Effect of Production Implementation Practices on Supply Chain Performance of Food and Beverage Manufacturing Firms in Kenya

Abstract

The general objective for this study was to determine the effect of production implementation practices on how food and beverages manufacturing companies in Kenya perform. Specifically, the research sought to investigate the extent to which production implementation practices have been espoused and to establish the challenges of implementation of production practices by the food and beverage manufacturing companies in Kenya. The research was grounded on resource-based view, theory of constraints and stakeholder theory. The research employed a cross-sectional survey design. The research targeted 135 food and beverage manufacturing firms in Kenya with a sample size of 84sample size of 84sample size of 84sample size of 84sample size of 84sample size of 84sample size of 84sample size of 84sample size of 84sample size of 84. The study found out that there was a moderate adoption of the production implementation practices. The outcome also indicated that production implementation practices and supply chain performance are correlated positively given by R = 0.622. This implied that improved production implementation practices lead to improved supply chain performance. The adjusted R2 of 0.351 translates to only 35.1% of changes in supply chain performance being because of combined effects of the practices considered in the research. This signifies that 64.9% of the variations in supply chain performance were caused by variables that were not considered in the current study. Further, production implementation practices and supply chain performance were found to be significantly related given by p<0.05. Regarding regression coefficients, the study found out that capacity planning, employee scheduling and inventory control do not significantly affect supply chain performance since the p-value is greater than 0.05. Enterprise resource planning significantly affect supply chain performance at p=0.000. This implied that enterprise resource planning significantly contributed to variations in supply chain performance. The findings further established that the greatest challenge was strongly agreed to be high cost of implementation, followed by inadequacy of technology. It was also established that complexity of operations, ineffective organization structure and poor communication during implementation were challenges faced. The study concluded that production implementation practices improved supply chain performance among FBMCs in Kenya. It also concluded that the firms adopted production implementation practices of capacity planning, employee scheduling, enterprise resource planning and inventory control moderately. Finally, the study concluded that the most realized challenges included high cost of implementation and inadequate technology. It was also concluded that complexity of operations, ineffective organization structure and poor communication were also of great challenge. The study’s recommendation is that the management of FBMCs should strengthen production implementation practices especially enterprise resource planning that was found to be significant. The managers should also establish other practices that would significantly affect supply chain performance, to ensure they are implemented and adopted. This is based on the finding that they comprise 64.9% of variations in supply chain performance.