Analysis of Barriers to Lean Implementation in Machine Tool Sector

A R T I C L E I N F O Lean implementation barriers, machine tool sector, ISM, IRP Received 18 June 2014 Accepted 04 August 2014 Available online 1 December 2014 Acute global competition has forced organization to adopt Lean manufacturing strategy in order to improve competitive potential. Top managements should examine the barriers to lean in order to ensure its effective implementation. This paper aims to analyze the barriers to implementing lean manufacturing practices based on the investigation of machine tool industry in the National Capital Region of India. Two distinct modeling approaches namely Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and Interpretive Ranking Process (IRP) have been employed to examine the contextual relationship among the lean implementation barriers, and to rank them with reference to key performance areas, respectively. Lean implementation barriers and performance indicators were identified through literature review and opinion of experts from industry and academia. ISM methodology is used to understand the mutual influences among the lean barriers and then classify these barriers on the basis of their driving and dependence powers. As is obvious, the barriers with high driving power and dependency need more attention than the others. Development of a structural model for barriers to lean implementation can be considered as one of the major contribution of this study. The novel IRP methodology is used to examine the dominance relationship and ranks the barriers with respect to key performance indicators related to the machine tool industry. ________________________________ * Corresponding Author VIKRAM SHARMA, AMIT RAI DIXIT, MOHAMMAD ASIM QADRI/ International Journal of Lean Thinking Volume 5, Issue 1(December 2014)