Facing Challenges of Implementing Total Productive Management and Lean Tools in Manufacturing Enterprises

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic of the paper is very current. However to make it even more relevant, I would suggest to link it (adding an extra paragraph in introduction) with Industry 5.0 that is already becoming a part of the business landscape and Lean management is one of the main enabler of Industry 5.0 within manufacturing enterprises. This is just a suggestion. Overall the article is generally well done.

However, there are some comments/suggestions/questions that should be mentioned here about this article and that require appropriate answer:

1. Line (16) Term "lean tools" appears suddenly without being mentioned in the first part of the abstract, could have been mentioned in line 9 -10

2. Line (36-38) Suggestion to reformulate the sentence to make it more readable and understandable
- for line 36, at least putting "," after word "company" would be sufficient
3.  Line (62-63) Suggestion to reformulate the sentence to make it more readable and understandable
- suggestion: "For survey t be most beneficial, it needs to be prepared..."

4. Line (99) How di the participants evaluate the statements given in table 1 (I realised it is stated in line 118 but my opinion is that it should be introduced prior the Table 1

5. Line (189) Consider creating the small table presenting four categories of roles (four hierarchy levels)

6. Line (204) On all the figures side value axis label is missing. It is clear (explained in the text) about the colour bars and what their high is presenting, however as mentioned, what the numbers on side bar represents (which scale is different for all the figures) is not clear at all. Maybe an extra legend is needed.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required. Some of the problematic parts (sentences) are mentioned under the "Comments and Suggestions for Authors".

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Kind regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is a case study explaining the implementation of TPM and challenges encountered in 4 organizations, from small to medium size. The authors used a survey to get impressions from workers. Results were statistically analyzed. However, several issues prevent the paper from being published.

Minor

L67 "However, conducting business web surveys is not as simple as it might seem at first glance. " The authors should not give opinions when describing methods.

Equations should be numbered and called according to the journal´s guidelines. 

Figures must be called within the text. Does the paragraph starting in L207 refer to Figure 1? Analogously to Fig 2 to Fig 4.

What is the use of Fig 9 ? It repeats information.

L459 lean Lean repeated word

 

Major

When conducting qualitative research, one should follow someone else´s evaluation instrument. It is a way to avoid bias when drafting the survey. Did the authors write the questions, or were they picked from somewhere else? Please include the source in case it is the second option.

L107. I understand that companies may have more operational/strategic personnel due to the nature of the business. But, let us compare: Company 1 has 50 employees whereas Company 4 has 800 employees. That is 16 times more employees between them! So, how many surveys were sent per company, and how many surveys were sent per worker group type? It is important to know to try to understand the validity of answers. 

L122 "For purposes of this paper ... " what do you mean? What other context are you referring to?

Even in small samples, utilizing the omega and glb coefficients when skew items are present is preferable. While alpha mainly focuses on the correlation between the questions, omega is based on a factor analytical method. Since omega has shown to be more robust than alpha in deviation from the listed hypotheses, it is often a more appropriate indicator of internal consistency. Please justify.

It is probably better to compare the answers by groups of the same company in the same plot rather than showing one bar for each group.

Ref 12 and 13 are the same.

Some references (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10,  etc) have 2 commas instead of quotation marks before the article title. At the end of the title, there are quotation marks. It seems odd.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

L24 L48 L49 L57 L393 L 395 L486 lean is not capitalized

L36 company COMMA

L37 change itself for themselves. The authors refer to steps

L52 change hasn't for has not

L400 Audit Committee is not capitalized, not a proper noun

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Kind regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paiper shows an interesting study focused on the obstacles to the implementation of TPM in industrial companies. From a point of view of the paiper's objectives and contributions, it may be an interesting paiper to be published, but for this it would be advisable to improve and reinforce the following aspects:

1. From the methodological point of view:

  a) on the one hand, it is not clearly shown how the 27 groups and three categories of analysis have been identified, which have been used in the surveys. It would be convenient to justify why these levels and categories have been specifically analyzed, mainly supported by evidence from different academic publications.

b) On the other hand, it would be necessary to make a more detailed description of the companies analyzed since the description made is very basic and when carrying out the statistical analysis, I consider that the surveys do not clearly mention which ones.

c) Finally, the statistical analysis carried out through analysis of variance and Cronbach is considered appropriate. Although as an aspect to improve it would be necessary to better visualize the analytical hypotheses that appear in the text. It is also necessary to include bibliographic reference No. 13, which is related to the justification of the statistical analysis.

  2. Field work

I consider the presentation of the results, the discussion and conclusions to be adequate and well presented. But it should be taken into account that all of this is based on the justification of the 27 sectors analyzed.

3. Bibliography

The bibliography shown is considered appropriate and representative of the topic discussed.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Kind regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The subject of this paper – Facing challenges of implementing total productive management and lean tools in manufacturing enterprises, is very interesting and topical.

The purpose of the paper is to highlight the main factors with a negative role in the implementation of TPM, as a Lean manufacturing technique. For this purpose, the authors used the technique of surveying employees from 4 different companies (small, medium, large) and from different categories (operators, technicians, leaders, managers).

Although the work has a proper structure, many aspects are unclear and need to be improved or clarified, as follows.

1.     The introduction does not present a brief "state of the art/ literature review" of research in the field: what/ how/ what results other researchers have obtained about the subject addressed in this paper.

2.     In the questionnaire, there are very few elements related to the specific techniques of TPM, to the result indicators specific to the implementation of TPM. The questions are, rather, at the level of Lean manufacturing. What is actually the objective of the study?

3.     It is mentioned that 36 responses were collected from the 4 companies. But, is this sample representative in relation to the 1500 employees of the 4 companies so that the results are reliable? A minimum sample of 5% in relation to the population can ensure reliable results. On the other hand, it is not mentioned how many answers come from each individual company to see if these samples are representative at the level of each company. These aspects are essential in undertaking such an analysis.

4.     When presenting the use of the F test, the notations are not uniform. It is not clear how F calculated, F ratio, and F observed are determined/calculated. The authors must use unitary notations, and the relationships must be explicit.

5.     In Table 3 it is mentioned that the third least rated statement is Q13, but from Figure 1 this would be Q20.

6.     The analyses of the results made at the level of a company can be correct, if the number of answers is representative (according to observation no. 3). However, in order to analyse and combine the answers between companies, their values should be normalized (to be proportional to the number of employees in the company). That is why all these analyses (by category of employees and by total employees - Figures 5 - 9) should be revised.

7.     The discussions are very general and are not focused on the 4 analysed companies (with the differences between them - from small to large company), on categories of employees, or specific elements of TPM.

8.     There are many editing rules not respected, and bibliographic sources 12 and 13 are identical.

 

Considering the previously mentioned, I appreciate that the manuscript requires a major revision.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Kind regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, your article is potentially of great interest, however there are several parts to improve.

- The Abstract has to include main findings, as well as results obtained from the case study analysis. In the Abstract, enrich the “purpose” and the “results” parts.

- The same for the Introduction section, please point out how this study is different from other ones. My suggestion is to highlight the novelty and answer the question: why a new paper is needed in this topic, and what is the specific novel result for their study. Please focus on these two points.

- Furthermore, the Introduction section is too poor of references. Please add at least 10 references within a “state of art” Paragraph. In this way, you will be able to better present the gap you found and the aim of your study.

- Methods: Consider adding a block diagram for better explaining the methodology.

- In figures, please always use vertical labels.

- The paper looks to not have any limitations. Please, highlight limitations of your work in the Conclusion Section.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Kind regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have improved the manuscript. The comparison of alpha and omega shows consistency on the surveys.

A sincere thank you for the explanation about the commas in Croatian. It helps raising my cultural awareness.

Author Response

Thank you for your your kind comments and for time reviewing our article.

We, additionally, had the article proofread by the MDPI editing service.

Kind regards.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have made the proposed changes and at this time the article meets the requirements to be published

Author Response

Thank you for your your recommendation and for your time reviewing our article.

We, additionally, had the article proofread by the MDPI editing service.

Kind regards.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have revised the manuscript based on all suggestions and observations of the reviewers and the manuscript is well organized. There are still some editing aspects that require correction.

Therefore, I recommend publishing the paper in Systems Journal after proofreading.

Author Response

Thank you for your your recommendation and for your time reviewing our article.

We, additionally, had the article proofread by the MDPI editing service.

Kind regards.

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have successfully addressed all my concerns in the revised manuscript. Hence I recommend the acceptance of this paper.

Author Response

Thank you for your your recommendation and for your time reviewing our article.

We, additionally, had the article proofread by the MDPI editing service.

Kind regards.