Modelling the interrelationship between factors for adoption of sustainable lean manufacturing: a business case from the Indian automobile industry

ABSTRACT

Growth of automobile industry plays a significant role in the Indian Economy. Global warming and increased pollution levels force all countries to revisit their environmental policies towards achieving sustainability. In this view, the automobile industry is under tremendous pressure from both customers and government for sustainable development. Therefore, Indian automobile industry focuses on business improvement through profitability enhancement as well as environmental development through sustainable lean manufacturing. Critical success factors (CSFs) for sustainable lean manufacturing are identified from existing literature, and experts’ guidance has been considered to carry out the inter-relationship between CSFs in sustainable lean manufacturing implementation using Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) methodology. Top management identified as the influential CSFs, which help in implementation of SLM and leading other CSFs. Driving and dependent factors are also summarized in an Indian automobile industry perspective. The result of research based on data collection from small-, medium- and large-scale automobile sectors. It has been analysed earlier that sustainable manufacturing (lean and green practices) delivers superior results. Hence, the automobile industry needs to adopt sustainable lean manufacturing for achieving economy, social and environmental growth. lean manufacturing. Critical success factors (CSFs) for sustainable lean manufacturing are identified from existing literature, and experts’ guidance has been considered to carry out the inter-relationship between CSFs in sustainable lean manufacturing implementation using Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) methodology. Top management identified as the influential CSFs, which help in implementation of SLM and leading other CSFs. Driving and dependent factors are also summarized in an Indian automobile industry perspective. The result of research based on data collection from small-, medium- and large-scale automobile sectors. It has been analysed earlier that sustainable manufacturing (lean and green practices) delivers superior results. Hence, the automobile industry needs to adopt sustainable lean manufacturing for achieving economy, social and environmental growth.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable lean manufacturing
• critical success factors
• interpretive structural modelling
• Indian automobile industry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Naveen Kumar

Naveen Kumar is pursuing his PhD in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The NorthCap University. He completed his master’s in Mechanical Engineering from Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak, India. He accomplished his master’s in Mechanical Engineering with specialization in Manufacturing and Automation, respectively. He has ten years of Industrial experience with reputed OEMs’. He has been associated with various facets of quality systems improvement and optimization over the last two years. His contribution towards publication of research so far has been concise and exposed to ground-level implementation at the medium- and small-scale industries in India. He has completed more than sixty projects with tier 1 industries. His specific areas of interest are industrial engineering, supply chain management, green supply chain management, lean manufacturing, six sigma, design of experiments, etc.

K. Mathiyazhagan

K. Mathiyazhagan is currently working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amity University, Noida, UP, India. He did his Ph.D in the Department of Production Engineering, National Institute of Technology – Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu. In addition to the Ph.D work, he went to the University of Southern Denmark, Denmark” four months as a visiting research scholar. He has more than 70 International publications and Associate Editor of Environment, Development and Sustainability - Springer and one international book chapter in the Taylor and Francis. Recently one of his paper awarded as Excellence Citation Award by Emerald Publisher Ltd.  Also he is guest editor of many special issues in International journals.

Deepak Mathivathanan

Deepak Mathivathanan is a Lecturer at University of Southern Denmark working for the Department of Technology and Innovation. He has received his PhD degree in the field of Sustainable supply chain management from National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India. His research interests include Sustainable supply chain management, Circular economy and Multi criteria decision making. He can be contacted at: [email protected].