Barriers in implementing lean manufacturing in Indian SMEs: a multi-criteria decision-making approach

Barriers to the adoption of integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile manufacturing system (ISGLSAMS): a literature review

Purpose

Scarcity of resources, ecological imbalance, global warming, rising energy prices and the ever-changing need for variety have attracted the government and manufacturers for sustainable development of the industries. The integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile manufacturing system (ISGLSAMS) provides a solid platform for meeting both the customers’ variety needs and business sustainability requirements. Many organizations opted for ISGLSAMS, but still due to various barriers organizations are not able to fully implement ISGLSAMS. The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers to the ISGLSAMS, so that a more sustainable industrial manufacturing system and industrial symbiosis can be developed.

Design/methodology/approach

A literature review, from the Web of Science and Google Scholar database, has been carried out to identify the various barriers to the implementation of ISGLSAMS in the entire value chain. A total of 168 research papers have been reviewed for identifying the ISGLSAMS barriers.

Findings

This paper elaborates the concept of the ISGLSAMS, its attributes and various barriers and contributes to a better understanding and successful implementation of ISGLSAMS to meet business’ sustainability and market performance goals in the entire value chain. The paper also projects the future research framework and directions for the ISGLSAMS, integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile (ISGLSA) product and ISGLSA supply and value chain.

Practical implications

The study contributes to a better understanding of ISGLSAMS’ barriers. The government, stakeholders and policymakers may plan the policy, road map and strategies to overcome the ISGLSAMS’ barriers. In-depth knowledge of subclauses of ISGLSAMS’ barriers will help the practitioners to overcome the ISGLSAMS’ barriers strategically. By overcoming the ISGLSAMS barriers, a more sustainable 7 Rs based market focused manufacturing system can be designed. This will also increase the opportunities to enhance the industrial ecology, industrial symbiosis and better recovery of the product, process and supply chain residual value. This will reduce the waste to the ecosystem.

Originality/value

This work has been carried out in search of a more sustainable manufacturing system, i.e. ISGLSAMS (which is 7 Rs based, i.e. 6 Rs of sustainability with 7th R, reconfiguration) to meet the customer variety needs along with sustainability in the ever-changing customer market. This study adds value to the practitioners to identify and prioritize the ISGLSAMS’ industry-specific barriers and design the solution for the more sustainable development of (1) industries, (2) the industrial symbiosis system and (3) the ISGLSA product, process, system and supply value chain with minimum resource consumption and environmental impact. The research also contributes to the (a) ISGLSAMS (b) ISGLSA supply chain (c) reconfigurable, sustainable and modular products and (d) redesign, recovery and refurbishing of the product to increase the product life cycle.

A Systematic Review of the Applications of Multi-Criteria Decision Aid Methods (1977–2022)

Multicriteria methods have gained traction in academia and industry practices for effective decision-making. This systematic review investigates and presents an overview of multi-criteria approaches research conducted over forty-four years. The Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases were searched for papers on multi-criteria methods with titles, abstracts, keywords, and articles from January 1977 to 29 April 2022. Using the R Bibliometrix tool, the bibliographic data was evaluated. According to this bibliometric analysis, in 131 countries over the past forty-four years, 33,201 authors have written 23,494 documents on multi-criteria methods. This area’s scientific output increases by 14.18 percent every year. China has the highest percentage of publications at 18.50 percent, followed by India at 10.62 percent and Iran at 7.75 percent. Islamic Azad University has the most publications with 504, followed by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University with 456 and the National Institute of Technology with 336. Expert Systems With Applications, Sustainability, and the Journal of Cleaner Production are the top journals, accounting for over 4.67 percent of all indexed works. In addition, E. Zavadskas and J. Wang have the most papers in the multi-criteria approaches sector. AHP, followed by TOPSIS, VIKOR, PROMETHEE, and ANP, is the most popular multi-criteria decision-making method among the ten nations with the most publications in this field. The bibliometric literature review method enables researchers to investigate the multi-criteria research area in greater depth than the conventional literature review method. It allows a vast dataset of bibliographic records to be statistically and systematically evaluated, producing insightful insights. This bibliometric study is helpful because it provides an overview of the issue of multi-criteria techniques from the past forty-four years, allowing other academics to use this research as a starting point for their studies.

Assessing the factors affecting implementation of unmanned aerial vehicles in Indian humanitarian logistics: a g-DANP approach

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors affecting the implementation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Indian humanitarian logistics. The factors listed are significant as they are hindering the incorporation of this new technology into the humanitarian supply chain, thus creating inefficiencies in the humanitarian logistics sector.

Design/methodology/approach

This research is approached using a two-step process. In the first step, the particular barriers for UAV implementation are determined by a literature review and consultation with experts. Next, the proposed framework, a combination of grey-decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (grey-DEMATEL) and analytic network process (ANP), i.e. g-DANP, is used to determine a hierarchical structure for the factors and sub-factors. The grey hypothesis provides sufficient analytical data to an otherwise lacking DEMATEL technique. Also, the use of ANP gives weightage to each factor, allowing us to categorize their importance further.

Findings

This study reveals that factors like expensive commercial solutions and high transport energy costs are significant factors of the “cause” group, whereas the uncertain cost for maintenance and repair and deficiency of high-level computing are crucial factors of the “effect” category. The mentioned factors, along with many others, are the main reasons for the delayed incorporation of UAVs in humanitarian logistics.

Practical implications

The results of this study present insights for humanitarian supply chain managers, UAV producers and policymakers. Those in the humanitarian logistics sector can use the findings of this study to plan for various challenges faced as they try and implement UAVs in their supply chain.

Originality/value

This research is unique as it analyses the general factors hindering the implementation of UAVs in Indian humanitarian logistics. The study enriches existing literature by providing an analytic approach to determine the weightage of various interrelations between the identified factors affecting UAV incorporation in the humanitarian supply chain.