Application of Lean Tools and Techniques in an SME organisation Assessment

Part 2. Your research

This section asks you to provide information about your research question, objectives, aim, potential contributions, and alignment with the project requirements of your degree. These are significant to explaining the design of your research and relate to the Dissertation Marking Criteria.

You may copy information from your Project Outline to complete this section. Or your responses to these questions may have changed following supervisor feedback after your submission of the Project Outline.

Please note that you may continue to change or modify your research topic after you submit this Research Methods Outline, though changes and modifications must be made with your supervisor's guidance. Changing data collection methods may require additional ethical approval, so make sure to discuss any changes with your supervisor prior to data collection. 

The University is committed to promoting a quality research culture by ensuring high standards of research integrity are followed. This means that no research can take place until all of the required approvals and authorizations have been given from the appropriate institutions. You can only start data collection after your ethical approval has been granted.

What is your one research question? ,/p>

How can Lean techniques be used to improve productivity in engineering SME organizations.

What are your research objectives? Please state 4-5 objectives.

1. Assess the Current State: Evaluate the existing manufacturing processes, workflow, and systems within the organization to identify areas of inefficiency, waste, and potential improvement opportunities. Also evaluating the current layout of the plant and the positions of the tools and the material needed for making the castings will be observed.
2. Identify Lean Principles and Practices: Identify and understand the key principles and practices of Lean manufacturing, for example value stream mapping, just-in-time production, continuous improvement, and waste reduction.
3. Making improvements to the current process: After assessing the current production process and analyzing the data, finding suitable solutions to improve the production process with the aim of reducing non-value-added activities improve productivity and maximizing efficiency.
4. Implementing & analyzing the improved solution: After analyzing the data and providing suggestions to improve the production process, the research will implement the solutions and the relevant tools and techniques and compare it to the first production to check if it gives any improvements and help to achieve the research goals of minimizing wastes and improving productivity and analyzing them.
5. Monitor the implemented solutions: After implementing the solutions, the research will monitor the production process to check if every solution implemented is followed and the see if any more improvements can be made and then repeat the process of implementing improvements and analyse it again.

What is your research aim? 

The main aim of this research is to reduce non-value added activities. This will be done by analyzing the current production process and the layout of the factory with the view of improving the productivity of the production process. After analyzing the process, then suitable solutions will be provided to improve the production using relevant lean tools and techniques and then comparing it to the old production process to look at the benefits the lean tools and techniques will provide by monitoring it.

What are the potential contributions of your research?

 For example, how will your project make a contribution to practice (e.g. industry, organization) and/or knowledge (e.g. literature gap)? 

The research will help learn how to use lean techniques and see how it can be applied to an engineering SME organization and whether it will be successful in organizations with limited resources and skilled operators. The research will observe what benefits it can give in such organizations and how much difference it can make to such SME organizations

Please explain how your project meets your course requirements. If you are unsure whether your project meets the project requirements of your course, please contact your supervisor and Course Leader.

Lean is a technique which helps in improving productivity and removing non value added activities in operations. By researching, analyzing and applying the relevant tools and techniques of lean, it will help in understanding how engineering organizations can keep thriving in a very competitive market by reducing wastes and improving productivity to keep their customers happy. So by applying the lean tools and techniques in an engineering SME and improving its operations it will help meet the requirements of the degree

Part 3. Research Methods

This section asks you to provide information about the research methods you intend to use to complete your research project. This is significant to supplement the responses you provide on submission of the Ethics Form to ensure you are conducting research that is ethically appropriate and feasible. 

You may copy information from your Project Outline to complete this section. Or your responses to these questions may have changed following supervisor feedback after your submission of the Project Outline. Please note that you may continue to change or modify your research methods after you submit this Research Methods Outline, though changes and modifications must be made with your supervisor's guidance. Changing data collection methods may require additional ethical approval, so make sure to discuss any changes with your supervisor prior to data collection.

Taught postgraduate students enrolled on a full-time course are not permitted to travel overseas for data collection. All fieldwork and other investigations relating to a non-UK matter, issue or phenomena must be undertaken virtually whilst the student is physically resident in the UK. 

What type of data will you be using?

• Both Primary and Secondary Data (3)

What is your justification for your data choice?

As the research is being conducted on an organization which is based outside of the UK, I will have to get the data by someone in the organization. Primary type of data will be used because this data has not been collected before in the organization where the research is being taken place and primary data will help as the latest data is being collected for the production process in the organization and will help in assessing the current state of the production process. Primary data will help design questionnaires, surveys, interviews, or experiments that target the specific aspects of the process.

Regarding secondary data, it will be used so as to check about some of the Government rules and regulations to check if the suggestions provided to improve the production process follow all the rules and regulations if any. Also data from published sources from books, journals, relevant websites, reports, etc. for literature review and background information.

Display This Question:

If What type of data will you be using? = Primary Data

Do you have access to the research field in which you will collect data for your project?

• No

Display This Question:

If What type of data will you be using? = Primary Data
Or What type of data will you be using? = Both Primary and Secondary Data

Display This Question:

If What type of data will you be using? = Secondary Data
Or What type of data will you be using? = Both Primary and Secondary Data

To supplement your Ethics Form where you summarized your intended methods on data collection (see 14D), please provide a summary of how you will conduct data analysis. Please note your response must be at least 400 characters. Focus your answer on describing how you will analyse your data, where will you store your data securely, and how you will protect confidentiality and privacy of participants, and any relevant software/tools you may use for data analysis. To help you answer this question, you can review guidance on data analysis in SPA: https://moodle.warwick.ac.uk/mod/book/view.php?id=1958082

The research is being done at a manufacturing unit in India. The data will be collected by some employees and will be sent to me. The data collected will be of the production of aluminium casting right from the first to the last stage of producing the desired casting. Timing of each of the processes will be taken and this will be done for one particular type of casting. The intended sample size will be around 20-35 and the average will be taken. Also, the position and places of all the tools and materials needed in the manufacturing process will also be noted so as to come up with a solution for the lean manufacturing technique. After the secondary data has been collected, analysis of the data will be done using suitable techniques such as engineering design method and statistics. For primary data, the data will be collected from someone in the organization and will be sent to me. After this for analyzing the data same suitable techniques will be used.

Part 3. Ethical considerations

This section asks you to provide information about the ethical risks and how these will mitigated/avoided to complete your research project. This is significant to supplement the responses you provide on submission of the Ethics Form to demonstrate critical awareness in your research design that aligns with the guidance, practices, processes, and regulations of WMG and the University of Warwick.

How will you mitigate or avoid ethical risks in your research?

Note this question is important to answer as you must "consider risks in carrying out the project appropriately, applying suitable mitigations" in your dissertation. 

To avoid ethical risks respecting the organization's policies and rules will be followed. Asking the organization for consent if anything has to be published and respecting privacy of the employees. Below are some steps to avoid ethical risks:

1. Obtain Ethical Approval: Seek ethical approval from the relevant ethics committee. This will ensure that the research meets ethical standards and guidelines set.
2. Informed Consent: Obtain informed consent from participants before involving them in your study. Provide clear and understandable information about the research purpose, procedures, risks, benefits, confidentiality, and the right to withdraw at any time. Participants should voluntarily agree to participate without any coercion or deception.
3. Anonymity and Confidentiality: Safeguard the privacy and confidentiality of research participants. Use anonymisation techniques to protect participants' identities, assign codes or pseudonyms instead of using real names, and ensure that data is securely stored and accessible only to authorised individuals.
4. Data Protection and Security: Take measures to protect the security and integrity of the data you collect. Use secure data storage methods, encryption if necessary, and restrict access to data to authorized personnel only. Follow data protection regulations and guidelines applicable in your jurisdiction.
5. Continuous Ethical Reflection: Regularly reflect on the ethical implications of your research throughout the dissertation process. Consider the potential impact of your study on participants, society, and the wider research community. Seek guidance or consult with your academic supervisor or ethics committee if ethical dilemmas arise.

Part 4. Professional development

This section asks you to reflect on your development as you complete your research project. This is important since the research project is a key opportunity to develop your employ ability whilst studying at WMG. 

Select the Warwick Core Skills that you have been working to improve whilst completing your research project.

• Communication
• Critical thinking
• Information literacy
• Organizational awareness
• Problem solving

Using the STAR technique, provide one example of a Warwick Core Skill that you have developed so far whilst completing your research project. Please note your response must be at least 400 characters.

Situation: During the planning stage of my dissertation, I had to choose a research methodology that would best address my research question.

Task: The task was to critically analyse different research methodologies, considering their strengths, weaknesses, and suitability for my specific research context.

Action: I conducted an extensive literature review on various research methodologies commonly used in my field. I gathered information on qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, examining their theoretical foundations, data collection techniques, and analytical methods. I critically evaluated the advantages and limitations of each approach, considering factors such as feasibility, time constraints, and the nature of my research question.

Result: Through this critical analysis, I selected a secondary mixed methods approach for my research, which would allow me to collect both quantitative and qualitative data to gain a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon under study. I justified my choice by considering the strengths of each method and how they complemented each other, leading to a more robust and nuanced analysis of the research topic.

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