The Effect of Continuous Improvement on Waste Elimination for Implementing Lean Manufacturing in the Apparel Industry of Bangladesh

Abstract

Lean Manufacturing (LM) is an advanced manufacturing philosophy used for the improvement of organizational performance in a competitive business environment. The primary objective of lean manufacturing is to eliminate the waste (non-value added activities) from the production processes. Lean manufacturing consists of several lean parameters such as top management commitment, people management, process management, just-in-time production, total quality management, total productive maintenance and continuous improvement. The impacts of each of the lean parameters on the organizational performance need to be verified. This paper addresses the effect of continuous improvement as a lean parameter on the waste elimination in the apparel industry of Bangladesh.