Effect of Perceived Muda on Design Features in Public Office Buildings in Nigeria

Aims: The claim that the concept of lean thinking, especially the application of muda is applicable to a vast range of operations and processes in widely differing industries, offices, health care, etc. with only “tweaking of details” was tested in this paper on design features as a further step to determine its relevance to sustainable improvement of existing public office buildings in Nigeria. The substantial argument was that the concept had delivered large improvements in manufacturing, in particular the motor vehicle industry, and where already applied in construction, hospitals, etc.

Study Design: The theoretical framework study adopted an objective positivist philosophy from a deductive approach, 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 design features.

Results: The study revealed that muda is inherent in public office buildings. The result indicated that perceived muda has a causal effect of 0.757 on design features such that if muda goes up by 1 unit, design features will also go up by 0.757 unit. The R2 of 0.57 showed a strong effect size of muda on design features, while the estimates have highly significant coefficients with P-values of <.05, confirming its practical significance in daily life.

Conclusion: This study concludes that perceived muda has strong influence on design features, especially by affording end-users to contribute to their requirements in office buildings. Perceived muda explained 57% of the variance in design features and has high practical significance. This had confirmed that lean thinking is applicable to public office buildings in Nigeria and therefore relevant to their sustainable improvement.