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1 Introduction
To stay competitive, companies facing today's levels of unprecedented global competition must design and offer better products and services and improve their manufacturing operations. Lean manufacturing has been used to improve operational performance. Lean manufacturing, in other words, means manufacturing without waste. Waste is anything other than the minimum amount of equipment, materials, parts, and working time, which absolutely are vital to production. Despite wide knowledge and available resources, many companies are struggling to become or stay lean. Therefore, companies need to evaluate or assess the current state of operations at their manufacturing facilities. Starting in the 1990s, many companies attempted to transform traditional manufacturing into lean manufacturing, by either transforming their entire manufacturing processes, or by creating new cellular production systems. [32] Womack and Jones (1996) and [16] Liker (1997) document the journey of several companies on a lean crusade. For example, they explain that lean manufacturing is much more than a technique; rather, it is a new way of thinking and a holistic system approach that creates a culture in which everyone in the organization continuously improves operations.
Recently, China has become the manufacturing hub of the world, and many global companies have established manufacturing plants in China, mainly due to lower wage rates and lower costs of manufacturing and raw materials. However, one could argue that this low-cost orientation might be a consequence of the Chinese Government's policies of subsidizing the cost of materials and keeping a low exchange rate to foster faster growth, needed to maintain high employment and avoid social unrest (Norman, 2008). In 2007, China's gross domestic product (GDP), growing at an 11.4 percent annual rate, reached $3.249 trillion, with exports of $1.221 trillion. Recently, China is the third largest economy in the world and it has sustained an average annual growth rate of over 9.5 percent for the past 26 years. Industry and construction account for about 46 percent of China's GDP ([30] US Department of State, 2009).
Based on this level of development, China's manufacturing landscape offers a unique opportunity for studying the transformation of companies in their effort to change from traditional to lean manufacturing. Despite the sustained interest of a few scholars, such as [14], [15] Li (2000, 2005), [29] Taj (2008) and...