Kuldip Singh Sangwan

Lean manufacturing: literature review and research issues

Purpose – The advent of recession at the beginning of twenty-first century forced many organizations worldwide to reduce cost and to be more responsive to customer demands. Lean Manufacturing (LM) has been widely perceived by industry as an answer to these requirements because LM reduces waste without additional requirements of resources. This led to a spurt in LM research across the globe mostly through empirical and exploratory studies which resulted in a plethora of LM definitions with divergent scopes, objectives, performance indicators, tools/techniques/methodologies, and concepts/elements. The purpose of this paper is to review LM literature and report these divergent definitions, scopes, objectives, and tools/techniques/methodologies. Design/methodology/approach – This paper highlights various definitions by various researchers and practitioners. A total of 209 research papers have been reviewed for the research contribution, research methodology adopted, tools/techniques/methodologies used, type of industry, author profile, country of research, and year of publication. Findings – There are plethora of LM definitions with divergent objectives and scope. Theory verification through empirical and exploratory studies has been the focus of research in LM. Automotive industry has been the focus of LM research but LM has also been adopted by other types of industries also. One of the critical implementation factors of LM is simultaneous adoption of leanness in supply chain. LM has become an integrated system composed of highly integrated elements and a wide variety of management practices. There is lack of standard LM implementation process/framework. Originality/value – The paper reviews 209 research papers for their research contribution, research methodology, author profile, type of industry, and tools/techniques/methodology used. Various characteristics of LM definitions are also reviewed.

Closed loop supply chain network design and optimisation using fuzzy mixed integer linear programming model

Owing to the revolution in sustainable and green manufacturing the production planning and network design of closed loop supply chain concept has got the attention of researchers and managers. In this paper, a multi-product, multi-facility capacitated closed-loop supply chain framework is proposed in an uncertain environment including reuse, refurbish, recycle and disposal of parts. The uncertainty related to demand, fraction of parts recovered for different product recovery processes, product acquisition cost, purchasing cost, transportation cost, processing, and set-up cost is handled with fuzzy numbers. A fuzzy mixed integer linear programming model is proposed to decide optimally the location and allocation of parts at each facility and number of parts to be purchased from external suppliers in order to maximise the profit of organisation. The proposed solution methodology is able to generate a balanced solution between the feasibility degree and degree of satisfaction of the decision maker. The proposed model has been tested with an illustrative example.

Development of an interpretive structural model of drivers for reverse logistics implementation in Indian industry

Reverse logistics has gained growing attention among supply chain management researchers and practitioners because of many diverse issues ranging from global warming to waste disposal. It is important for the decision makers to understand the various factors which drive the implementation of reverse logistics in a given business environment. Eleven economical, environmental and social drivers of reverse logistics have been identified. A hierarchical relationship model is developed among these eleven drivers by using interpretive structural modelling technique. It is expected that the understanding of the relationships will help the decision makers in industry and government to strategically leverage the drivers for easy and effective implementation of reverse logistics.

Development of a model of barriers to environmentally conscious manufacturing implementation

Manufacturing firms consume energy and natural resources in highly unsustainable manner and release large amounts of green house gases leading to many economic, environmental and social problems from climate change to local waste disposal. Consciousness about these issues has led to a new manufacturing paradigm of environmentally conscious manufacturing (ECM). However, there are various barriers to the implementation of ECM. A proper understanding and analysis of these barriers will allow the management of the company and government to prioritise their focus to mitigate root barriers for effective implementation of ECM. This paper aims at identifying the barriers to ECM, developing a model of these barriers using statistical analysis and testing the model using structural equation modelling technique. The results provide three types of barriers – internal, policy and economic. The results show that internal barriers are the root barriers and cause policy and economic barriers. It reflects that the barriers which are internal to the organisation should be mitigated first for effective implementation of ECM.

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF PERFORMANCE MEASURES FOR WORLD CLASS MANUFACTURING PRACTICES IN INDIA

This paper aims to develop and validate performance measures for world class manufacturing (WCM) in Indian context that could be used by managers/ practitioners in assessing and improving their manufacturing performance. Using a thorough synthesis of the world class manufacturing literature, sixteen performance measures — top management commitment, knowledge management, employee training, innovation and technology, employee empowerment, environmental health and safety, supplier management, production planning and control, quality, flexibility, speed, cost, customer involvement, customer satisfaction, customer services and company growth — of world class manufacturing and their 89 variables have been developed. Using the data obtained from a survey of manufacturing industries in India, the identified performance measures were subjected to appropriate statistical tests to establish reliability and validity. Statistical computing package SPSS 11.5 for Windows was used for reliability and validity analysis. The validated instrument of world class manufacturing measures developed here may be used by manufacturing organizations to prioritise their management efforts to assess and implement WCM. The validated results are in Indian context, however, the instrument developed can be used in global context.

PERFORMANCE VALUE ANALYSIS FOR JUSTIFICATION OF GREEN MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

Green Manufacturing Systems (GMS) has attracted the attention of organizations all over the world. There is a general challenge offered to the field of engineering economics by the introduction of green manufacturing systems as, typically, the traditional approaches do not account for the significant intangible benefits offered by GMS. In this paper, an attempt has been made to overcome the above-mentioned deficiencies by presenting a multi attribute decision model — Performance Value Analysis (PVA) — for the justification of green manufacturing systems. The usefulness of the model is demonstrated through an illustrative example. The results clearly show that the implementation of green manufacturing systems offers far better competitive advantages over the non-green manufacturing systems.

Productivity and quality improvement through value stream mapping: a case study of Indian automotive industry

Value stream mapping (VSM) is one of the most important lean manufacturing tools to identify and reduce all type of wastes in a systematic way. This paper demonstrates the effect of VSM implementation on cost of poor quality, in-process rejections, percentage value addition, lead time, work in process inventory, distance travelled by components and percentage scrap through a case study of VSM implementation in an Indian automotive industry. The results of the study show that the productivity and quality of a company can be improved by implementation of VSM.

Development of a multi criteria decision model for justification of green manufacturing systems

Rapid industrial growth in the last century has led to many economic, environmental and social problems from global warming to local waste disposal. The industry has come under increasing pressure to reduce the environmental impacts involved in the production of goods and services. In recent years green manufacturing systems (GMS) have been widely considered for implementation to reduce environmental and social impacts as well as to improve economical competitiveness. However, the implementation of such systems is expensive and relative investments tend to be irreversible, thus, necessarily requiring careful consideration before a decision can be made. However, the managers find it difficult to justify implementation of GMS to top management as traditional economic approaches do not account for the significant intangible benefits offered by GMS. In this paper, an attempt has been made to overcome the deficiencies of traditional economic justification approaches by presenting a multi criteria decision model – analytic hierarchy process (AHP) – for the justification of green manufacturing systems. The usefulness of the model is demonstrated through an illustrative example.

PERFORMANCE VALUE ANALYSIS FOR THE JUSTIFICATION OF WORLD-CLASS MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

World-class manufacturing systems (WCMS) has attracted the attention of industries all over the world. The perceptible impact of WCMS lies in attaining the far reaching world-class standards. Attempts have been made to examine WCMS for the feasibility in Indian industries. The present work describes a performance value analysis for the justification of WCMS for Indian industries.

Multi-attribute decision models for justification of cellular manufacturing systems

There is a general challenge offered to the field of engineering economics by the introduction of advanced manufacturing systems. Typically, the traditional approaches do not account for the significant intangible benefits offered by cellular manufacturing systems. In this paper, an attempt has been made to overcome the above-mentioned deficiencies by presenting two multi-attribute decision models – analytical hierarchy process and performance value analysis – for the justification of CMS. The usefulness of the proposed models is demonstrated through a case situation.