An empirical study on the contribution of lean practices to environmental performance of the manufacturing firms in northern region of Malaysia

Abstract

Nowadays, environmental issues receive an increasing global attention which eventually leads to questions on how to integrate environmental issues with business operations and strategy. Despite the importance of lean manufacturing in providing environmental benefits to organisations, little is known about the effect of lean practices on environmental performance of the firms. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of lean practices in different functional areas of manufacturing firms on environmental performance. A quantitative survey methodology was adopted to collect data from 445 manufacturing firms in northern region of Malaysia. The data were analysed based on 101 usable responses. The results of the survey indicate that lean practice related to functional areas of process and equipment, human resource, product design and customer satisfaction have positive effect on environmental outcomes. The implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed at the end of research.