Prioritization of lean manufacturing strategy for eliminating non-value adding activities through analytic hierarchy process

During the past three decades, implementation of lean manufacturing in organizations has been subjected to wide researches. The outcomes of these researches have revealed that the results of implementing lean manufacturing have not been impressive when non-value adding activities (NVAAs) exist in organizations. On making this interpretation, the research reported in this paper was carried out to determine a prioritized lean manufacturing strategy for eliminating NVAAs in organizations. After surveying the literature, 51 NVAAs spotted in earlier researches were identified. Then, an expert possessing ample theoretical and practical knowledge on implementing lean manufacturing was chosen. Subsequently, the Multi-Criteria Decision Making(MCDM) technique called “Analytic Hierarchy Process” (AHP) was applied. The relationship between NVAAs and lean manufacturing strategies were assessed by interviewing the expert. The final weights of five lean manufacturing strategies toward eliminating NVAAs were determined. Finally, poka-yoke was found to be having highest final weight toward eliminating NVAAs in organizations. In other words, the outcome of this research has suggested to prioritize the implementation of poka-yoke to eliminate NVAAs. The paper is concluded by suggesting to expand the research by gathering data from many experts and considering many lean manufacturing strategies to eliminate NVAAs in organizations.