Lean Manufacturing Critical Success Factors for the Transportation Equipment Manufacturing Industry in Mexico

Marina De La Vega,Dora-Luz Flores,Yolanda Baez-Lopez,Manuel Ivan Rodriguez Borbon,Aide Aracely Maldonado-Macias,Jorge Limon-Romero,Diego Tlapa

doi:10.1109/access.2020.3023633

Abstract

This research was carried out in the Mexican manufacturing industry, the second most important activity in the country's industrial sector, specifically in the transportation equipment manufacturing subsector, which generates 19% of the jobs in this industry. Thus, it is important to develop improvement strategies to strengthen the sector's competitiveness. Currently, Lean Manufacturing projects are considered the most important strategy for manufacturing companies to achieve world-class performance. However, such projects yield different results, depending on the level of Critical Success Factor (CSFs) implementation during their development. This work proposes the design and validation of an instrument to evaluate the implementation of CSFs during the project-improvement phase in the production of transportation equipment in the Mexican manufacturing industry. The instrument is made up of six CSFs selected from the reviewed literature on Lean Manufacturing methodology and improvement projects and measured through 31 items. The instrument was verified and empirically validated through exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and reliability analysis, using the SPSS Amos R software program and a sample of 240 valid surveys applied to experienced developers of Lean Manufacturing improvement projects. The results show that the proposed instrument holds enough statistical validity to be used by the companies in the sector in order to assess the impact of critical success factors on the development of improvement projects. Additionally, the survey can help companies to identify areas of opportunity by adopting the Lean Manufacturing methodology and fit models, to assess the interaction of the FCEs in achieving the expected results of improvement projects.

Highlights

Today, project management has become a key activity in most modern organizations
The objective of this research was to design and validate a data collection instrument that would evaluate the effect of critical success factors (CSFs) on the implementation of Lean Manufacturing (LM) improvement projects in the transportation equipment manufacturing sector in Mexico
During the instrument validation stage, it was possible to carry out an analysis of the responses obtained, which allowed for an evaluation of the perceived level of CSFs implementation when carrying out LM improvement projects in the studied sector

Summary

Introduction

Project management has become a key activity in most modern organizations. Projects must meet a wide variety of objectives; they involve numerous internal and external players and are carried out throughout various areas of activity [1]. The most important objective for project managers is quality, which can be ensured by identifying and eliminating the factors resulting in poor project. A better understanding of critical success factors (CSFs) and how to measure them is of essence [2]. Because CSFs are the few key areas where ‘‘things must go well’’ for the manager’s goals to be achieved and for the business to prosper [4], it is necessary to understand how to identify and address them effectively to ensure that the promised benefits can be achieved and that failures can be avoided [5]

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Methods

Results

Conclusion