Lean manufacturing maturity assessment in garment industries – A case study from Sri Lanka

Lean Manufacturing Management (LMM) is a buzz word in the business community in Sri Lanka and it was originally practiced as a Toyota Production System (TPS) conceptualized by Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan. After 2005, with the removal of Multi-Fibre Agreement, many a garment manufacturing firm commenced practicing lean manufacturing system to redcue the lead time and cost of manufacturing. Though the lean manufacturing systems highlights the importance of making an organization lean, it doesn't properly address the issue of assessing the degree of leanness of business organizations and its maturity levels like in other sectors of the economy (e.g. Capability Maturity Model Integration-CMMI). In order to study the issue, five factories from a leading garment manufacturing were selected and studied the processes where lean practices have been implemented and the maturity levels. Data was collected through the senior managers of the factories who are directly involved with implementation of lean manufacturing systems. Findings of the study revealed that a variation of implementation of lean manufacturing system from factory to factory is significant. Further it was found that the level of knowledge about lean practices is also in varying degrees. Hence it is important to explore ways and means of improving the lean implementation in a holistic approach instead of piecemeal approach, which is the norm of all factories in the study.