Impact of Manufacturing Flexibility on Business Performance: Malaysian’s Perspective

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the impact of manufacturing flexibility on business performance. The manufacturing flexibility dimensions are mix, new product, labor, machine, material handling, routing and volume flexibility. The measures for the business performance are product market performance, customer satisfaction and profitability. The impact of manufacturing flexibility on business performance has been tested using a cross sectional study employing survey methodology, conducted within five manufacturing industries in Malaysia. Data were obtained from 137 returned questionnaires, which were analyzed using correlational and regression analyses. The results of the correlation analyses indicated that the manufacturing flexibility dimensions were positively and highly correlated among themselves, thus suggesting that the dimensions were interdependent. Meanwhile, the findings of the regression analyses provided support for the idea that manufacturing flexibility has a positive and significant impact on business performance. In other words, manufacturing flexibility improves business performance. In conclusion, this empirical research provides insights and a better understanding about the relationship between manufacturing flexibility and business performance. This research allows researchers/practitioners to gain in-depth knowledge about the concept of manufacturing flexibility and its impacts.

Investigating the impact of supply chain management practices on customer satisfaction through flexibility and technology adoption: Empirical evidence

“…Moreover, Ghatebi et al (2013), Haque and Islam (2013) Lagat et al (2016), and Manokaran (2019) supported the positive influence of SCMPs (i.e., strategic supplier partnership, customer relationship management practices, level of information sharing, quality of information sharing) on customer satisfaction (i.e., trust, commitment, communication), where researchers revealed the importance of enhancing level of customer satisfaction through managing SCMPs. Therefore, MSMEs should focus on enhancing SCMPs to reach a better customer satisfaction level, and the negative impact of organizational flexibility on customer satisfaction (i.e., trust, commitment, communication) was contradicted with Adara (2020), Fatima et al (2021), Sáenz et al (2018), Tan and Lim (2019), who revealed the positive influence of flexibility on customer satisfaction.…”

“…Organizational flexibility helps organizations to enhance their customers satisfaction, where flexibility allows organizations to increase their production level to unanticipate customer needs and to reduce waiting time in case of level of demand fluctuated (Sáenz et al, 2018). Several studies investigated the impact of flexibility on customer satisfaction, where Sáenz et al (2018) identified the positive significant impact of flexibility on customer satisfaction in manufacturing companies, while Tan and Lim (2019) illustrated the importance of flexibility practices on enhancing customer satisfaction level in manufacturing industries, whereby Adara (2020) empirically investigated the positive significant impact of volume flexibility on customer satisfaction. Moreover, Yousuf et al (2020) identified that strategic flexibility is considered as a significant technique to react to uncertain situation and improve customer satisfaction in pharmaceutical industries.…”

Opening manufacturing flexibility's black box: the unexplored role of internal flexibility

“…IF may also directly impact customer satisfaction by increasing a firm's ability to respond to their preferences in a better way (Tan and Lim, 2019). IF reduces internal resource constraints (Wei et al.…”

Predicting Citizen Satisfaction of Local Seaport: A Descriptive Analysis in The Largest Maritime Province in Indonesia

“…Although the surveys provide significant evidence for decision-makers, especially the government, studies show other flaws. Most studies on customer satisfaction that use a survey, suffer from survey's inherent flaws, including "the possibility of missing appropriate context and of lacking respondents' knowledge" (Supriyadi, 2010, p. 431) as the survey tends to use a general assumption (Tan & Lim, 2019). To avoid this general assumption, a more subjective approach is needed to explore those studied feelings.…”