British Food Journal

Application of lean practices in small and medium-sized food enterprises

Manoj Dora Dirk Van Goubergen Maneesh Kumar Adrienn Molnar Xavier Gellynck
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Manoj Dora Dirk Van Goubergen Maneesh Kumar Adrienn Molnar Xavier Gellynck , (2013),"Application of lean practices in
small and medium-sized food enterprises", British Food Journal, Vol. 116 Iss 1 pp. 125 - 141
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Application of
Application of lean practices in lean practices
small and medium-sized food
enterprises
125
Manoj Dora and Dirk Van Goubergen
Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Received 2 May 2012
Maneesh Kumar Revised 11 June 2012
Accepted 14 June 2012
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK, and
Adrienn Molnar and Xavier Gellynck
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Agricultural Economics, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

Abstract
Purpose – Recent literature emphasizes the application of lean manufacturing practices to food
processing industries in order to improve operational efficiency and productivity. Only a very limited
number of studies have focused on the implementation of lean manufacturing practices within small
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the food sector. The majority of these studies used
the case study method and concentrated on individual lean manufacturing techniques geared towards
resolving efficiency issues. This paper aims to analyze the status of the lean manufacturing practices
and their benefits and barriers among European food processing SMEs.
Design/methodology/approach – A structured questionnaire was developed to collect data. A
total of 35 SMEs’ representatives, mostly CEOs and operations managers, participated in the survey.
The study investigated the role of two control variables in lean implementation: size of the company
and country of origin.
Findings – The findings show that lean manufacturing practice deployment in food processing
SMEs is generally low and still evolving. However, some lean manufacturing practices are more
prevalent than others; e.g. flow, pull and statistical process control are not widely used by the food
processing SMEs, whereas total productive maintenance, employee involvement, and customer
association are more widespread. The key barriers encountered by food SMEs in the implementation
of lean manufacturing practices result from the special characteristics of the food sector, such as
highly perishable products, complicated processing, extremely variable raw materials, recipes and
unpredictable demand. In addition, lack of knowledge and resources makes it difficult for food
processing SMEs to embark on the lean journey.
Originality/value – The gap in the literature regarding the application of lean manufacturing in the
food sector is identified and addressed in this study. The originality of this paper lies in analyzing the
current status of the use of lean manufacturing practices among food SMEs in Europe and identifying
potential barriers.
Keywords Small and medium sized enterprises, Benefits, Barriers, Lean manufacturing,
Food processing
Paper type Research paper

British Food Journal

Vol. 116 No. 1, 2014
pp. 125-141
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
This study is a part of CORNET project “Innovative management system for food industry” and 0007-070X
was financed by IWT, Belgium. DOI 10.1108/BFJ-05-2012-0107
 BFJ Introduction
116,1 In 2010, the editorial of a renowned journal “Trends in Food Science & Technology”
pointed out that the food processing industry needs efficiency-improving production
methods such as lean manufacturing for operational effectiveness (Mahalik, 2010).
Recent articles on this topic have also justified the claim that it is time for the food
sector to initiate lean practices to increase efficiency and reduce costs of production
126 (Goncharuk, 2009; Mahalik and Nambiar, 2010). Womack defined lean manufacturing
as “a system that utilizes fewer inputs and creates the same outputs while contributing
more value to customers” (Womack et al., 1990). The definition emphasizes the
identification and elimination of waste (i.e. anything that does not add value from the
customers’ perspective in organizations using lean tools and techniques) (Nahmias,
2001; Shah and Ward, 2003). The empirical studies illustrate that lean
manufacturing has several favorable impacts on operational variables, such as
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productivity, quality, delivery, and customer and employee satisfaction (Mann and
Kehoe, 1994).
However, it is important to understand the context surrounding lean
manufacturing. For example, Toyota, a large discrete automobile company in Japan,
achieved substantial success with respect to cost, quality and delivery when initiated
lean manufacturing in the late 1940 s (Spear and Bowen, 1999). Later, many companies
across sectors, sizes and geographic regions tried to imitate Toyota’s lean
manufacturing system in the pursuit of efficiency and productivity. In academia, the
majority of the operations management literature focuses on the application of lean
manufacturing in large discrete organizations (Moreno-Luzon, 1993); some scholarly
articles even started to raise concerns over the straightforward application of lean
manufacturing in processing industries (Abdulmalek and Rajgopal, 2007; Melton,
2005). The unique characteristics of products and/or processes in processing industries
(e.g. large and inflexible machinery, long setup time, small batch sizes and resource
complexity) offers a great challenge to the application of lean manufacturing
(Abdulmalek et al., 2006; Van Donk and Van Dam, 1996). On top of that, a few studies
address the issue of whether lean manufacturing is suitable for the food processing
industry (Mahalik and Nambiar, 2010; Scott et al., 2009). Some studies show that a
straightforward adoption of lean manufacturing in the food processing industries
might not bring the desired efficiency gains (Cox and Chicksand, 2005). The seemingly
ineffectual results of lean manufacturing in the food processing industry have been
codified by other studies which purposefully have chosen to ignore food companies in
their study sample (Sanchez and Pérez, 2001). Alternatively, Jain and Lyons (2009)
claim that with minor adjustments, lean manufacturing can bring considerable
benefits to the food processing industry, such as faster throughputs, reduced
inventories and increased profits ( Jain and Lyons, 2009). Moreover, the challenges of
lean manufacturing implementations multiply when it comes to resource-constraint
SMEs (Achanga et al., 2006; Sanchez and Pérez, 2001) because of the differences
between SMEs and large manufacturers with respect to structure, policymaking
procedures, resource utilizations, staff patterns, culture and patronage (Welsh and
White, 1981). The adoptability of lean manufacturing in an SME environment is still a
debated topic in the field of operations management research (Anand and Kodali, 2008;
Cocca and Alberti, 2010; Gurumurthy and Kodali, 2009; Kumar et al., 2006; Thomas
and Barton, 2006; White et al., 1999). In a nutshell, lean manufacturing implementation
 can be studied in the context of processing industry characteristics, unique features of Application of
the food sector and complicated SME characteristics. lean practices
The successes and failures of lean manufacturing and other similar initiatives are
highly context-dependent (Sousa and Voss, 2001). Kouchan et al. (1997) claimed that
the pace of change and the outcome of such initiatives differ significantly across
sectors and even across companies (Kochan et al., 1997). In this context, food SMEs are
ideal for examining the generalization made by Womack et al. (1990) regarding lean 127
manufacturing. Given this context, this study explores the degree of use of lean
manufacturing practices in food processing SMEs in Europe, in addition to perceived
benefits and potential barriers in the journey of lean manufacturing implementation.
The following section discusses the specific characteristics of the food processing
industry to explain the context in detail.
The food sector is based on a very heterogeneous group of products with different
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degrees of perishability, varied manufacturing lead times, and diverse customer

demands in different amounts at different frequencies. Despite the heterogeneous
nature of this industry as a whole, the huge variation in quality of raw materials and
their highly unpredictable supply as well as volatile customer demands make the
manufacturing sector quite unique. For example, one would expect a meat product
(e.g. sausage) – with a manufacturing lead time of one day, and a shelf life of three
days – to be controlled differently than a dried ham product with a manufacturing lead
time of ten months, and a shelf life of one month. And yet consumers expect both
products to be available in grocery stores at all times, and likewise retailers expect the
delivery lead time of these products to be identical. Another example is how rapid
product deterioration limits the manufacturer’s inventory status. Simultaneously, the
processing and packaging lead time is often much longer than the customers’
expectations for delivery lead time, which means manufacturers must supply products
from their inventories. The result is that manufacturers have to continuously balance
the risk of waste and reduced product quality with the risk of stock-outs and
dissatisfied customers. Based on literature (Van Goubergen et al., 2011; Van Wezel et al.,
2006) and the authors’ own observations, Table I has been prepared, which

Component Characteristics of the food processing industry

Product Highly perishable

Variability in quality of raw materials and supply
Industry’s use of volume and/or weights (in contrast to discrete industries)
Production process Manual and/or minimal automatic operations
High variation of composition, recipes, products and processing techniques
Variable yield and processing duration
Variable product structure
Short (i.e. between one to eight hours) throughput time for batches
Plant Long set-up times between different product types
Plants are batch processing and have two to six production lines
Processing and packaging are separated because of food quality assurance Table I.
Processing equipment has sequence-dependent cleaning time Characteristics of the
Small and single-site factories with 30 to 100 employees food processing industry
 BFJ summarizes the characteristics of the food processing industry with respect to plant,
116,1 product and production process.
Within this context, this study aims to understand the degree of the use of lean
manufacturing practices in European food SMEs. In addition, perceived benefits and
potential barriers of lean manufacturing are evaluated in European food SMEs.
Further, this study also explores the effects of control variables like plant size (Bonavia
128 and Marin, 2006; Brush and Karnani, 1996; Shah and Ward, 2003) and country of origin
(Ahmad and Schroeder, 2003; Salk and Brannen, 2000). This study begins by reviewing
previous studies on lean manufacturing practices focusing on the food processing
industry, especially SMEs, in order to identify gaps and justify the need of this study.

Literature on lean manufacturing in food SMEs context

The available literature debates the applicability and outcomes of lean manufacturing
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practices in food processing SMEs. Zokaei and Simons (2006), for example, conducted
case studies in nine red meat chains in the UK and identified a number of waste areas
in the value chain concerning mortality, farm giveaway, cleaning, cutting room,
machine effectiveness and storage waste. The findings shows that by applying two
lean concepts – takt time and standard operations – each actor in the chain could save
2 to 3 percent of their costs. However, the limitation of their study is that only two lean
manufacturing techniques were considered, which narrowed the scope and outcomes
of lean manufacturing. Similarly, Lehtinen and Torkko (2005) discussed how the lean
technique value stream mapping could be applied to a Finnish food manufacturing
company. The value stream mapping technique helped the food company to analyze
and eliminate unnecessary inventories and other forms of waste along the supply
chain. This case study showed that the food company reduced costs and increased
customer satisfaction. In another research project, He and Hayya (2002) examined the
impact of just-in-time production on food quality through an empirical study by
surveying 48 US food companies. The result demonstrated that JIT has a positive
impact on food quality. Additionally, employee involvement in problem solving, and
just-in-time delivery were found to be the most used practices in the food companies.
Regression analysis suggested that material management has a definite effect on food
quality. Likewise, Upadhye et al. (2010) conducted a case study in a medium-sized
biscuit manufacturing company in the framework of lean manufacturing. The result of
the study demonstrated that lean techniques such as 5S, kaizen, quick changeover, and
TPM can be effectively used to improve equipment availability, reduce wastage of
material and improve quality. The biggest obstacle that was found in the lean journey
was the resistance to change from both employees as well as suppliers. The study also
emphasized that the success of lean implementation rested on commitment from top
management, and training, awareness and involvement on employees’ parts. A recent
study by Engelund et al. (2009) discussed the application of lean manufacturing to
large-scale food production in a Danish hospital. It was shown that the lean technique
– value stream mapping, kaizen and 5S – helped in improving production efficiency,
product quality, and working environment. The study also pointed out that the
just-in-time and pull production failed to produce the desired results. In addition, the
study reported that the successful application of lean in food production depends on
the food safety and quality requirement, and work organization in the surrounding
systems. Similarly, Scott et al. (2009) conducted a quantitative survey of 46 food SMEs
 to analyze the continuous improvement programs and the motivational factors among Application of
the Canadian food companies. They found that ten out of 46 companies implemented lean practices
lean manufacturing. The survey result revealed some interesting findings, e.g. that
companies implementing lean or similar programs have fewer product recalls in
comparison to the ones who do not have such programs. However, half of the
respondents were not sure if these improvement programs had resulted in cost savings.
Another result was that quality and safety benefits were the biggest motivational 129
factors for the implementation of lean manufacturing and similar programs within
Canadian food SMEs. On the contrary, a case study that was carried out by Cox and
Chicksand (2005) in the red-meat supply chain in UK revealed that the adoption of lean
practices is not easy for all internal and external participants in the food chain. Cox and
Chicksand pointed out that lean adoption resulted in a high dependency on buyers and
a declining profitability for the majority of the stakeholders in the chain. They
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recommended not extending lean beyond the boundaries of the firm and provided a
note of caution for researchers and practitioners to understand the context and the
industry before replicating the lean principle. Yet another study by Taylor (1996)
provided an analysis of responses by 682 executives across sectors regarding sectoral
differences in total quality management (TQM) implementation. The study showed a
significant difference in the level of TQM activity among sectors, especially with
respect to organizational performance. Further, the result revealed that in comparison
to other sectors the food and drink sector undertook fewer initiatives to improve
organizational performance. In the same note, Kumar and Antony (2008) conducted a
survey of 64 SMEs in the UK (seven among them are food SMEs) to compare different
quality management practices. Their study found that 17 out of 64 SMEs (26.5 percent)
adopted lean manufacturing in their organization and that top management
involvement, communication, cultural change and training were the critical success
factors for such quality improvement initiatives. However, the number of food SMEs
included in the sample was not mentioned. The study also identified several barriers of
quality management practices like lean manufacturing, including availability of
resources, lack of knowledge, lack of training, internal resistance and poor employee
participation. The previous literature on lean manufacturing in the food processing
industry can be summarized as follows: Research on the applicability of lean
manufacturing in the food processing industry in general and SMEs in particular is
still evolving. There is a limited body of literature due to recent developments in the
implementation or testing of lean manufacturing practices in food companies:
.
The applicability and results of lean manufacturing in the food processing
industry is still a debatable topic and academia is yet to reach any consensus.
.
The majority of available studies are case studies and very few studies are based
on empirical survey. The reason being cited is the limited response rate from
food SMEs.
.
Most of the studies are based on the applicability of lean tools and techniques in
food SMEs and ignored the holistic, broad lean manufacturing principles.

Lean is much more than mere tools and techniques, it is a philosophy – a way of life for
companies to continuously strive for perfection (Hines et al., 2004). This study is an
attempt to address this myopic view of lean in the context of European food SMEs. Our
 BFJ study adopted a holistic conceptual model of lean manufacturing proposed by Shah
116,1 and Ward (2007) which captures both internal (process) and external (supplier,
customer) practices. Shah and Ward identified ten elements of lean manufacturing with
respect to supplier involvement, customer involvement and the internally related
issues of the company (Shah and Ward, 2007):
(1) involved customer;
130 (2) supplier feedback;
(3) just-in-time delivery;
(4) developing suppliers;
(5) pull;
(6) flow;
(7) low set up;
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(8) controlled processes;

(9) productive maintenance; and
(10) involved employees.

There are two concrete reasons for using the model by Shah and Ward (2007) in this
study. First, this holistic model includes both people and process elements of lean
manufacturing. Second, both internal and external factors were included in the model.
The past research had limited focus on both the people and process aspects of lean
implementation.

Research design and methodology

This study was carried out within the scope of the European Union funded project
“Innovative Management System for the Food SMEs” (IMSFood) which started in 2010
and involved Belgium, Germany and Hungary. The selected sectors in this study are
meat, chocolate, confectionary, bakery, and packaged vegetables. A survey was
conducted using a structured questionnaire to assess lean manufacturing practices in
use and their perceived benefits and potential barriers. The selection of a survey-based
research strategy seemed logical for conducting a confirmatory or explanatory study
that uses well-defined concepts and models (Handfield and Melnyk, 1998). To ensure
validity of the survey instrument, we have adopted the questions from previous
recognized research such as Achanga et al. (2006) Kumar and Antony (2008); and Shah
and Ward (2007). We further validated the questions by asking two operations
managers, two consultants and an academic to complete the questionnaire. The
questionnaire was revised based on their suggestions and feedback and used for the
survey. There were three sections in the questionnaire. The first section covered the
company’s profile. The second section was about the company’s familiarly with, and
use of, lean manufacturing practices. The third section was used to extract information
on perceived benefits and potential barriers to implementing lean manufacturing
practices. Three major food associations were contacted to obtain the addresses of the
food companies. Only SMEs according to the definition of the European Commission –
those with fewer than 250 employees, a maximum of 50 million euro annual turnover
and a maximum of 43 million euro annual balance-sheet total (Commission, 2003) –
 were considered for the study. The study classified SMEs based on their number of Application of
employees – micro (ten or fewer employees), small (11 to 50 employees) and medium lean practices
(51 to 250 employees). The questionnaire was sent out to 230 SMEs operating in the
aforementioned three countries to participate in the study. A total of 35 SME
representatives, CEOs and operation managers responded with a participation rate of
15.2 percent. This sample size is comparable to those of previous surveys carried out in
the quality management field, e.g. (Little and McKinna, 2005) – 12 percent, (Kumar and 131
Antony, 2008) – 12.8 percent (64 observations), (Scott et al., 2009) – 11 percent
(48 observations), (Fotopoulos et al., 2011) – 31 observations. The companies were
asked to indicate their agreement or disagreement with statements regarding the
implementation of lean practices in their plant on a seven point likert scale
(1 ¼ strongly disagree to 7 ¼ strongly agree). The empirical validation of the data was
carried out by using Cronbach alpha for both individual sections as well as the overall
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data (Billinton et al., 2002). The Cronbach alpha for each of the factors ranged between
0.72 and 0.89, indicating internal consistency of the responses. The data enabled us to
answer the following research questions in the European food SMEs context:
RQ1. What is the degree of use of lean manufacturing practices among European
food SMEs?
RQ2. Are there significant differences in the degree of implementation of lean
manufacturing practices?
RQ3. What are the perceived benefits of lean manufacturing practices among
European food SMEs?
RQ4. What are the potential barriers of implementation of lean manufacturing
practices?
Both descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were conducted to check the
association between control variables (plant size, country of origin) and the
aforementioned research questions. This study used descriptive statistics and a
non-parametric test for analyzing the data, considering that the assumption of normal
distribution of the variables could not be guaranteed. The following section explains
the analysis and implication of the results.

Results
Out of the 35 food-processing SMEs that participated in the study, 17 are from
Belgium, 10 from Hungary and 8 from Germany. There are 18 SMEs involved in meat,
ten in confectionary, three in chocolate and four in other food productions. The SMEs
in the sample have diverse product families (between 45 to 370) produced and
distributed in small quantities in the European market. Most firms utilized a
continuous flow manufacturing process.
To answer the first research question, descriptive statistics for the statements
regarding the use of lean manufacturing practices are presented in Table II.
European food SMEs have a relatively high overall score (mean score 4,83) on use of
lean manufacturing practices. However, a deeper look at the results shows a difference
in the level of use of the various lean manufacturing practices. We found that lean
practices related to customers, suppliers and total productive maintenance are more
 BFJ
Section Code Lean practices Mean SD
116,1
Customer related Cus1 We frequently are in close contact with our
customers 5.80 1.13
Cus2 Our customers give us feedback on quality and
delivery performance 5.83 0.95
132 Cus3 We regularly conduct customer satisfaction
surveys 4.91 1.12

Supplier related Sup1 We frequently are in close contact with our

suppliers 4.20 2.13
Sup2 Our key suppliers deliver to plant on just-in-time
basis 4.97 1.12
Sup3 We take active steps to reduce the number of
suppliers in each category 4.71 1.76
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Pull Pull1 We use the pull production system 4.48 1.15

Pull2 We use kanban, squares, or containers of signals
for production control 4.77 1.00
Pull3 Production at station is pulled by the current
demand of the next station 4.69 0.83

Flow Flow1 Products are classified into groups with similar

processing requirements 4.86 1.03
Flow2 Products are classified into groups with similar
routing requirements 4.91 0.85
Flow3 Product families determine our factory layout 4.80 1.16

Set up Set1 We are working to lower set up times in our plant 4.89 1.16
Set2 We monitor our production-cycle time to respond
quickly to customer requests 4.66 1.00
Set3 Our employees practice setups to reduce required
time 4.97 1.15

SPC Spc1 Our processes on the shop floor are currently

under statistical process control 4.69 1.18
Spc2 We extensively use statistical techniques to
identify process variation 3.46 2.03
Spc3 We use charts to show defect rates on the shop-
floor 4.00 1.43

Employee involvement Emp1 Shop-floor employees undergo cross-functional

training 4.89 1.62
Emp2 Shop-floor employees are crucial to problem-
solving teams 4.97 1.38
Emp3 Shop-floor employees lead product/process
improvement efforts 4.94 1.26

Total productive Tpm1 We have a preventive maintenance plan in our

Table II. maintenance firm 5.49 1.22
Use of lean Tpm2 We dedicate a time every day to plan equipment
manufacturing practices maintenance related activities 4.86 1.24
among European food Tpm3 We regularly post equipment maintenance
SMEs records on the shop-floor 5.29 1.47
 frequently implemented in food SMEs in Europe. However, there is a low degree of use Application of
of some lean practices related to flow, pull, set up, and employee involvement. The lean practices
result indicates a very low level of statistical process control in the food SMEs.
To answer the second research question, Friedman’s non-parametric test was
carried out to validate the observed differences between the different elements of lean
manufacturing practices. Both the tests help to evaluate the ranked score of variables
and check if the response varied or was consistent across the variables listed in 133
Table II. The possible reason of such variation might be that some lean manufacturing
practices are relatively easy to use by the food SMEs. The result suggests that there are
significant differences in the level of use of the various lean manufacturing practices.
Additionally, the Wilcoxon test was conducted to compare the use of different lean
practices. Here, the result shows that there is no significant difference between lean
manufacturing practices related to employee involvement, customer and total
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productive maintenance. The degree of use of SPC and Pull related practices are
significantly different from total productive maintenance and customer involvement.
The study also conducted inferential statistical analysis to check the association
between control variables (plant size and country of origin) and the use of lean
manufacturing practice in food SMEs. There is a statistically significant difference in
the use of lean manufacturing practices among small, medium and micro sized
companies (x2 ¼ 4.829, df ¼ 2, p ¼ 0.009) at a 5 percent significance level in the
findings. The Kruskall-Wallis test result shows that the biggest difference between
micro and medium-sized companies is employee involvement. It was found that the
micro-sized companies involve their employees more than the medium-sized
companies. In the case of set-up reduction, small companies have statistically
significant differences in usage rates compared to medium-sized companies. Similarly,
the use of pull practices is less evident in micro-sized companies. As for the other lean
practices, the differences were not clear. Further, the study investigated the deviations
with respect to country of origin and found that the use of lean manufacturing
practices decisively varies across countries (x2 ¼ 8.945, df ¼ 2 p ¼ 0.011). The level of
use of lean manufacturing practices in German and Hungarian companies are higher in
comparison to Belgian companies.

Perceived benefits
To answer RQ3 the companies were asked to provide a score on a Likert scale of 1 to 7
(1 ¼ strongly disagree to 7 ¼ strongly agree) about the perceived benefits of lean
manufacturing practices implementation. The benefits from lean manufacturing
include factors such as scrap rate reduction, cycle time reduction, delivery time
reduction, productivity increase, cost reduction, profitability increase, improved sales,
customer complaints reduction and employee complaints reduction, improved product
quality (Achanga et al., 2006; He and Hayya, 2002). Table III provides the descriptive
statistics on benefits of the lean manufacturing implementation among European food
SMEs. The results show that the most important benefits of lean manufacturing
practices are: reduced costs of production, increased profitability, increased
productivity and reduced customer complaints.
The study also conducted inferential statistical analysis to check the association
between control variables (size of firm and country of origin) and the perceived benefits
of lean manufacturing practice in food SMEs. It is found that that there is no
 BFJ
No. Benefits Mean SD
116,1
1 We reduced our scrap rate 4.58 1.91
2 We reduced our cycle time 4.56 1.67
3 We reduced our delivery lead time 4.40 1.46
4 Our productivity increased 4.97 1.85
134 5 We reduced our costs of production 5.63 1.44
6 Our profitability increased 5.09 1.85
7 Our sales improved 4.60 1.74
Table III. 8 Customer complaints reduced 4.97 1.65
Benefits of lean 9 Employee complaints reduced 4.51 1.58
manufacturing practices 10 Improved product quality 4.77 1.31

statistically significant difference of the advantages of lean manufacturing practices

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among small, medium and micro-sized companies (x2 ¼ 9.084, df ¼ 2 p ¼ 0.071) at a

5 percent significance level. However, the pair-by-pair comparison shows that
small-sized companies profit more than the micro-sized companies with respect to cost
reduction and increased productivity. There is a significant decrease of customer
complaints in the medium-sized companies as compared to other two groups. Further,
the study investigated the differences with respect to country of origin and found that
the benefit of lean manufacturing practices varies a lot across countries (x2 ¼ 79.112,
df ¼ 2 p ¼ 0.000). The pairwise test shows that in comparison to German and Belgium
companies, Hungarian companies were more successful in reducing cost of production
through lean manufacturing practices. However, German companies benefited from
reduced customer complaints.

Potential barriers
One of the important objectives of the study is to identify the key barriers to lean
manufacturing implementation in food SMEs. The barriers to lean manufacturing were
enumerated from the general operations management literature and specific
characteristics related to the food processing industry (Achanga et al., 2006; Radnor
and Walley, 2008; Van Wezel et al., 2006). Table IV provides descriptive statistics of the
barriers to the lean manufacturing implementation. The results illustrate that the
major barriers to the implementation of lean manufacturing practices are: sequential
cleaning time, long set-up time between product types, and high perishability of the
products. Most of the potent barriers indicated by the respondents are specific to the
nature of food processing industry. Other factors such as a lack of knowledge,
availability of resources and poor employee participation are also found to be
important barriers to lean manufacturing implementation.
The study also conducted an inferential statistical analysis to check the association
between control variables (size of firm and country of origin) and the perceived barriers
to lean manufacturing practice in food SMEs. There is a statistically significant
difference in barriers to lean manufacturing practices among small, medium and
micro-sized companies (x2 ¼ 1.168, df ¼ 2 p ¼ 0.500) at a 5 percent significance level.
Similarly, barriers to lean manufacturing practices vary significantly across countries
(x2 ¼ 4.781, df ¼ 2 p ¼ 0.092) at a 5 percent significance level. The majority of the
Belgian companies indicated that the quality assurance compliance (separation of
 Application of
No Barriers Mean SD
lean practices
1 Lack of top management commitment 4.57 1.36
2 Inadequate process control techniques 5.20 1.13
3 Availability of resources 5.40 1.14
4 Poor employee participation 5.49 1.20
5 Poor project selection 4.69 2.55 135
6 Lack of training 5.06 2.29
7 Lack of knowledge 5.54 1.50
8 Poor supplier involvement 5.09 1.99
9 Internal resistance 4.26 1.69
10 Poor delegation of authority 4.11 1.45
11 Highly perishable product 5.00 1.06
12 Variability in raw materials quality and supply 5.06 1.37
13 High variation of composition, recipes, products and
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processing techniques 5.03 1.04

14 Variable yield and processing duration 4.71 1.51
15 Variable product structure 4.91 1.38
16 Short (i.e. between one to eight hours) throughput
time for batches 4.60 1.52
17 Long set-up times between different product types 5.03 1.18
18 Processing and packaging are separated because of
food quality assurance 4.85 1.14
19 Processing equipment has sequence dependent Table IV.
cleaning time 4.94 1.21 Barriers of lean
20 Small and single site factories with 30 to 100 manufacturing in food
employees 4.74 1.34 SMEs

processing and packaging section) is an important barrier to lean implementation

because it obstructs the production flow and causes extra movement by the operators.
The reason might be that the majority of the Belgian companies are meat producers
and it is mandatory for meat producers to have a clear separation between processing
and packaging.

Discussion
It is important to note that the findings of the study are analyzed and discussed in the
context of European food processing SMEs. The first results illustrate that the use of
some lean manufacturing practices are more prevalent in European food SMEs than
others. The characteristics of the food product and production process are found to be
the major barriers of lean manufacturing practice implementation. Some lean
manufacturing practices related to pull and flow are found difficult to implement by
the food companies. The implementation of kanban and production at station is pulled
by the current demand of the next station and are less used by the food SMEs. This
might be attributed to the highly unpredictable demand in the food sector (Willaiams
et al., 1992). For instance, the demand for sausages can vary depending on the weather
conditions. On a sunny afternoon there is a greater demand for sausages in comparison
to a rainy afternoon. Similarly, it is difficult to implement cellular manufacturing and
optimal layout for food processing SMEs as most of them have a traditional production
process. Any major changes in the layout or plant structure require big investments
 BFJ from the food companies. It is important to note that these companies are small and
116,1 medium-sized enterprises and constantly struggling for resources for such big
investments (Achanga et al., 2006). Likewise, set up reduction is also a considerably
little used lean manufacturing practice in food processing SMEs due to complicated
production processes and multiple raw materials, recipes and composition. It is
understandable that due to the inherent characteristics of the sector some lean
136 manufacturing practices are difficult for the food processing SMEs to implement.
Unexpectedly, one key basic lean practice, supplier involvement, was found to be less
prevalent among the food processing SMEs.
Some lean manufacturing practices such as total productive maintenance, employee
involvement and customer involvement are widely used among the European food
SMEs in comparison to other lean practices. The findings on the use of total productive
maintenance by SMEs is not in line with the literature, which states that the uptake of
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TPM is very slow in SMEs (Ahmed et al., 2004). Besides the extent of the use of lean
manufacturing practices, this study also investigated the claims of past studies that
lean practice implementation is greater in bigger companies than in the small ones.
This study is aligned with the literature that the size of the company matters with
respect to the lean manufacturing practice implementation (Hobbs, 2004; Sanchez and
Pérez, 2001). It also supports the claim that the country of origin is a factor to consider
with respect to lean manufacturing practice implementation (Baily et al., 1995; Bloom
and Van Reenen, 2006; Cagliano et al., 2001).
A large body of literature in both the food and non-food sector (Achanga et al., 2006;
Bhasin and Burcher, 2006; Detty and Yingling, 2000; Engelund et al., 2009; Fullerton
and Wempe, 2009; Lehtinen and Torkko, 2005; Shah and Ward, 2003; Sohal, 1996;
Zokaei and Simons, 2006) provides empirical evidence suggesting multiple benefits
from lean manufacturing, such as cost reduction, increase in profitability, and
improved customer satisfaction with respect to quality and delivery. The result of this
study also illustrates that food-processing SMEs benefit from implementing lean
manufacturing practices, particularly regarding reducing cost, improving profitability,
increasing productivity and reducing customer complains. The full benefits of lean
manufacturing are not realized by the food SMEs because of their early stage of
adoption (Bhasin, 2008).
One of the key objectives of this study has been to investigate the important barriers
to the implementation of lean manufacturing practices. It is evident from the results
that the special characteristics of the food processing industry are perceived to be the
major barriers to lean manufacturing implementation in food-processing SMEs. For
instance, adequate temperature control is a vital factor for food products which contain
cream, fruits or meat. Failure to maintain the required temperature may cause a growth
of micro-organisms, which can result in safety problems, product failures and customer
complaints. The operators and planners mostly focus on food safety issues while lean
practices are ignored. Further, a highly unstable demand leads to an inadequate
planning of production and distribution, which results in overproduction, loss of
materials and unavailable products. One of the important barriers of lean
manufacturing practices is the quality assurance requirement that the processing
and packaging sections have to be separated by an inaccessible wall. This mandatory
requirement is against the lean principle, as the flow is obstructed and the operator has
to walk a long way to reach the next production station. Similarly, continuous and
 periodical cleaning is a very important step in the food production process. The Application of
cleaning process lengthens the changeover time and makes it difficult for the food lean practices
processors to implement set up reduction.

Limitation
Small sample size or low response rate is a limitation of this study. The reason of the
low response rate might be attributed to the specific characteristics of the food sector 137
and size of the companies. As the lean manufacturing practice deployment in food
processing SMEs is generally low the potential respondents (managers in food SMEs)
may not be aware of different lean manufacturing concepts. This also may be the
reason why (Mahalik, 2010) emphasized the introduction of lean manufacturing in the
food sector in his editorial remark in the “Trends in Food Science & Technology”
journal. In addition, one of the barriers to apply an advanced statistical test is the fact
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that we have a small sample size. Similar studies concerning quality management in
food SMEs such as Scott et al. (2009), Fotopoulos et al. (2011) and Kumar and Antony
(2008) also used descriptive statistics because of the small sample size. Above all, this
study is a first attempt to diagnose the status of lean manufacturing practices among
European food processing SMEs and will pave the way for more research on this topic
in the future.

Conclusion
The results of this study support the idea that lean manufacturing practices help food
processing SMEs to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs. However,
sector-specific barriers make it difficult for food processing companies to fully
implement lean manufacturing practices and realize desired results. The success of
lean manufacturing practices critically depends on employee participation, proper
training and the commitment from top management. It is also important to note the
influence of control variables (such as size of the company and the country of origin) in
the use of and benefits from lean manufacturing practices. This paper has practical
implications for managers as it provides an overview of potential barriers to lean
manufacturing in food processing SMEs. One of the limitations of this study is that it
only covers a small sample of food companies in Europe. However, this study offers a
starting point for more empirical research in this area, which is necessary considering
the importance of the food sector in the coming years. Future research would focus on a
broader range of food companies across Europe to validate the findings.

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 About the authors Application of
Manoj Kumar Dora is a Ford Foundation Fellow. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics from
Vanderbilt University, USA. He was involved in several research projects at the World Bank, lean practices
UNCTAD and Maastricht University. Currently, he is researching on operational efficiency
among food SMEs in Europe at Ghent University, Belgium. Manoj Dora is the corresponding
author and can be contacted at: manojkumar.dora@ugent.be
Dirk Van Goubergen, PhD, is the Founder and President of P&M Productivity Improvement
which specializes in training/education and in-company projects for productivity improvement 141
of operational and manufacturing processes, as well as administrative and supporting processes.
Dirk earned his PhD at Ghent University where he also serves as a Professor in the Department
of Industrial Management. Currently, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for
Industrial Engineers – Process Division.
Maneesh Kumar is a Lecturer of Service Operations and Lean Six Sigma Trainer at Cardiff
Business School. Maneesh’s research and publications are in the area of Lean Six Sigma (LSS),
agility, and sustainable supply chain management, for both public and private sectors. His
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research outputs include an edited book, five edited conference proceedings, two book chapters,
21 peer reviewed journal publications, 30 conference papers, and six white papers.
Adrienn Molnar has been a PhD candidate at the Department of Agricultural Economics
within the Faculty of Bioengineering of Ghent University since 2005. She has a Master’s degree
in agricultural economics. Her PhD research focuses on chain performance measurement, chain
governance structures, chain strategies and chain relationships.
Xavier Gellynck is Professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics within the Faculty
of Bioengineering of Ghent University. Xavier Gellynck was promoted in the Applied Economic
Sciences on the theme of the changing environment and competitiveness in the food industry. His
research interest includes chain management and agro-food marketing, focusing on examining
the influence of the dynamic environment in which firms operate on the company,
business-to-business and chain results.

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