean production has become the standard of operation for at least one year in Sri Lanka, responded. Regression analysis was used to test hypotheses.

It was found that POS moderates the relationship between PDM and affective commitment, and PDM and job satisfaction.

The literature suggests that the bottom‐line changes often cited in lean implementation success stories, such as reduced inventories and faster flow times, are not the only results that should be considered. The potential detrimental effects on employees should be considered as well, or turnover and morale problems may sabotage the effectiveness of such implementations. However, the manner in which the lean production environment influences employee behaviour has received scant empirical attention. The findings of this study provide interesting implications to practice and will be a source of general guidance in stimulating future research in this area.

The purpose of this study is to investigate conditions that facilitate shop-floor operators to fulfil their needs to carry out job roles and whether the need fulfilment affects their job performance in lean-implemented textile and apparel firms in Sri Lanka.

The data were collected from 922 shop-floor employees and their immediate supervisors. Statistical methods were used for the data analysis.

The results of the analysis imply the importance of managerial autonomy support and need fulfilment for enhanced job performance; the duration of lean production in operation moderates job performance in such a way that the longer the duration, the higher will be job performance.

It could be expected that academics and practitioners alike are motivated by a desire to clearly apprehend work systems in lean-implemented textile and apparel firms.

The main objectives of this research work were to investigate the effect of production speed on intermingled yarn properties and melange fabric properties with special reference to melange appearance.

Polyester/nylon intermingled yarns were produced using an SSM DP3-C air-intermingling machine using commercial process parameters and Heberlein P212 nozzle. Melange fabric samples were knitted from polyester/nylon intermingled yarns while maintaining the same parameters to avoid knitting variations. The fabric samples were dyed using a sample dyeing machine while maintaining dye recipe and dyeing parameters constant to avoid dyeing variations.

The production speed has significant effect on intermingled yarn and melange fabric properties. When the production speed is increased, mingle points, mingle stability, linear density, strength and the elongation of the intermingled yarns decreases. When the production speed is increased, fabric weight decreases and the melange effect varies from dot-like appearance to line-like appearance.

Only the effect of production speed on intermingled yarn and melange fabric properties is discussed in this paper. Appearance evaluating systems developed in this research are limited to melange fabrics produced using air-intermingled yarns with two colour components.

Results indicate that the intermingled yarns for the application of melange fabrics should be developed with optimum intermingling speeds, and it should not be changed during the production since production speed has significant effect on yarn and fabric parameters. Therefore, melange appearance and fabric weight may vary between fabric lots with different production speeds even though all the other parameters are kept constant. Further, melange appearance evaluation method developed in this research could be used as a guide in developing melange fabrics.

This research introduced a qualitative and a quantitative method to analyse melange fabric appearance. This melange appearance evaluation method can be used as a guide to achieve specific melange effect in the sample development stage. Further, when a melange sample appearance catalogue is developed for all the variables for a particular fabric type using this evaluation method, customer requested appearance can be achieved in minimum sample trials which save time, capacity, money and customer credibility.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of steam in order to replace air in the production of spun-like textured yarns. Further, this paper analyse the effect of production speed on process and textured yarn properties.

An existing air-jet texturing machine was modified to supply either air or steam to the texturing nozzle. Using standard commercial nozzles, both air-jet and steam-jet textured yarns were manufactured by varying production speed.

It can be concluded that steam can be used as an alternative fluid for air in making spun-like textured yarns. Results show that yarn parameters for steam-jet texturing show a similar trend to those of air-jet texturing relative to the production speed. Further, sewing threads made from steam-jet textured yarns showed good sewability up to the speeds of 350 m/min.

Only the effect of production speed on process and yarn parameters is discussed in this paper. Production speed was limited to 350 m/min due to machine constraints.

Steam is more economical than air to manufacture spun-like textured yarn at commercial pressures such as 8 bar. Steam-jet textured yarns could be used for commercial applications such as sewing threads at competitive speeds. Further, steam could be generated using sustainable and renewable fuel sources such as biomass.

This research introduced steam as an alternative fluid for air in manufacturing spun-like textured yarns.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of total productive maintenance (TPM) practices on manufacturing performance of textile and apparel manufacturing firms.

A self-administered survey questionnaire was used for data collection. A total of 236 usable responses resulted in a 78 percent response rate from 30 textile and apparel firms. Correlation and regression analysis was performed using SPSS software to identify the effect of TPM on manufacturing performance.

The results show that all the TPM practices have positive and significant relationship with manufacturing performance and significantly improve cost effectiveness, product quality, on-time delivery and volume flexibility.

The study presented in this paper offers academics and practitioners a better understanding of the relationship and impact of the TPM practices on the manufacturing performances. Thus practitioners will be able to make better and more effective decisions about the implementation of TPM practices.

The understanding of the effect of TPM practices on manufacturing performance is timely for labor intensive manufacturing industries such as textile and apparel since it has not been researched adequately. Therefore, findings will impact the global textile and apparel industry positively.