The Adoption of Lean Principles to Reduce Resistance to Change in Transforming a Shipyard

Abstract

A Shipyard is trying to change, but facing employee Resistance to Change (RTC).Resistance is attributed to the dysfunctional organisational context in the form oftechnical and political/structural issues giving rise to non-conformance behaviour.An action research was conducted with the author as a participant researcher tounderstand and identify the underlying behaviour of the employees. Lean productionwas used as an intervention to re-couple tasks to behavioural elements. Resistance isdue to incoherency of a person’s belief in established standards, giving rise to cognitivedissonance. Lean principles reduces dissonance, creating psychological flow in theworkforce and the momentum for change. As a result, the shipyard managed to recoveredthe delay of a ship and delivered it on-time, with cost avoidance of RM63 million inliquidated damage. The Shipyard also managed to reduce the average delay for shipsundergoing repair to 6 months, compared to previous average delay of 17 months. Thisresearch was a collaboration between the employees and the researcher to identify thesource of RTC. The outcome is both, insightful in creating change and contributionto knowledge. The significance of this study is the realisation of how individuals andgroups’ past behaviour can subconsciously challenge the existence of the organisationand better methods. The study provides an exploratory model on the workings of humanbehavioural elements in Lean production. The knowledge of how the researcher gainedutility from resistance and mediate through the application of these techniques wouldbe of considerable benefit to leaders of change management.

The Mediating Role of Continuous Improvement on the Relationship between Workplace Learning Dimensions and Sustainable Lean Manufacturing

“…Lean practices continue to evolve and extend their influence into different sectors across different regions. Literature regarding Lean practices from Malaysia (Minh et al, 2018;Muraliraj et al, 2019;Yushak et al, 2018) has shown consistent progress over recent years. Although the basic principles of Lean thinking originated from Japan, it is undeniable that active publication concerning Lean practices, from a Western perspective, would have somehow affected the development of global Lean initiatives, including the one in Malaysia.…”

“…Similarly, some firms have not implemented Lean initiatives holistically. For instance, firms that have strictly followed the technical perspective of Lean as their core manufacturing approach, focusing mainly on the shop-floor level, have often forsaken the intellectual facet of human assets in their efforts to achieve operational excellence (Jørgensen et al, 2007;Hines et al, 2004;Yushak et al, 2018). Consequently, implementing Lean initiatives has often been easier than their sustainment (Ali et al, 2013;Bateman, 2005;Jadhav et al, 2014a;Jørgensen et al, 2007;Lindskog et al, 2016;Mohd-Zainal et al, 2011).…”