Search results

Muda is a Japanese term literally meaning futility, uselessness, idleness, superfluity, waste, wastage or wastefulness. The term was introduced by the Japanese engineer Taiichi Ohno of Toyota Motor Corporation in the 1960s. Therefore, reducing and minimizing Muda is an effective way to increase the operational efficiency and productivity of an organization’s processes. In turn, the technique known as the affinity or TKJ diagram represents a practical way of sorting data or ideas into groups classified by common patterns; it can be regarded as one of the new seven tools of quality. The purpose of this paper is to discover Muda by applying the affinity or TKJ diagram in Mexican organizations.

An exploratory qualitative study was conducted. Using theoretical sampling, the authors identified and analyzed data from a kaizen training course. Each course workshop was organized by the Universidad de las Americas Puebla and consulting firm “Mi Empresa”, and given to employees of various organizations in various sectors over three years from January 2012 to January 2015.

The research provided the first evidence of Muda in Mexican organizations. The Muda of Ohno’s classification was confirmed, but new common patterns of Muda in twenty-first-century organizations also arose. Furthermore, the TKJ diagram proved to be an effective tool of quality to detect it.

This paper has the same limitations as all other qualitative research, including analysis subjectivity and questionable generalization of findings. It is also important to highlight the seven KJ diagrams, a seemingly abundant figure. However, it is a small sample for the number of companies and processes to be found in Mexico.

This paper may prove to be valuable for practitioners and managers involved in the operations and continuous improvement fields. Getting to know Muda in organizations is of great importance for continuously improving organizational processes. This classification will allow greater insight and easier detection.

The study contributes to the limited existing literature on total quality management, lean thinking and kaizen, and subsequently disseminates this information to provide impetus, guidance and support toward improving the quality of organizational processes.

Identification and elimination of Muda (any activity adding cost but not value from the customers’ perspective) is one of the main objectives of Lean service. Whilst there is significant research on implementing lean in manufacturing and some service industries, there is little information related to its application to the fast food service industry. The purpose of this paper is to try to fill in this gap by answering the research question: What type of Muda could be identified from the customers’ perspective within the service production processes in the fast food restaurant industry in Spain?

An exploratory case study has been conducted. Three multinational companies were selected and several sites observed in Madrid, Spain. Three methods were used to gather data: document analysis; direct and participative observation and semi-structured interviews.

The paper identifies the seven types of Muda: defects, movements, process, inventory, overproduction, transport and delay. The results are discussed for Cases A, B and C, showing that A and B present higher potential for Muda, compared C.

Threefold value for practitioners and managers: waste identification is an opportunity for non-efficient processes improvement; observation/analysis from the customers’ perspective reveals that customers perceive these inefficiencies; a guideline/audit tool for future assessments.

The paper contributes to the limited existing literature on lean service in fast food industry and disseminates this information to provide impetus, guidance and support toward increasing the productivity, efficiency, consistency and quality of service.

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to know the public discovery of the concept of time value of money with economic value of time.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The method of research involved a causal research design in North Sumatera Province, Indonesia. The data used are primary data sourced from questionnaires distributed to 112 random respondents. Data were analyzed using the SEM method with Smart PLS software.

Findings – The results show that the public do not know exactly the application and the concept of “time value of money” and the economic value of time.

Research Limitations/Implications – The limitation of this study is that it was conducted on heterogeneous Medan city samples and did not extend to other cities in North Sumatra with large samples. The study has implications on the socialization of the community’s understanding of the concept of time value of money with the economic value of time.

Originality/Value – This study has value in that it compares the understanding of the society over the concept model of time value of money and the economic value of time.

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to know the influence of manufacture of textiles, clothing, and leather and manufacture of paper, printing, and publishing on economic growth.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The method of research used was a causal research design in North Sumatera Province. The data used are secondary data sourced from Statistics Agency of North Sumatera Province. The method of analysis used in this research is SEM method using software Smart PLS.

Findings – The results show that manufacture of textiles, clothing, and leather and manufacture of paper, printing, and publishing influence to the economic growth.

Research Limitations/Implications – Limitations of the study included not analyzing by data pooling, and samples were restricted only to North Sumatra Province. The implication of this research is that the variables of manufacture of textiles, clothing, and leather give a significant contribution to the economic growth of North Sumatra. To this end, that need to be made some policies shoul be implemented to facilitate manufacture of textiles, clothing, and leather others invest in the district and city in North Sumatra.

Originality/Value – The originality of this study attempts to examine export indicators in certain segments where other studies do not examine them.

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to know the Dimension of an Islamic Model Value on the existence of walmart Syariah, Indonesia.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The data used are primary data sources. The method of analysis used in this research is SEM method using Smart PLS software.

Finding – The show results that customer satisfaction are formed from traditional and Islamic value dimensions.

Research Limitations/Implication – The implications of this research are the need to socialize the concept of Islamic value dimensions to the general public so that the public understanding of Islamic value dimensions is wider and easier to understand.

Originality/Value – This study is worth a new finding because it analyzes the scope of understanding of the value of Islamic value dimensions in Sharia Walmart prospective buyers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a subject accounting firm’s existing workflow processes for preparing individual tax returns with an emphasis on identifying predominant areas of waste.

Specific Quality and Lean tools were applied to qualitative data secured from on-site visits to the firm. Quantitative data analysis of productivity measures was performed to identify additional sources of muda (waste) as well as validate the findings from the qualitative analysis. Corrective actions were recommended as applicable.

This case study of the subject firm identifies predominant wastes in the individual tax return process as defects and waiting. The authors propose that these categories of waste (waiting and defect) may indeed be the predominant forms of waste in service organizations and require further research.

At least two limitations exist. The first was the inability to capture exact cycle times for each of the process steps. A second limitation was that the data on staff performance were gathered via interview rather than through direct observation.

Individual income tax return preparation (Form 1040) provides a significant revenue stream for many accounting firms. Managing the processes involved in an effective and timely fashion is critical to profitability. Additionally, other service industries, including financial and accounting firms of similar size or function, may find these areas of waste relevant and adopt similar strategies for eliminating or reducing them in service-processes.

Negligible literature exists concerning wastes in accounting firms. However, accounting firms in the USA earn an average of more than 50 percent of their total fees from tax services, including income tax return preparation.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the non-value-adding activities (NVAs) of core making process and to eliminate them through the standardization-of-work (SW) procedures in a manufacturing company.

The action-research methodology was adopted for the current study. First, various lean tools were identified through literature review, and the bottleneck area was identified in discussion with the shop-floor executives. NVAs were recorded after a continuous process study including method study and motion analysis followed by the standard operating procedure. Second, the standardized work combination tables were prepared and NVAs were eliminated using the SW procedures. SW has been opted because it is a set of actions which helps in analyzing, improving and controlling the process and it leads to continual improvement.

The production logbook revealed that the capacity in this particular workstation was 54 pieces per 7 h work shift against the current production of approx. 45–50 pieces (past data). SW saved 31.6 s per cycle which boosted the production up to 58 pieces per 7 h work shift. Finally, the authors came to know that the productivity of this particular process increased up to 6.5 percent which may upsurge if this action is executed continually with the support from shop-floor executives and management. These results were also compared with previous research works in this area and found significant relevance, and hence, the results appear to be reliable.

This is a unique study in itself which explores the lean model by assessing NVAs of core making process. The proposed approach needs to be tested across different other core making processes of the case company so as to generalize the effectiveness of SW as well as the results obtained in the current study.

The current study illustrates an important step to give more visibility to the lean concept by addressing the problem of lack of standard procedures. This study will help the shop-floor executives and managers to focus their efforts in achieving high performance through effective implementation of SW. The study should be of the interest of researchers in the area of lean manufacturing, operations management, productivity analysis, etc.

The findings of this study are based on the problem formulation for productivity gains using SW procedures in the case company. The study introduces a new perspective for the execution of SW for core making processes. SW created transparency in workflow, enhanced the safety and eliminated the 3Ms. The outcome of the current study was discussed with the production team and management of the company to validate the productivity gains and received an optimistic response. Most importantly, these improvements were achieved with no investment in machinery or tooling.

The authors analyze the principles and results of lean production and compare the lean production philosophy with the six sigma quality process and the principles of total quality management (TQM). At the end of the paper, it is discussed how to build the necessary company culture for having success with these principles/management philosophies.

Literature search and comparative analysis complemented with a Danish case on wastage in a core process.

It is shown that the lean production philosophy and the six sigma steps are essentially the same and both have developed from the same root – the Japanese TQM practices. The improvement process from six sigma, the DMAIC process, can be regarded as a short version of the Quality Story, which was developed in Japan in the 1960s as a standard for QC‐circle presentations. We conclude that the roadmaps of lean production and six sigma quality are examples of new alternative TQM roadmaps. We also conclude that especially with lean production and six sigma quality there seems to be too much focus on training people intools and techniques and at the same time too little focus on understanding the human factor, i.e. how to build the right company culture.

The detailed and historical analysis of six sigma quality, lean production and TQM combined with a focus on the human factor and the needed corporate culture.

The purpose of this paper is to identify areas of waste and inefficiency in the built asset maintenance process and to outline an alternative approach based around performance metrics, which seeks to minimise waste and produce a more sustainable, cost‐ effective approach to built asset maintenance.

A theoretical analysis of the built asset maintenance process identified potential areas within the process that could be subject to significant waste or inefficiencies. Structured interviews with 37 property managers and two in‐depth case studies of UK social landlords were used to provide greater insights into the causes of the waste/inefficiencies and to develop a performance‐based approach to identify built asset maintenance needs.

The current approach to built asset maintenance is prone to wide ranging inefficiencies. These inefficiencies are deep rooted and resulted from an intrinsic weakness in the theoretical model underpinning built asset maintenance management. The theory assumes condition is a suitable proxy for performance. Whilst this assumption may have been valid in the past, current drivers for a sustainable future, coupled with the need to reduce costs in light of current public sector spending, requires a wider range of issues to be considered when identifying and prioritising maintenance needs. Identifying needs, planning of work and post contract inspection were perceived to be the most inefficient activities in the current approach to built asset maintenance management. These could be reduced by adopting a new approach that links performance of the built asset to key business drivers.

At this stage, the new performance model is conceptual and requires further implementation to test its robustness and resilience.

The adoption of the model will force maintenance managers to consider the implications of their maintenance actions at a strategic level that links priorities to critical success factors through targeted key performance indicators.

This paper extends the concept of performance‐based approaches used in other industries to built asset maintenance and provides a practical representation of a process model by which the theory can be implemented.

The rationale for the postgraduate supervision measures for higher education by the call for universities to adopt a systematic practice in postgraduate supervision through new supervisors' exposure to creative ways of monitoring. This paper aims at understanding, improving and validating the content of behavioral supervision measures using the expert review and pretesting analysis.

The authors developed, modified and operationalized the items based on the developmental supervision theoretical concept by Glickman (1980) to measure the behavioral supervision of postgraduate in higher education. The authors obtain comments and verification from experts for content validity and criterion validity. Later, the authors do pretesting of face validity.

The result of the expert review and pretesting, analysis, provides measures (items) for the following seven stages (components) of postgraduate behavioral supervision: listening/clarifying; encouraging; presenting/demonstrating; negotiating/problem-solving; directing; standardizing and reinforcing.

The findings contribute to the rational development of supervision measures and functional transformation in the postgraduate supervision process in higher education at national and international contexts.

These supervision measures, if practiced by the supervisors and postgraduates' students, will accelerate and achieve the aspiration initiative of the Ministry of Higher Education. In general, based on the needs identified, the positive impact of this study can improve national and international postgraduate program educational outcomes.

There is limited number of empirical research which resulted in postgraduate behavioral supervision measures in the context of higher education.