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.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a statistically reliable and valid model of lean manufacturing (LM) implementation drivers for the Indian ceramic industry through an empirical study. Design/methodology/approach – The research methodology is based on the empirical study of the Indian ceramic industry through a questionnaire specifically developed for the study through literature review and discussions held with practitioners. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling techniques have been used to propose and validate the model. SPSS and AMOS statistical tools have been used for the statistical analysis of the data. Findings – The study identified 12 drivers for the LM implementation in Indian ceramic industry. Further, these 12 drivers have been categorized into internal, policy and external drivers (ED). Structural model affirms that ED are positively related to policy drivers (PD) and PD are positively related to internal drivers. Research limitations/implications – This study provides casual relationships among the various drivers, which can be leveraged by the managers for the easy and effective implementation of LM in their organizations. It is expected that the model will help the decision makers during LM implementation in taking informed decisions in prioritizing and sequencing the implementation strategy. The results of the research may apply to other industries as well, but this needs to be validated by collecting data and analysing its results. Practical implications – The results provide insights into motivating factors that should be focused on while taking lean decisions. The correlation results among drivers will enable the policy makers in government and industry to strategically leverage the resources for the successful implementation of LM in the industry. Originality/value – This research empirically develops a model of drivers for LM implementation. The novelty of the study is the causal relationship among the drivers which can be used for decision making to implement lean easily and effectively. Moreover, the categorization of the drivers into internal, external and policy categories and driving/driven relationship among these categories provides the top management an incisive insight into broad improvement areas.
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