Organisational factors influencing adoption of lean logistics: a case of visual workplace projects in Nairobi bottlers limited, Kenya

Abstract

Inspite of the investment in lean logistics projects in Kenya by government and private organisations, stupendous wastes and losses continue to be experienced in transport and inventory management. Inefficiencies below middle income countries continue to be recorded according to World Bank’s Kenya Economic Update (KEU). It is therefore imperative that the organizational factors influencing adoption of the already existing continuous change projects be studied. Once knowledge is acquired, mitigation measures should be applied to prevent further wastage, and foster value added lean management. If this is not done, colossal losses and ultimately affected bottom-lines await. This research report studied organizational factors influencing adoption of lean logistics: A case of visual workplace projects in Nairobi Bottlers Limited. Four organizational factors that influenced visual workplace projects in NBL were studied, they were; training, communication, organisation culture and leadership. The study was delimited to visual workplace projects in NBL, and the five study variables. Empirical study of the literature was widely done and the gaps documented. It was built on Womack and Jones framework of lean thinking, from where a conceptual framework that showed the nexus of interrelationship between study variables were developed. The study used descriptive survey design with a target population of 220 individuals in logistics competency who were affected by the visual workplace projects. This comprised of drivers, forklift operators, load builders, checkers, stock controllers, administrative assistants, fleet technicians and logistics team leaders. Stratified sampling method was used to select the sample of respondents from the target population. Using Krejcie and Morgan table for determining sample size, 136 individuals were selected to take part in the study. A six level data collection questionnaire, comprising of closed questions only was utilized. Split half method was used to measure reliability which yielded a value of 0.9065. Content and Construct Validity was determined through a review of the questionnaire by two colleagues who were experts and practitioners of lean logistics. Pilot testing was conducted with 14 individuals who were not included in the final survey. Collated data was cleaned, decoded, organized and analysed using SPSS software version 21. The software analysed the data through descriptive and inferential statistics. It was found that all the organizational factors studied had moderate to weak relationship with the dependent variable. Additionally, there was a statistically significant relationship between communication, organisation culture and leadership and adoption of lean logistics, with spearman’s correlation coefficients and p values of; 0.455 and 0.000<0.05, 0.208, and 0.030<0.05 and 0.203 and 0.035<0.5 respectively. However, training had a weak and positive relationship with lean logistics that was not statistically significant, 0.015 and 0.538>0.05. This meant that the correlation could have been due to random chance and further studies were recommended to uncover more facts. Further, it was recommended that training needs assessment be done prior to any training program, use of visual communication be utilized after a robust, participative and inclusive training process and initiatives to change organisation culture to foster support and commitment from leadership to buy in shop floor support for lean logistics success be implemented.