African Geotechnical Engineering | 05 April 2010
Panel Data Assessment of Manufacturing Yield Improvement in Tanzanian Plants: Methodological Reflections on Past Research
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Abstract
This study builds upon existing research on manufacturing yield improvement in Tanzanian plants by focusing on methodological advancements. A mixed-methods study employing econometric techniques including fixed effects models to analyse data from 20 Tanzanian plants spanning five years. Panel-data methods were used to account for potential temporal and spatial dependencies among observations. The panel-data analysis revealed a statistically significant improvement in yield across the sampled sites, with an estimated average increase of 15% compared to baseline levels (95% confidence interval: 7-23%). This study confirms and extends previous findings on manufacturing yield improvements but introduces enhanced methodological rigor through panel-data econometrics. Future research should consider expanding the sample size, including more diverse industries, to generalize findings further. The maintenance outcome was modelled as $Y<em>{it}=\beta</em>0+\beta<em>1X</em>{it}+u<em>i+\varepsilon</em>{it}$, with robustness checked using heteroskedasticity-consistent errors.