Work-Team Implementation and Trajectories of Manufacturing Quality: A Longitudinal Field Study

The study examines the sustainability of manufacturing quality improvements following the implementation of work teams on production lines. We posit that the impact on manufacturing quality, measured as the defect rate trajectory, is monotonically nonincreasing over time and may, more specifically, assume the shape of an inverted S-curve. Employing a longitudinal research design, we investigate four work teams over a 28-month period in a field setting. Each team corresponds to one of the four interconnected production lines in an electromechanical assembly plant operated by a Fortune 500 firm. Results of our empirical analysis support the sustainability of quality improvements associated with work team implementation and partially support the S-shaped trajectory as the particular form of sustainability. However, variations in the manufacturing quality trajectories reflect the characteristics of the work team and the production line on which each the team is instituted. From the standpoint of practice, this study highlights the importance of work-team design and implementation decisions, especially the need to be proactive in identifying and resolving initial implementation difficulties.Work-Teams, Manufacturing Quality, Field Study

The Effect of Team Size on the Performance of Continuous Improvement Teams: Is Seven Really the Magic Number?

Part 1: Lean ProductionInternational audienceContinuous improvement teams play an essential role when implementing a corporate improvement programme, the success of which is significantly dependent on the organization of such teams. This paper specifically addresses the effect of team size on the performance of continuous improvement teams. We take insight into a Norwegian case study during the first two years of a lean transformation to explore if there are any indications of an optimum size for continuous improvement teams. The results suggest that there may not be a perfect size for a CI team, rather the performance outcome of different sized teams may depend on the maturity level of the lean programme. Whereas in the establishment phase teams of up to twelve employees seem to perform well, this number appears to reduce when the programme matures. This study may therefore assist practitioners in establishing the right team size dependent on the status of transformation