The effectiveness of lean principles in South African manufacturing companies

The Lean approach is a widely discussed and applied manufacturing philosophy in a variety of industries across the globe (Gupta & Jain, 2013), with only a few within the manufacturing industry able to truly say they have not heard of Lean (Melton, 2005). Lean is defined as a philosophy that applies specific tools and methods in a consistent, disciplined and systematic manner to eliminate waste and improve operational effectiveness, where the necessary processes are performed in a sequence in order to achieve the desired results. The effectiveness of Lean has been well established, with organisations from all over the world and from different industries having proved that Lean principles are well founded. However, despite its effectiveness the implementation of Lean manufacturing into an organisation is not an easy task due to various barriers opposing the effective implementation of Lean principles. The study was carried out in the South African (SA) Tank manufacturing industry. The study aimed at to establish a framework for successful implementation of Lean principles. The organisation where research took place, Welfit Oddy, is located in Perseverance, Port Elizabeth (PE) in SA. It is a manufacturing company which specializes in the design, manufacture and sale of tank containers and bulk liquid shipping containers and transport containers used to transport and deliver various goods such as milk, gas, chemicals, oil, petrol and liquid chemicals to customers and end users. The organisation has served this global industry for more than 25 years and is considered by many to be one of the biggest and best manufacturers of intermodal ISO tank containers in the world. Tank containers, also referred to as ISO tanks, intermodal tanks or IMO portable tanks, are designed for intermodal transportation by road, rail, air, and ship (Erera, Morales & Savelsbergh, 2005). In this study, emphasis will be placed on the issues that need to be addressed for the effective implementation of the Lean Manufacturing philosophy within the organisation