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2019MBA095

Nike's emphasis on lean operations has helped rather than hurt its Vietnamese workforce. Lean manufacturing focuses on eliminating waste and non-value added activities to improve efficiency. This leads to improved working conditions, employee skills and morale compared to traditional mass production methods. Studies found that factories implementing lean operations in developing countries like Vietnam saw a 15% reduction in labor violations and better compliance with regulations regarding wages, benefits and rest days. Workers also felt empowered and took pride in their work through participative management approaches of lean manufacturing. Therefore, Nike's use of lean principles appears to have benefited conditions for its Vietnamese employees.

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SIBASISH PATANAIK
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134 views2 pages

2019MBA095

Nike's emphasis on lean operations has helped rather than hurt its Vietnamese workforce. Lean manufacturing focuses on eliminating waste and non-value added activities to improve efficiency. This leads to improved working conditions, employee skills and morale compared to traditional mass production methods. Studies found that factories implementing lean operations in developing countries like Vietnam saw a 15% reduction in labor violations and better compliance with regulations regarding wages, benefits and rest days. Workers also felt empowered and took pride in their work through participative management approaches of lean manufacturing. Therefore, Nike's use of lean principles appears to have benefited conditions for its Vietnamese employees.

Uploaded by

SIBASISH PATANAIK
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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In your view, does Nike’s emphasis on lean operations help or hurt its Vietnamese workforce?

 Producers in less developed countries maintain their competitive advantage by keeping the
costs low. However, this often brings with itself, poor working conditions and labor abuses.
 They often believe that improving the working conditions would undermine their competitive
advantage as it would result in increased costs; thereby impacting the global trade.
 In accordance to the question, the analysis will involve a comparative analysis between
traditional mass manufacturing systems and lean manufacturing principles.

Traditional mass manufacturing Lean manufacturing


 Based on the principle of Scientific  Seeks to find additional capacity by
Management eliminating waste, or non – value added
 Involves specialization of labor in simple, activities which inflate costs, lead times
highly routine operations and inventory requirements
 Incentivized to complete operations  Aimed at continuous improvement
quickly  Not possible to execute without a
 Employs automated machinery, tools and participative management which involves
equipment in the production of standard, labor management relations; thereby
interchangeable parts and products emphasizing on trust by providing
 Exists an autocratic style of leadership employees with timely access to
imparting decision making authority to information required to do and improve
managers the job, offering an incentive
compensation system and providing
business literacy
 Four components which enforce trust and
cooperation in an organization include
identity, participation, equity and
competence
 Key principles involve waste reduction,
improved quality, knowledge creation,
faster delivery and increased efficiency
 Assembly line workers execute a variety
of tasks relating to production
 Responsibility for the production quality
lie with the workers
 Encouraged to find improved ways of
production
 Leads to improved terms of employment
 Encourages increased responsiveness to
customers

With respect to Nike,

 It has been found that the factories operating in developing countries which employ lean
manufacturing systems show improved compliance to labor conditions. The serious violation
percentage fell by 15% from 40% to 25%. The ratings reflected factory wages, benefits and
rest days reflecting issues which shape workers’ take home wages and work – life balance.
 It has resulted into improved employee morale as anyone undertaking the same task would
complete the work at the same time as any other employee unlike with the case of traditional
manufacturing.
 Further, it was found that neither economic underdevelopment nor anemic regulation nor
corruption pose a challenge to the manufacturers from reorganizing their processes.
However, a lack in managerial competency may pose significant challenges to it. For
example, an improved compliance with the norms was found in India, Malaysia, Thailand
and Vietnam but no effects were seen in China.
 Following inferences have been drawn by the researcher by examining factory audits of
wages, work hours, disciplinary practices, health and safety and environmental compliance to
assess the impact of transition from traditional practices to lean manufacturing systems.
 With the above arguments in place, I believe that Nike’s lean manufacturing system has
helped Vietnamese workforce in terms of proper and improved working conditions, better
skills and increased morale.

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