Jantanee Dumrak

A framework for lean manufacturing implementation

The lean implementation initiatives can be categorised as roadmap, conceptual/implementation framework, descriptive and assessment checklist initiatives. A literature review on the lean initiatives has examined 28 initiatives. A set of rules is proposed to evaluate these initiatives with respect to nine factors impacting lean implementation. The evaluation has proved that the implementation frameworks have highest association with lean factors. However, existing lean initiatives are not demonstrated in a structured nature. The failure in managing lean implementation process is often consolidated to poor mind-set and inadequate understanding of the lean concept itself. In this paper, an attempt has been made to propose a framework to overcome some of the limitations. The proposed framework is constructed as a project-based framework with detailed four implementation phases. Appropriate practices and decision tools are proposed and assigned to each phase. However, the proposed framework is at conceptual stage. It requires further implementation to be validated.

Lean thinking for a maintenance process

The maintenance process shares significant operating costs in an organisation. Lean thinking can be incorporated into maintenance activities through applying its principles and practices/tools. Lean maintenance (LM) is a prerequisite for lean manufacturing systems. This research proposes a new structure for LM process based on a systematic literature review of a significant number of related articles that were published on LM. The process structure is designed based on the five lean principles to guide and support organisations to pursue maintenance excellence. This study establishes a scheme for LM tools that are structured into 2 level 4 bundles and 26 lean practices/tools and develops a House of Waste (HoW) to demonstrate the association between maintenance wastes and the LM tools. With a successful accomplishment of the proposed scheme, the performance of a maintenance department can create more improvement opportunities over time to reach the maintenance excellence status.

Leagile Strategies for Optimizing the Delivery of Prefabricated House Building Projects

Abstract Australian housing supply has not been responded at a rate commensurate with its growing demand. Residential housing sector is facing this serious shortage issue by actively developing and effectively using new construction material, processes and practices for sustaining its competitive advantage over other construction sectors in the Australian context. The Construction 2020 report confirmed prefabrication/off-site manufacturing (OSM) as a critical vision for the Australian construction industry’s future, as OSM provides opportunities for not only increased productivity and safety, but also decreased cost. It also has the capability of meeting the growing housing demand within the extant level of skilled labour. By combining lean and agile concepts, OSM’s supply responsiveness and efficiency can be intensified. The current research studies the association between demand–supply housing imbalance factors using mixed methods from literature and interviews. Literature has documented four main factors that drive this imbalance: (1) housing completion time; (2) cost of a finished house; (3) customer preferences and (4) level of skilled labour. Interviews with 13 industry professionals identified the four main leagile strategies used to deliver prefabricated building projects. Literature and interview findings supported the development and validation of multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) model comprising and incorporating these factors (and subfactors) and the four leagile strategies. The choice of the appropriate strategy to address the studied factors within the Australian context was optimized using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The results from the AHP model show the suitability of applying each strategy at different degrees as influenced by the tested factors.

Improving Project Success with Project Portfolio Management Practices

Projects have increasingly become organizations’ strategic initiatives to implement changes and improve organizational performance. Concerned over constrained resources and rapid changes that exist in the project environment, project portfolio management (PPM) can support organizations in prioritizing and selecting the right projects to meet strategic objectives and improve project success rates. This research aims to investigate and analyze the application of PPM in relation to project success in Australia by conducting a questionnaire survey with 64 senior project, program and portfolio managers from industry sectors across Australia. Graph Theoretic Approach (GTA) is employed as an analysis method to generate prioritization of the relationships between PPM practices and project success criteria. Twenty-five PPM practices are grouped into four categories and examined against seven project success criteria. The findings show that each group interacts with success criteria at a diverse range. These provide organizations with implications to benchmark their PPM practices with the current findings, especially those that strongly contribute to success in project implementation and outcomes. Furthermore, the results highlight integrated concepts and application between project success and portfolio management.

Understanding Associations Between Project Team Involvement, Project Design and Project Outcomes: A Case Study of Health Development Projects in Thailand

How a project is designed generally impacts on project implementation and successful outcomes and satisfactory results. Thus, including the project team in the design process at an early stage is deemed necessary. The aim of this research is to understand the relationships between project design and the project team involvement within each project phase. Outcomes of the projects relating to the project designs and levels of involvement are analysed and discussed. The research results are based on survey questionnaires distributed to 75 respondents working in four health development projects in Thailand. The research data was statistically analysed using between-group analysis of variance and correlation analysis to examine differences between the studied groups and connections between research variables. The paper shows that project design and the team involvement associate to application of project management and implementation of project tools as well as other desirable managerial criteria of the studied projects. This research benefits future designs and implementation of health development projects especially in developing countries such as Thailand where improvement of project outcomes are required.

Alignment of Leagile Strategies With Off-site Manufacturing: Application of ANP in Australian Housing Supply

The supply response of Australian housing has not been commensurate with the growing demand. Four main factors affecting the Australian housing supply are house completion time, cost of finished house, customer preferences and level of skilled labor. Off-site manufacturing (OSM) could become a key innovation for the future of Australian house building as it provides capacity in meeting the growing housing demand, green construction and lesser requirements for labor force. OSM is a modern construction method in which house building components are produced in offsite factories and then transported to the construction site to be assembled. The supply responsiveness of OSM can be enhanced by employing lean and agile concepts. In this study, four leagile strategies are introduced to facilitate decision making based on different combinations of housing supply factors. This paper presents a matching of the four strategies with the four studied factors in the Australian house building using Analytical Network Process (ANP). The data employed for the ANP model derived from the actual specifications of 258 houses built in five Australian States by five major house builders in Australia. The results from the ANP model show the suitability in applying each strategy under different degrees influenced by the factors tested.