Yusof Ismail

Soft total quality management and lean manufacturing initiatives: model development through structural equation modelling

Both soft total quality management (STQM) and lean manufacturing (LM) are philosophies for continuous improvement. Little is known about whether these can be integrated together or are in conflict. Furthermore, the nature of their integration together in the same enterprise is not clear. This paper tries to eliminate gap in operations management (OM) literature regarding the integration of these practices. To do this, it proposes a comprehensive model to be implemented in the developing economy of Malaysia, to investigate the linkages among elements of soft TQM and LM tools in the measured manufacturing sectors. A structured questionnaire was designed to validate the model and test the hypothesis. Structural equation modelling (SEM) through analysis of moment structure (AMOS 22) is utilised to empirically investigate the model based on primary data of 329 responses. Results obtained implied that hypothesis is significant and supported. Thus, both practices are complementary to each other.

Understanding contemporary models for organisational sustainability: critical review

This paper aims to critically review 13 contemporary models and initiatives for sustainable development (SD). Sustainability is the action oriented variant of sustainable development. However, in the literature, there are mixed results regarding identification of the main dimensions of sustainability. Few efforts were done to compare between these models and show the similarities and dissimilarities aspects. Thus, different scholars have identified different models for measuring SD. As revealed through the analysis it is found that organisations are focusing on diversified aspects rather than identical or uniform strategies when dealing with sustainability issues. The main contributions of this paper are twofold: 1) it depicted 13 different contemporary models for SD; 2) it introduced the different dimensions for SD compared with those from different scholars.

A comparative evaluation of contemporary models for lean manufacturing practices

Lean manufacturing (LM) is a thought developed in Toyota, thus, there is lack of studies on whether the implementation of LM is appropriate for different enterprises because of differences in organisational and social culture and labour. This paper critically analyses 11 contemporary models for LM in an attempt to find a unified model that can be applied by enterprises. In the literature models have a tendency to focus only on few single components. However, different enterprises use diverse dimensions and models for measuring LM. It aims to review the various LM models prevailing in the contemporary research papers along with presentation of an in-depth analysis exploring the similar and dissimilar aspects. The LM models adopted by different enterprises are quite diverse as revealed through this investigation. The outcome of this study produced a matrix comprising conjoint 98 elements linked with LM 11 models. These represent soft and hard LM elements found in the literature.

Integration of lean manufacturing and quality management system through structural equation modelling

Both the lean manufacturing (LM) and the quality management system (QMS) are clear initiatives with a goal of improving effectiveness and efficiencies. This review paper aims at exploring the impact of LM tools on QMS. Many organisations tackle lean philosophy, ISO 9001 standard individually. But this kind of attempt lacks focus on the synergy and the advantage from the potential collaboration. Few studies were conducted to explore the linkage between LM and QMS and whether they can coexist in the Manufacturing Industries or not. Though LM is generally proposed as a driver for QMS, a conceptual model is necessary to be developed in order to investigate the integration between LM and QMS. The model is proposed in this paper with a future direction of empirical investigation using AMOS 22 structural equation modelling to test the developed proposition. The originality of this paper lies in observing and measuring the impact of 11 LM tools on the QMS implementation with eventual contribution to operations management by focusing on hard LM aspects and their interrelationships with QMS in one integrated model.