Developing the framework of Kanban system for Malaysia’s small medium enterprises

Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia is very important for countries prosperous and are considered the foundation and the backbone of industrial development. According to the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) 2018’s report, SMEs contributes at least 40% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) providing jobs to almost 65% of Malaysians. The present paper aims at developing an effective and efficient framework of Kanban system including all the components required for implementing successfully in SMEs. The paper begins with the study of existing framework of lean and Kanban implementation in small companies. To overcome this literature gap, data in the last six years of lean and Kanban implementation in different countries is studied in order to find the success factors for successful Kanban framework. Seven factors have been identified and the influence of those factors towards Kanban system implementation had been reviewed from previous related publications. Those factors are including top management (30%), organizational culture (11%), resources (13%), employee related barriers (22%), knowledge (16%), government support (3%) and supplier participation (5%). A proposed framework of Kanban system for SMEs in Malaysia has been introduced by mapping it with the seven success factors and also for future recommendation seven hypotheses had been constructed in order to test the framework.