Proceedings of the International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management
Pilsen, Czech Republic, July 23-26, 2019
© IEOM Society International
Assessing Critical Failure Factors For Implementing Lean
Six Sigma Framework In Indian Manufacturing
Organizations
Vikas Swarnakar; Shailesh Vaidya; Anil Kr. Tiwari and A. R. Singh
Department of Mechanical Engineering
National Institute of Technology, Raipur 492010
Chhattisgarh, India
vikkiswarnakar@gmail.com; shailvdy@gmail.com; anil.kr.tiwari@gmail.com;
amitrajsingh1@gmail.com
Abstract
In present scenario manufacturing organizations are facing problem-related to quality, cost, and customer
satisfaction in the current market. To overcome such situation manufacturing companies are ready to adopt
continues improvement (CI) techniques which keep them stable in fluctuation in demand as per the market situation.
Lean Six Sigma (LSS) continues improvement methodology which helps to improve the bottom line result of the
company with the use of their tools and techniques. The successful implementation of Lean Six Sigma approach
provides significant improvement in key metrics but deficiency of proper implementation of LSS provides a
negative effect. To prevent such situation need to have knowledge about their failure factors. The study main
objective is to assess the Lean Six Sigma critical failure factors (CFFs) for implementing their framework in
manufacturing organizations. The leading LSS-CFFs for manufacturing organizations situated in India has been
identified and selected through literature review and experts opinion. The model on LSS critical failure factors has
been developed using ISM-MICMAC approach. The developed structured model will help LSS practitioners,
consultants, researchers to anticipate the potential CFFs to implement LSS framework in their organization for
continues improvement and achieve a leading position in a competitive market.
Keywords
Lean Six Sigma, Continues Improvement, Critical Failure Factors, ISM-MICMAC, Manufacturing Organization
1. Introduction
Manufacturing organizations is one of the rapid growing sectors in India and it has tremendous impacts in the Indian
economy. India is 5
th
largest manufacturer within the globe with total manufacturing value added of over 420 billion
USD in 2016. The average of seven percent growth has been achieved every year which account 16 to 20 percent
total GDP in India (The Hindu, Business Line, 2018). Today due to increase in demands for quality products and
services, manufacturing organizations are continues adopting continues quality improvement approaches such as
Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean manufacturing (LM), Six Sigma (SS). The Lean manufacturing approach
is used to eliminate wastes, continuously improve quality, and create value to customers (Grasso, 2005; Fullerton et
al. 2014; Swarnakar and Vinodh, 2016). Six Sigma is a methodology which highlighted the variation in the
manufacturing process and helps to reduce them through their statistical tools and techniques (Vinodh and
Swarnakar, 2015). The combination of these both approaches (Lean Six Sigma) provides extensive benefits to the
organization and improves the bottom line result. The concept of combining LSS principles began in the middle the
to late 1990s. The adaptation of the LSS approach maximizes the value of shareholder through continues
improvement (George and George, 2003). Numerous studies have reported the LSS framework implementation
benefits such as increase in production utilization rate, reduction in defects, improvement in quality, improve
production capacity, improvement in key metrics, eliminate non value adding activities (Lee and Wei, 2010;
Bhuiyan et al., 2006; Kumar et al., 2006; Vinodh et al., 2011; Vinodh et al., 2014; Chen and Lyu, 2009; Chakravorty
and Shah, 2012; Waite, 2013, Swarnakar and Vinodh, 2016) The successful implementation of LSS framework in a
manufacturing organization resulted in benefits such as uninterrupted and defect-free production. It also helps to
achieve a higher degree of competitiveness in a competitive market if implemented successfully. The deficiency of
proper implementation will achieve the negative effects which cause decrease quality, dissatisfied customers,
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