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A large amount of metal chips at workplace will result in untidy and unsafe condition thus measurements of safety are needed in some industries, where the metal chips will be collected and put into a container until the volume is sufficient to be recycled. Due to that reason, the metal chips require a lot of spaces for storage before going to recycle. In this study, a portable metal chip baler as a device for compacting those metal chips is presented based on a system approach of engineering design. Basically, the system design evolves through four phases of development that are started from conceptual design, preliminary system design, detail design and development to system test and evaluation. The portable metal chip baler uses current technology such as pneumatic cylinder to compress the metal chips so that the system capable to operate efficiently. The output from this system is the metal chips are compacted into a block shape and a working prototype was developed to prove the concept of the system. As a summary, the conceptual design of portable metal chip baler was proven and was presented using the philosophy of the systems design approach. This tool may assists workers especially in the Small-Medium Enterprise (SME) manufacturing industries, school or universities’ workshops for managing metal chips easily and systematically.

Total Quality Management (TQM) is an approach which enforcing continuous improvement in all aspects in an organization for long term achievement. However, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have limited resources for implementing TQM tools and techniques in their organisation. Hence, the purpose of this research is to identify the extent level of TQM practices and TQM tools and techniques and to examine their relationship. Research hypotheses were examined while considering six dimension of TQM practices which considered important in TQM tools and techniques implementation. Random sampling and survey have been used by distributing questionnaire to 200 respondents for final study. The study result shows that the extent level in TQM tools and techniques is in high and moderate level. Furthermore, there is a significant relationship between TQM practices and TQM tools and techniques in SMEs. The study is important for SMEs to gain insight on the effect of TQM practices towards TQM tools and techniques in organizational performance and identify the most important tools and techniques for their companies in future implementation.

Withdrawn article: This paper has been formally withdrawn. It should not be cited or referred to in the future. Request approved by the Authors, the Editors and the Publisher on February 23, 2018.

In recent years, lean manufacturing is being followed by various sectors in order to keep their competitiveness in the global markets. Lean manufacturing plays a vital role in improving the efficiency of operation by eliminating or reducing wastes. Nonetheless, most of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) lack sufficient knowledge or information on the benefits of implementing lean manufacturing. The main objective of this study is to apply value stream mapping, one of lean manufacturing tools, for improving the productivity in a SME by eliminating non-value added activities. In this study, lean manufacturing was adopted at a SME, particularly a food industry. Value stream mapping was served as main tool to identify the wastes and improvement opportunities in production line. Subsequently, different lean manufacturing tools such as Kaizen Burst, one piece flow, and 5S were applied to eliminate or reduce identified wastes. Based on the future state value stream mapping, final results showed that the total operation time and non-added value activities time were successfully decreased from 1993 seconds to 1719 seconds, and 234 seconds to 104 seconds, respectively. The findings of this study indicate that value stream mapping is an effective approach to eliminate the wastes and improve the productivity.

Continuous improvement is one of the core strategies for manufacturing excellent and it is considered vital in today’s business environment. Continuous improvement is an important factor in TQM implementation. However, manufacturers in Electrical and Electronic Industry is facing variety of challenges such as, time constraint, quality issue, headcount issue, human issue and competition in domestic as well as the global market. This paper presents total quality management practices in Electrical and Electronic (EE) Industry. These manufacturers have to keep improving in key activities and processes to cope the challenges. Therefore, EE industry realize the importance of continuous improvement in helping the industries by setting clear goals and priorities for the area of improvement. The aims of this study are to determine the main factor in implementing continuous improvement practices, identify tools of continuous improvement that have been used and their obstacle in implementing continuous improvement practices. 200 questionnaires had been distributed to the employees in Electrical and Electronic Industry located at Bayan Lepas, Penang, Malaysia. A total of 41 questionnaires were answered which represented about 20.5% response rates. Survey result shows that teamwork and training and learning are respectively the importance factor and the most practices factor in Electrical and Electronic Industry. Most of the Electrical and Electronic Industry emphasis is on using Lean Manufacturing as the tool of continuous improvement practices. Besides that, Electrical and Electronic Industry faced the problems of lack of budget and lack of worker commitment.

Lean manufacturing is a systematic approch could increase manufacturing competitiveness by identifying and elminating waste through lean tools. However, these tools are often categorized into different groups, continues to be difficult for companies to select the most appropriate lean tool to be adopted, especially in respect of the SMEs whose knowledge of lean tools and associated principles are limited. This study is to propose solution on how to implement appropriate lean tools in food manufacturing industry located at Rengit, Johor. Qualitative method is used as a methodology to see the changes after the implementation of lean tools. Interview session also a part of method to collect data from respondents. The finding from this paper shows that implementation of an appropriate lean tool will help to eliminate waste in industry sector, maintain and control the inventory, improve quality of the product and improve overall operational process.