6.2 Descriptive Data Analysis This section discusses the general demographic descriptions, demographic features of the respondents, on the basis of the implementation of the four building block shop floor management tools, the two improvement practices and the improvement outcomes.6.2.
1 Demographic descriptionTable 6.8 shows the sample distribution of survey participants’ qualifications. 77.2%, of the participants reported that they did not attend university; followed by 21.4 % who held a bachelor degree; and a small 1.4% had a masters degree or above.
All employees, irrespective of their qualifications were encouraged to contribute in individual improvement suggestions scheme and also to participate in group improvement activities.Qualification Frequency Percentage (%)Secondary/college or below 407 77Bachelor Degree 113 38.3Masters Degree or above 7 1.3Total 527 100Table 6.8 Sample distribution on participants’ qualificationIn the context of the position held in the company, Table 6.9 indicates that the line supervisor to shop floor worker was 1:10.2 (54 line supervisors to 446 shop floor operators).
Thus, there was no considerable difference between the proportions of respondents in the ratio of line supervisors to shop floor operators and the data obtained from the joint ventures official documents for all employees (about 1:8). Additionally, Table 6.9 also exhibits that majority of the respondents (77%) were shop floor operatives, 12.9% were line supervisors and 3.2% managers.
It obviously marks that Improvement activities were not dominated by the top and middle management. This is in consonancet with the ideas of Caffyn (1999), Bodek (2002), Bessant and Caffyn (1997) who opined that the employees’ total involvement was one of the critical enablers for implementing continuous improvement. Work title Frequency Percentage (%)Shop floor worker 415 86Line supervisor 52 12Manager 16 2Total 371 100Table 6.9 Sample distribution on participants’ work titleWork improvement experience were classified into four groups, as shown in Table6.10 and Table 6.11.
Table 6.10 shows that the majority of the respondents (72.3% = 50.4% + 13.2%+ 5.7%) had more than five years of experience working in the same organisation. 15.
2% had more than ten years of experience and a further 5.7% had more than 15 years of experience. Table 6.11 depicts that 100 out of 385 respondents (25.0%) had less than five years of experience of implementing continuous improvement activities.
However, the rest of the respondents (74.1% = 50.7% + 20.5% + 2.9%) had at least five years’ experience. 87 out of 527respondents (22.4% = 20. % + 2.
2%) had more than ten years’ experience.Years in the organisation Frequency Percentage (%)Less than 5 years 220 33Between 5 to 10 years 287 53.4Between 10 to 15 years 52 10.
2More than 15 years 21 5.7Total 371 100Table 6.10 Sample distribution on participants’ working experienceYears of continuous improvement activities Frequency Percentage (%)Less than 5 years 200 28.0Between 5 to10 years 178 51.7Between 10 to 15 years 85 18.3More than 15 years 9 2Total 502 100Table 6.11 Sample distribution on participants’ improvement experienceTable 6.
12 depicts that more than half of the respondents had participated in QCCs (51.3%). Based on the previous findings (Inoue, 1985; Lillrank and Kano, 1989; Harrington, 2006), the large number of the QCC improvement practices was most probably due to the source of the survey sample that was made from the organisations whose improvements were mainly made on a department-wide/company-wide basis for long- term changes. Nevertheless, the results also depict a similar proportion of participants (49.9%) had participated in both QCCs and Teians.Improvement focuses Frequency Percentage (%)QCC 270 50.7Teians 80 12.4About the same 152 30.9Total 502 100Table 6.12 Sample distribution on participants’ improvement focuses
