Soft lean practices for successful lean production system implementation in malaysia automotive smes: A proposed framework

Challenging and competitive business environment has prompted the automotive industry to restructure its manufacturing practices. nowadays,lean manufacturing (lm) has been widely implemented in the automotive industry. lm supported the manufacturing companies,particularly automotive manufacturers in becoming world class manufacturers through various lean practices. however,lean implementation faced various obstacles such as the lack of management commitment and support,the absence of organizational communication,employees’ attitude and many more. it is also indicated that lean implementation success factors are not merely due to technical practices but also with the integration of non-technical aspects such as human-related practices. this paper aims to investigate the soft lean practices that are necessary for the successful implementation of the lean production system (lps) in the malaysian automotive smes. the result of this paper will provide a detailed review of soft lean practices within the lm literature that should be considered by the organizations when implementing lean. a framework was also developed through an extensive review of soft lean literature. © 2015 penerbit utm press. all rights reserved.