Abid Haleem

Green supply chain management: Implementation and performance – a literature review and some issues

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to introduce and provide an overview of the various issues related to Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) and suggest further scope and direction of research in this emerging field. Design/methodology/approach - – The work relies on experiences, case studies and other literature related to GSCM. Literature has been segregated to understand various GSCM issues. A detailed review is used to sort out the literature and develop the research direction of the study. The review is focussed on development of GSCM including all those researchers which is relevant to environmental and social sustainability toward operation management and the supply chain. A literature review seems to be a valid approach, as a necessary step in structuring a research field. Findings - – The objectives of this paper are to identify major research work conducted on GSCM and to classify them to identify gaps in literature and opportunities for future research. The paper has provided an integrative framework for study, design, implementation and GSCM performance. The findings also identify a number of issues that need to be addressed. Research limitations/implications - – Implication of the work is that the knowledge of the research gap can be used to focus efforts on key areas so as to ensure speedy and comprehensive implementation of GSCM practices. Practical implications - – The paper may prove to be a very useful source of information to practitioners and regulators in their green practices implementation programs. Originality/value - – This paper provides some of the very first insights into development of GSCM theories. The methodological review will provide better understanding of the current state of research in the discipline.

Analysis of critical success factors of world-class manufacturing practices: an application of interpretative structural modelling and interpretative ranking process

The aim of this article is to analyse the key factors behind the successful implementation of world-class manufacturing practices. Two distinct modelling approaches have been employed to examine the contextual relationship among the critical success factors (CSFs) and to rank them w.r.t. performance areas. CSFs and performance areas were identified through literature review and opinion of experts from industry and academia. Interpretive structural modelling (ISM) is used to develop a hierarchical structure for analysing the interactions among CSFs. Interpretive ranking process (IRP) is then used to examine the dominance relationship. ISM model highlights the importance of excellent top management over other CSFs, whereas IRP model revealed reduction in energy consumption and waste minimisations as the most important CSF when evaluated against various performance areas. This study also gives a comparative account of ISM and IRP and shows that IRP is a more powerful tool, as it goes one step further and considers the relationship of CSFs with measurable performance indicators.

Critical success factors of green supply chain management for achieving sustainability in Indian automobile industry

The aim of this study was to identify and analyse the key success factors behind successful achievement of environment sustainability in Indian automobile industry supply chains. Here, critical success factors (CSFs) and performance measures of green supply chain management (GSCM) have been identified through extensive literature review and discussions with experts from Indian automobile industry. Based on the literature review, a questionnaire was designed and 123 final responses were considered. Six CSFs to implement GSCM for achieving sustainability and four expected performance measures of GSCM practices implementation were extracted using factor analysis. interpretive ranking process (IRP) modelling approach is employed to examine the contextual relationships among CSFs and to rank them with respect to performance measures. The developed IRP model shows that the CSF ‘Competitiveness’ is the most important CSF for achieving sustainability in Indian automobile industry through GSCM practices. This study is one of the few that have considered the environmental sustainability practices in the automobile industry in India and their implications on sectoral economy. The results of this study may help the mangers/SC practitioners/Governments/Customers in making strategic and tactical decisions regarding successful implementation of GSCM practices in Indian automobile industry with a sustainability focus. The developed framework provides a comprehensive perspective for assessing the synergistic impact of CSFs on GSCM performances and can act as ready reckoner for the practitioners. As there is very limited work presented in literature using IRP, this piece of work would provide a better understanding of this relatively new ranking methodology.

Barriers in green lean six sigma product development process: an ISM approach

Abstract In today’s competitive globalised business environment, production cost cutting is a primary issue before operation managers. As a research area, green lean six sigma (GLS) is proposed to have strategic importance in product development towards cutting costs, contributing to optimisation, and achieving sustainability. This research requirement has been realised to draw benefits out of three recent and involved approaches (green, lean and six sigma). In this research, an attempt has been made to address barriers in GLS product development (GLSPD) from an extensive literature review and from experts’ opinions towards developing a hierarchical model structuring these barriers. Twenty-one barriers have been identified and sorted from the review of literature and were then validated through discussions with experts. Relationships (contextual in nature) among these barriers have been realised during a brainstorming session. An interpretive structural modelling (ISM) technique has been utilised for developing a hierarchical model of barriers in implementing the GLSPD process in the automobile sector of India. A nine-level structural model has been deduced after application of the ISM technique, which shows ‘Competition and Uncertainty’ as the topmost output of the model and ‘Lack of Total Top Management Commitment’ as the bottom-level input to other barriers of the model. Further, MICMAC analysis has been also done to classify these barriers for better understanding; seven barriers are identified as driver barriers, nine as dependent, five barriers as linkage and no barrier as autonomous. An analysis of interdependence and interactions among these barriers may help supply chain managers reach a better understanding of barriers. Thus, managers may be helped in prioritising and managing barriers in order to gain a competitive advantage from GLS concept implementation in product development.

Critical success factors of customer involvement in greening the supply chain: an empirical study

The role of customers and their involvement in green supply chain management (GSCM) has been recognised as an important research area. This paper is an attempt to explore factors influencing involvement of customers towards greening the supply chain (SC). Twenty-five critical success factors (CSFs) of customer involvement in GSCM have been identified from literature review and through extensive discussions with senior and middle level SC professionals. Interviews and questionnaire-based survey have been used to indicate the significance of these CSFs. A total of 478 valid responses were received to rate these CSFs on a five-point Likert scale (ranging from unimportant to most important). Statistical analysis has been carried out to establish the reliability and to test the validity of the questionnaires. Subsequent factor analysis has identified seven major components covering 79.24% of total variance. This paper may help to establish the importance of customer role in promoting green concept in SCs and to develop an understanding of factors influencing customer involvement – key input towards creating ‘greening pull system’ (GPSYS). This understanding may further help in framing the policies and strategies to green the SC.

State of green construction in India: drivers and challenges

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a workshop organized in New Delhi to assess the current state of green construction in India and highlight the major drivers and challenges faced by the construction sector.Design/methodology/approach – The data collection for this paper is conducted through two sources; a survey and a facilitated brainstorming session. The survey provides an opportunity to compare practices in India to global trends and the facilitated sessions provides a platform to collect data on more subjective, experiential knowledge about green construction in India.Findings – Some of the major findings of this endeavour are: there is an awareness about green construction in India; It is primarily driven by the governmental and international regulations; with the current energy crisis customers in India are actually willing to pay extra for going green; and there is a lack of accurate lifecycle cost assessment models which results in misconceptions about associated c...

Technology transfer: enablers and barriers – a review

Technology Transfer (TT) has been identified as an important approach to achieve competitive advantage over other organisations. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the existing literature by comprehensively reviewing and identifying enablers and barriers to implement TT. In this paper, background of TT and major contributions given by various researchers in the field of TT has been presented. The ‘factors to enable TT implementation successfully (referred to as enablers)’ and ‘barriers to hinder this process of TT implementation’ have been identified. Based upon extensive literature review, conceptual model has been put forward. Enablers and barriers to implement TT need to be addressed and examined critically. This review will surely help researchers and practitioners in better understanding towards implementation of TT in most effective way.

A framework for comparative evaluation of lean performance of firms using fuzzy TOPSIS

Adoption of lean practices is considered a vital strategic tool for firms to thrive in today’s competitive times. Comparative evaluation of leanness of the companies has assumed crucial importance in the wake of increasing globalisation and phenomenal advancement in technology. Evaluation of policies and practices on an ongoing basis helps organisations identify the potential opportunities for improvement. Only limited efforts devoted to assessing the relative lean status of firms have been made so far and there is an express need to articulate a framework for measurement of lean adaptation. Here, a systematic fuzzy multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) evaluation model based on technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is proposed for relative lean ranking of firms. Fuzzy set theory concepts are used to deal with problems of vagueness, uncertainties, inexactness of data and the subjectivity associated with human judgment. An illustrative numerical example is included to elucidate the computational process. Sensitivity analysis is also carried out to demonstrate the robustness and efficacy of the adapted methodology.

Benchmarking supply chains by analyzing technology transfer critical barriers using AHP approach

Purpose – Technology transfer becoming an important area especially in developing and less developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to address issue of supply chains’ benchmarking based upon their capability to mange technology transfer critical barriers mitigation efforts toward making technology transfer process implementation successful. Design/methodology/approach – The present paper is based on two research stages. Initially, extensive literature review has been made to identify critical barriers. In total, 20 technology transfer critical barriers have been identified from literature review and categorized in to six criteria. In second stage, analytics hierarchy process has been utilized to rank the critical barriers of technology transfer in supply chain and provide a benchmarking framework. Findings – Political barriers (PB) have been analyzed most significant criteria of critical barriers to technology transfer followed by socio-cultural barriers (SO) and economic barriers (EB). “Politica...

Study of reasons for enterprise systems adoption among Indian organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify reasons for the enterprise systems adoption, their relevance to the Indian organizations and their relationship with industry and size among the Indian organizations. Design/methodology/approach – Through the content analysis of 12 research papers reasons of enterprise systems adoption have been identified. With the resultant framework of variables, 288 Indian cases have been scanned to identify and contrast adoption reasons in India with other countries. Also through χ2 test their associations have been studied with respect to industry and size among Indian organizations. Findings – All the adoption reasons are present in Indian organizations. All the adoption reasons are indifferent to the industry of organization. Similarly it is found that all the adoption reasons but one is indifferent to the size of organization. Only organizational change is found to be significantly related with the size. Research limitations/implications – The scope of study is l...