OPINION: Lean manufacturing, leadership, and employees: The case of UAE SME manufacturing companies

Authors:

Alefari, M., Almanei, M. and Salonitis, K., 2020. Lean manufacturing, leadership and employees: the case of UAE SME manufacturing companies. Production & Manufacturing Research, 8(1), pp.222-243.

Link to the article:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21693277.2020.1781704

Opinion By:
Ambar Prajapati

The article, “Lean manufacturing, leadership and employees: the case of UAE SME manufacturing companies”, by Alefari, M., Almanei, M. and Salonitis, K. aims to determine how well the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) in United Arab Emirates (UAE) recognize lean principles and the challenges they face while taking lean initiatives. The research aims to help develop frameworks to model employee performance and leadership practices for undertaking successful lean initiatives. This critique will evaluate the study and examine if it fulfills the stated objectives.

Overview: The UAE is an Arab League country and is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The manufacturing sector in UAE aims to contribute to 25% of the GDP by 2025. The SMEs in this sector make up 94% of all the manufacturing companies. The authors perform research, first of its kind in the context of UAE, that examines the leadership influence on employee performance while the enterprises undergo the lean journey. The authors believe employee performance is instrumental in lean implementation and is impacted significantly by the leadership. The authors use a phased approach in their research that involves literature review and dual surveys with questionnaires on demographics, lean understanding, and leadership characteristics that matter for a successful lean transition. The authors explore the workforce and management-related behaviors critical to lean implementation through this approach.

Detailed Analysis: The lean principles are de-facto manufacturing standards and have been widely acknowledged and practiced around the globe for more than half a century. However, the authors emphasize that the transition to a lean enterprise is no simple feat in a developing country like UAE. A lean transformation requires heavy involvement from the shop floor, yet senior leadership’s vision, motivation, and guidance determine the actual outcome. The authors cite studies of lean implementation in several countries, including many developing. However, the UAE is different due to substantial Islamic cultural influence on its people. The Islamic tribal laws establish consultation and participation as part of wholesome advice in the Arab world.

From the literature review, the research highlights influencing leadership theories such as Great man, Participative, Behavioral, Contingency, Trait, Situational and Transformational, and motivation theories such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Two-factor, Theories X and Y, Expectancy and Goal setting. It is evident from the review that the leadership theories are deeply intertwined with the motivation theories to bring the best out of the employed workforce. In words from the authors:

The culture of the organization and the acceptance of change can have a great impact on the successful lean implementation. (p. 235)

The authors identify the common root causes of failure during a lean implementation are related to “lack of supply chain integration, lack of leadership commitment, lack of employee involvement, poor understanding of lean tools and techniques and finally objecting business systems” (p. 235)

Using a survey of 150 questions, the authors capture the demographic, company information, understanding, attitude, and challenges for adopting lean in the work culture. The questions vary in range from manufacturing classification, company size, working experience, and education level of the respondents to lean specific inquiries such as the set of tools, waste-reduction, exposure to Toyota Production System (TPS), kaizen, management philosophy, etc.

Their survey results indicate that the interest towards lean varied with the size and experience of the company. For example, 55% of the surveyed SMEs in UAE had less than 20 employees and never attempted to implement lean. And the rest just began experimenting with lean. With the growing number of years in business, the company’s focus seems to shift from reducing work strength to waste-reduction to kaizen aspects of lean manufacturing. The respondents associated lean with these terms in the order of reduced priority - ‘set of tools’, ‘workforce reduction’, ‘waste reduction’ and ‘kaizen’. The incorrect choice of ‘workforce-reduction’ and keeping ‘kaizen’ at the least priority indicated SME’s weak understanding of lean. Other survey statistics aligned with an already established finding that the countries with short manufacturing history have a more challenging time absorbing lean ideas and building relationships with the customers and suppliers.

The authors conducted another survey on the leadership among the manufacturing SMEs including the management perception. The survey concluded that in 90% of the SMEs, the employees viewed the leadership style as ‘autocracy’ that does not allow feedback. Furthermore, there is micro-management and a lack of delegation. Interestingly, SME management viewed their leadership style as ‘coaching’ and ‘supporting’ instead of exerting authority. These findings resonate with the family-owned structure of SMEs and the domination of Islamic culture in the Arab world. The financial incentives emerged as the most prominent factor influencing employee motivation and performance.

Conclusion: The research builds on empirical information from the literature and surveys to establish a relationship among employee performance, leadership, and lean success in the manufacturing sector of the Arabic region. It touches a raw nerve focusing on employee performance and leadership influence- which are the fundamental factors that can make or break a lean implementation in an enterprise. A lean leadership is expected to have long-term philosophy, treat its people and partners with respect, and assist in their growth. However, the manufacturing sector characterized by many SMEs in the UAE seems to be far off the mark recognizing and implementing lean.

It seems reasonable to generalize the survey findings over the entire manufacturing sector of the Gulf region due to the prevalence of similar Islamic culture throughout the Arab countries. However, the authors have ignored the research objective of developing frameworks for modeling employee performance and appropriate leadership styles for successful lean initiatives. The research could have been more helpful by including suggestions to improve the employee and leadership-related drivers and fix barriers for a successful lean implementation.