Assessing the Levels of Awareness and Implementation Effectiveness of Lean Tools in Furniture Industry: A Case Study Approach

The furniture industry, characterized by diverse product lines, varying customer preferences and global completion, faces constant pressure to improve efficiency, reduce costs and maintain product quality. To this end, the furniture industry employs diverse tools in their operations including Lean tools which emphasize waste reduction, process optimization and continuous improvement. Within this context, this study aims at assessing the levels of awareness, implementation, effectiveness and the future use of Lean tools in Palestinian furniture industry as perceived by its employees. More specifically, a case study of a Palestinian furniture company of 120 employees was selected for this purpose. A quantitative research method was adopted where the perceptions on Lean tools were collected from a random sample of employees using a self-administered questionnaire. Collected data were statistically analyzed. It was found that awareness and the future use of Lean tools are of moderate level, while implementation and effectiveness are, respectively of low and high levels. A real case application in the cabinet assembly department of the company was conducted where the state of the department was analyzed before Lean implementation over one month of work. Then, three Lean tools (5S, Just-in-Time and Continuous Flow) were applied in the department. A set of performance metrics have been measured before and after Lean tools implementation. The analysis revealed substantial improvements in waste reduction, cost, labor utilization, assembly time and productivity. The findings of this study would be of great value for policy and decision makers in wooden and furniture industry, particularly in emerging countries like Palestine, to adopt, adapt and advance in Lean philosophies, principles and tools to improve the quality of their processes and products and ultimately satisfy their customer needs.