Adoption of operations improvement methods in the Greek engineering sector

This paper presents an initial research that explores the awareness and adoption of Lean Manufacturing (LM), Lean Six Sigma (LSS), Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) and Theory Of Constraints (TOC) in the Greek engineering sector. An exploratory and descriptive study was conducted and a web-based questionnaire survey designed and validated. The questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of 300 engineering companies in Greece. From the 300 questionnaires, 47 responses were obtained and the data analysed using descriptive statistics. In general terms, the results revealed that Greek engineering organisations are relatively unaware of the examined operations improvement approaches, and thus their implementation is very limited or non-existent at all. This research constitutes a document of high value and a reason for great concern for the Greek government, which can obtain an overview of the Greek organisations' operational performance in terms of the extent at which they employ improvement methodologies. In addition, this study offers academics, researchers and practitioners interested in operations improvement methods with some initial evidence of the adoption and development of LM, LSS, QRM and TOC in Greece.