Process Improvement Tools, Techniques and Operational Performance of Manufacturing Firms in Kenya
Abstract
Process improvement is a necessity for many organizations both locally and globally as
they commit to be effective and efficient for survival in the competitive markets.
Company strategy, Process Improvement Tools and Techniques (PITT) and other
operational aspects should be integrated to attain a sustainable competitive advantage.
Process improvement tool is an instrument with a clear task, mostly restricted in purpose
and used independently while a technique has broader utilization, requiring more energy,
knowledge, skill, understanding and training to be implemented successfully. The general
objective of the study was determining how adoption of PITT affected the operational
performance of manufacturing and exporting firms in Kenya with specific objectives of
identifying the adoption levels of the techniques and tools, the moderating factors
between the techniques, tools and operational performance as well as their relationships.
Adoption of process improvement tools and techniques was anchored in the knowledge
based view theory and Michael Porters theory of competitive advantage. The scope of the
study was 965 companies which were registered in the Kenya Association of
Manufacturers and Exporters directory for the year 2017/2018. Divided into 14
categories, primary data was collected through the use of Google form questionnaires
from a sample size of 60 respondents in the production departments. Submitted
questionnaires were then exported to SPSS version 23 for descriptive analysis and
SmartPLS Version 3.2.4 for factor analysis. Results indicated that most companies were
locally registered and sold in the local market and a few exported their products. More
youths were in the production divisions matched by their less than ten years work
experience. All the process improvement tools were statistically significant while process
improvement techniques like benchmarking, business process re-engineering, kaizen,
brainstorming and total productive maintenance were statistically insignificant with t-test
values of 1.465, 0.334, 0.498, and 0.48 and 0.676 respectively. Training on process
improvement tools and techniques was a key moderating factor to achieve operational
performance with t-statistic value of 4.867 and a correlation coefficient of 0.783.
Measures of operational performance that were directly affected by adoption and
implementation of PITTs included quality, cost and speed of delivery leaving only the
aspect of flexibility. The study recommended that companies should be aware of the
process improvement tools and techniques and adopt the ones that fit them most if they
are to achieve operational performance, especially quality in their operations. A
suggestion for further study was determining if startup companies are aware of process
improvement tools and techniques and to what extent they utilize them as well as study
the topic on the service industry.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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