The impact of lean practices on the operational performance of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in East Cost Malaysia

This paper purpose is to study the status of Lean and the extent of lean adoption and investigate the Relationship between Lean practices and operational performance of SMEs Industry in East coast Malaysia. This research is an exploratory non-experimental type of research focusing on the integration of lean principle and operational performance in SMEs in Kelantan. The findings were obtained from literature review, and by conducting survey that based on closed-end questionnaire. The respondent will be chosen among several SMEs in Kelantan. Ten (10) lean practices were used as measurement dimensions for independent variables. The practices are Customer Involvement (CI), Employee Involvement (EI), Supplier Involvement (SI), Pull System (PS), 5S, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Statistical Minutes Exchange of dies (SMED), Visual Management (VM), and Production Leveling (PL). As for dependent variable measurement dimension, five element were which were inventory level, defect level, productivity, production waste and production cost. From the findings, SMEs implemented lean practices partially and lean practices affect SMEs operational performance positively.