A Hybrid Structural Interaction Matrix Approach to Prioritise Process Wastes Generated in a Manufacturing Organisation

Abstract The productivity of a manufacturing organisation is limited by myriads of process wastes generated in this organisation. In light of this, the aim of this study is to prioritise various process wastes generated in a manufacturing organisation. In order to achieve this, on the one hand, a Hybrid Structural Interaction Matrix (HSIM), which is premised on the theory of subordination via systems thinking was deployed to carry out the process wastes pairwise ranking and weighting analysis. On the other hand, the Pareto Chart, was thereafter deployed to ascertain the vital few process wastes contributing to productivity loss experienced in a manufacturing organisation. A case study of the process wastes generated in an Electronic-Product Manufacturing organisation was used to validate the process wastes prioritisation model developed in this study. The result of the HSIM prioritisation analysis revealed that the intensity rating scores of the process wastes; overproduction, excess inventory, defect, motion, transport, waiting and over-processing limiting the productivity of an organisation are 7.53, 4.59, 6.06, 1.65, 3.12, 0.18 and 9 respectively. The result of the validation exercise revealed that transport, excess inventory and defects are the core process wastes that limit the productivity of an Electronic-Product Manufacturing organisation considered in this study. With this approach, operations managers of a manufacturing organisation would obviously reduce errors in the rating of process wastes, which is vital towards achieving continuous productivity improvement and sustainable manufacturing.