The barriers and critical success factor for implementing lean manufacturing at SMEs

Small Medium Enterprise (SME) gives a big pressure on the management of their assets. Lack of expertise and awareness will become the major obstacles in achieving a better business strategy. Lean principles are applied in manufacturing and service industries extensively, but its success application in industry has been poor. The main objective of this study is to identify the Barrier for implementation of Lean Manufacturing (LM) at SMEs and to determine the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for Implementation of Lean Manufacturing (LM) at SMEs. The data was collected using questionnaire and all the data was analyzed by using SPSS. There are 208 respondents involved in this study and the questionnaire is accepted with Cronbach’s Alpha more than 0.7. From the new conceptual model created after KMO and Bartlett’s Test, the researchers show there is one construct eliminated for both CSFs and Barriers. This study found that the construct for the Barrier for implementation of Lean Manufacturing at SMEs were related to resources, management, knowledge and financial. The construct for the CSFs for Implementation of Lean Manufacturing at SMEs were related to responsibility & leadership, supplier, people management and resource. The proposed model from this study will only be suitable for SMEs in Pasir Gudang Industrial area.