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Manufacturing flexibility (MF) has been acknowledged as tool to help manufacturers adapting to uncertainty in the business environment. Fluctuating market demand, rapid technological changes, shorter product life cycles and increase level of customization are among the caused that create uncertainties in the market. However, manufacturers are facing great challenge to reap the real benefit from implementing manufacturing flexibility. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the contributing factors that can enhance manufacturing flexibility implementation in mass customization production strategy among manufacturing firms in Malaysia. An extensive review on manufacturing flexibility literature and content validity assessment were conducted with industry practitioners and academicians. Four MF constructs and 16 measurement items have been identified from the review. A complete set of questionnaires have been developed by adopting, adapting, or self-develop based on the extensive literature review. This research study has recognized reliable MF constructs, consisting of four MF constructs and 16 measurement items. Thus, this study can be used to help identify provide method to enhance MF implementation at the manufacturing firm's level. This study provided a useful tool for researchers to gain a greater knowledge and understanding on MF implementation. It acts to bridge the inadequacy of related studies on manufacturing flexibility by using the T-O-E framework. For practitioners, it is useful to review back the effectiveness of the usage of their internal resources in overcoming uncertainties in the environmental factors. More significantly, practitioners should be able to adopt the MF practices in a more holistic way. This study is among the first attempt to develop MF constructs for evaluating the enhancement of MF implementation in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study to analyse the workers' satisfaction level on the implementation of an integrated quality system between the IATF 16949 and Toyota Production System focusing on internal audit activity in one automotive company in Malaysia. The main goal was to validate and investigate the issues and challenges those employees in the organisation faced before and after the systems were integrated. Rasch Measurement Model was used to analyse the data collected. Initially, pilot data were conducted, and the data were used to construct the survey questionnaire with 3 constructs and 47 items. A total of 30 respondents from various departments were assessed with the demographic traits of position in the organization and years of service. From the pre-implementation survey, most of the respondents agreed that too many documents were involved throughout both audits and lack of training for auditee on both systems was the main cause to the ineffective implementation of both systems, particularly at mass production process. Both items were measured below the person mean value in variable map (pre-implementation). After the integrated system, the post-survey analysis proved that too many documents and lack of training were above person mean value in variable map (post-implementation). The results revealed that most of the respondents agreed the integration of both systems has given an effective result and good impact to the organization's performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Banana Musa acuminata cv. Berangan is an important fruit crop in Malaysia. The use of tissue culture techniques can increase the number of planting materials for mass production of banana. However, the main problem in banana tissue culture is somaclonal variation, which is caused by many factors, such as long-term subcultures, which can reduce the production value and quality. In this study, the experiment focused on somaclonal variation caused by long-term subculture that had caused changes in their morphology which could be differentiated by RAPD pattern of micropropagated Musa acuminata cv. Berangan plantlets from long-term subcultures (15th subculture). Banana plantlets established from micropropagated banana using MS supplemented with 5 mgL-1 of BAP was maintained until 15th subculture before being hardened and acclimatized in commercial soils. In this experiment, banana seedlings were categorized into four groups based on their heights at 5 - 10 cm, 11 - 15 cm, 16 - 20 cm and 21 - 25 cm. Results showed that the tallest seedlings (21 - 25 cm) produced 9.56 ± 1.01 number of leaves, 218.88 ± 40.89 cm leaf area and 5.32 ± 0.78 cm girth of pseudostem whereby the shortest group (5 - 10 cm) produced 5.67 ± 0.98 leaves, 18.95 ± 12.37 cm of leaf area, and 1.63 ± 0.54 cm girth of pseudostem. RAPD analysis carried out using two primers, OPH09 and OPA15 showed variation between the tallest seedlings and the shortest seedlings. This study concluded that long-term subculture of banana cv. Berangan produced variation in the seedlings' growth thus may affect the quality of planting materials produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bamboos are most suitable for afforestation. Ex-logging areas in Malaysian forest compartments can be planted with commercial Malaysian bamboos. Bamboo planting materials need to be available for at forestation purposes. Mass production of this material is relevant and a method which can be used is by macro-proliferation. There is no work done on the macro-proliferation of Malaysian bamboo seedlings. This paper reports the macro-proliferation method for Gigantochloa ligulata (buluh tumpat), one of the commercial species. The work was done at FRIM's nursery and specimens for the field performance for the units used were planted at Bukit Saga, Southern Johore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]