Effect of Perceived Muda on Perceived Job Productivity in Public Office Buildings in Nigeria

Abstract

Aims: The lean thinking concept, especially the application of muda was claimed to apply to a vast range of operations in widely differing industries, with only “tweaking of details”. Thus, varying industries adopted the concept including the built environment from whence terms such as lean construction and lean design emerged. The substantial argument was that the concept had delivered large improvements where already applied, this paper therefore looked into the practicability of applying lean thinking to perceived job productivity as a first step in determining its relevance to sustainable improvement of existing public office buildings in Nigeria, since job productivity was described as the quintessence of an office. Study Design: The theoretical framework study adopted an objective positivist philosophy, using survey and case study strategy. The method is quantitative while the time horizon is cross-sectional. Place and Duration of Study: Federal Secretariat office complex, Bauchi, Nigeria, between June 2014 and September 2014. Methodology: AMOS regression was used for the confirmatory study on a sample size of 339 respondents from a diagnostic POE. The unique contribution, causal effect, effect size and practical significance were used in determining the effect of muda on job productivity. Results: Perceived muda was established as inherent in the case study and ranked based on their respective unique contribution which ranged from 0.848 to 0.472. Muda has a causal effect of 0.646 on job productivity and a strong effect size of 42%. All the results were significant with P-values of <.05. Conclusion: Perceived muda has strong influence on perceived job productivity, especially by affording end-users to contribute to their requirements in office buildings, while it explained 42% of its variance; which is a strong effect size. This had confirmed that lean thinking is applicable to public office buildings in Nigeria and therefore relevant to their sustainable improvement.