International Journal of Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IJIEOM) Volume. 3, No. 1, October 2021 © IEOM Society International IEOM Society International International Journal of Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IJIEOM) Volume 3, No. 1, October 2021 pp. 16 - 32 Assessment of Critical Failure Factors for Implementing Lean Six Sigma in Manufacturing Industry: A case study Dr. Vikas Swarnakar Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Raipur- 492010, Chhattisgarh, INDIA vikkiswarnakar@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.46254/j.ieom.20210102 ABSTRACT In the present scenario manufacturing industries have been facing problem-related to cost, quality, and customer satisfaction. To overcome such problems, the organizations are ready to adopt continuous improvement (CI) approaches such as Lean Six Sigma (LSS) which keeps them stable when the demand for products or services fluctuates. LSS is a breakthrough improvement approach that helps to improve the bottom-line result of the company by utilizing its tools and techniques. The successful adaptation of the LSS approach provides a significant improvement in key metrics but deficiency of proper implementation shows a negative effect. To prevent such a situation, need to know about their failure factors. The objective of the present study is to assess the critical failure factors (CFFs) for LSS framework implementation in manufacturing organizations. The leading CFFs for LSS have been identified and selected through a structured literature review and expert opinion. The CFFs based model for LSS implementation has been developed using the Interpretative Structural Modelling and Matrice d’ Impacts Croises Multiplication Appliquee a un Classement (ISM-MICMAC) approach. Previous studies related to such concerns have not developed a structural hierarchical model that is necessary to tackle CFFs towards the LSS implementation process. Such an interrelation helps decision-makers, planners to systematically guide about the barriers that affect the implementation process and help for further implementation success. The developed structured model will also help LSS practitioners, consultants, researchers to anticipate the potential CFFs to implement the LSS framework in their industry for continuous improvement and achieve a leading position in a competitive market. ARTICLE INFO Received 24-Oct-2020 Revised 29-Sep-2020; 24-Oct- 2020 Accepted 11-Nov-2020 KEYWORDS Critical Failure Factors, Continuous Improvement methodology, Lean Six Sigma, ISM-MICMAC, Manufacturing organization 1. Introduction Manufacturing organizations are one of the rapidly growing sectors within India and have tremendous impacts on the Indian economy (Swarnakar et al., 2019c). India is 5 th biggest manufacturer within the globe with an overall manufacturing value added of over 420 billion US dollars in 2016. The average of seven percent growth has been achieved every year which accounts for 16 to 20 percent total gross domestic product (GDP) in India (The Hindu, Business Line, 2018). It also plays a lead role in generating employment (Malek and Desai, 2019; Swarnakar et al., 2020c). The Indian government aims to achieve 25% of gross domestic product share and 100 million new jobs for unemployed peoples in this sector by 2022 (Indian Industry Report, March 2020). To achieve these targets, the Indian government has been presently launched the “Make in India” program (Swarnakar et al., 2020a, d). The business condition of the manufacturing sector of India continues to remain positive (Indian Industry Report, March 2020) 16