International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 30 Number 1 - December 2015
A Comprehensive Study on Implementation of Lean
Manufacturing in Coir Based SME’s in Kerala
Ajin B. S#1, Prof. Tina Raju.#2 Prof.A.S.Prasanth#3
1
2
PG Scholar, Assistant professor, Professor,
Department of Mechanical Engineering, MA College of Engineering, Kothamangalam, Kerala, India
Abstract — We can cutdown waste and improve the
efficacy and competitiveness of an organization by using
lean manufacturing strategic tool. This concept is being
applied in large scale industries .Even though very few
SMEs have successfully implemented these techniques
most of them are not in a position to achieve complete
success in the field. Besides some are failures in these
cases. Hence it has been decided to study what are the
problems being faced by Indian SMEs in the case of
implementation of lean concepts. It is obvious that
competitive supremacy in global market can be achieved
only giving importance to manufacturing sector. This
research gives importance of the application of lean
manufacturing concept to small and medium enterprises
sector concentrating the Indian industry. The main aim of
the study is to determine what extent the main principles
of lean manufacturing have been put into practice in
twenty Indian Coir industries..
Keywords — Lean Manufacturing,
Structural Equation Modeling.
Linear
I. INTRODUCTION
During the post world war IInd period, Japanese
manufactures especially in the automotive industry
were facing with dilemma of shortage of material,
financial and human resources. It was Fiji Toyoda
and Tahiti Ohno at motor company in Japan who
pioneered the concept of toyato Production System
(TPS) better known in USA as Lean Manufacturing.
Basic idea behind the system is how to eliminate
waste. Waste is defined as anything that does not
add value to end product to the customer’s
perspective. The primary Objective of lean
manufacturing is to assist the manufactures who
have a desire to improve their companies
operations and become more competitive through
implementation of different lean Manufacturing
tools and technique. The success of waste
minimizing through the method of lean
manufacturing in Japan ,whereas other companies
and industries particularly in USA copied this
system with immediate effect. The term ―lean‖ as
defined by Womack and Jones (1994) is a system
that utilizes less in terms of all input to create some
as those created by a traditional mass production
system by contributing increased variety for end
customers. To manufacture only what is needed by
customer, when it is needed and in the quantities
ordered is called ―Lean‖ .In other words lean
ISSN: 2231-5381
means produce a commodity strictly accordance to
the quantity needed and time stipulated by a
customer. Goods may be manufactured in away
minimizing the time taken for the delivery of
finished goods, amount of labor and storage space
required .Besides the product must be with highest
quality and lowest price production through lean
manufacturing method and incorporated approach
to manufacturing of goods, better quality, time
delivery and competitive cost for customer
satisfaction can be achieved by the method of lean
manufacturing. The main motto of lean
manufacturing is to curtail the waste in human
effort, inventory, time taken to market and space
for manufacturing. Moreover to cultivate a high
demand and improve the quality of product at
World Level product in most attractive manner
(Todd 2000).The lean matrix changes the
organization into lean enterprises.
As this is the age of globalization and
Commercialization. Global market is bitterly
competitive. Therefore it is high time that
manufacturing industries changed there mode of
manufacturing. Hence the concept of traditional
mass production has to be changed according to new
ideas of lean manufacturing. It had been the
tradition belief in the west that only way to make
profit was to add it to manufacturing cost in order to
come up with a selling price. (Ohno, 1997; Monden,
1998).Literally the term value means ―how much
something is worth ― in money or other goods bfor
which it can be exchanged and the value stream is
defined as ―the specific activates with in supply
chain required to design, order and provide a
specific product or value‖ (Hines and Taylor,
2000).The terms that are used in parallel with term
lean manufacturing (a) Agile Manufacturing (b) Just
In
Time
manufacturing
(c)
Synchronous
Manufacturing (d) World Class Manufacturing.
Therefore the basic principle of lean manufacturing
is how to reduce cost through incessant
improvement that will gradually reduce the cost of
service and product, which will in turn help the
steady growth of profit.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Womack et al (1990) explains that the main
inspirational source of lean manufacturing in modern
industry is toyato Production System..Really they
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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 30 Number 1 - December 2015
focussed on matter how to eliminate waste so as to
improve customer satisfaction. In other words lean
manufacturing is an aggregation of principles,
philosophies and business which helps the
implementation of it.Neely et al. (1995) whereas gave
importance to a comparison of performance of the
industries in USA and Japan and made a study how
the TPS had helped the industries of Japan to
overcome the competition globally.
Lathin et al (2001) explains that implementation
of lean manufacturing ensures up to an extent the
following matters1)90% Reduction in lead time2)90%
Reduction in Inventories.3)50% increase in labour
productivity.Doolean & Hacker (2005) made a study
on exploratory effect of lean implementation in
electronic industries of northwest pacific regionMelton
(2005) has given a detailed analysis of the benefits of
lean concept in business process.After conducting a
research Taj.S (2005) suggested a method which
defines how lean manufacturing can be effected
without waste. Some authors suggested a production
system which focuses on incessant flow of goods
within supply chain by avoiding all wastes and
performance
with
perfection
and
steady
improvement.Papadopoula et al (2005) explains that
most of the researches have commonly agreed that
lean manufacturing is a mechanism which can reduce
cost and in world class organisation it can be adopted
as a guide.Achanga et al(2006) explains that it has
come to the notice that in large organisations this lean
manufacturing has successfully been implemented but
in smaller organisations there are no clear evidence s
of the implementation of lean manufacturing in small
scale organisation. Small scale industries do get no
chance for implementation of lean manufacturing like
that of large organisation and high level of the set
companies which produce high quality products on
large scale.Following are proposals of Akin
Akinlawon (2007) for a successful lean enterprise1)
Skilled or Unskilled man power may be utilized at it’s
maximum2) The size of cellular/plant module must be
optimum 3) Manufacturing cost of finished product in
toto, should be minimised.4) Reduction of
Investment5) Reducing of labour requirement.6)
Productive equipment must be utilized more and
more.7) Changes may be made according to taste of
market /customer.
The researchers Ferdousi and Ahmad (2009) on lean
manufacturing proposes a reduction of lead time from
8-5% and an improvement of productivity from 1060% and also an improvement of quality of product
from 8-80%.Upadhye et al. (2010) and others
stressed the point that the best way to identify and
eliminate waste of Indian manufacturing industries is
the conversion of their weakness of lesser resources
into their strength.Yang et.al (2010) affected an
analysis of the barriers for implementation of lean
production
in
small
scale
industries
of
china.According to Bikash Marasini et al
ISSN: 2231-5381
(2014) ,small scale industries has no other option
than implementing lean manufacturing ,so as to
improve productivity .In respect of large scale
industries lean manufacturing has already been
proved success, where as in small scale industries it
is comparatively low..Lean manufacturing is not a
perfect choice for small scale industries since they
cannot maintain higher quality of products and
manages the sophisticated business process as that of
large scale industries.
jitesh Thakkar at el (2014) reveals that present status
of lean implementation and awereness in this respect
in Indian industries is not absolutelhopeful.G. Anand
at el, (2015) have stated that lean manufacturing has
drawn the attention of the industries across the world.
They further observes that based on the reports on
benefits and customer demands of the already the
scheme implemented companies some others have
implemented lean management in their companies
and steps are being taken to implement in their
companies.
STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELLING (SEM).
Structural equation modeling is a large subject.
Relatively brief introductions may be found in Fox
(1984) and in Duncan (1975); Bollen (1989) is a
standard book-length treatment, now slightly dated;
and most general econometric texts (e.g., Greene,
1993: Ch. 20; Judge et al., 1985: Part 5) take up at
least observed-variables structural equation models.
SEM is a large sample technique (usually N > 200)
and the sample size required is somewhat dependent
on model complexity, the estimation method used,
and the distributional characteristics of observed
variables (Kline, 2005).
TECHNIQUE FOR ORDER PREFERENCE BY
SIMILARITY TO IDEAL SOLUTION (TOPSIS)
Shanian and Savadogo (2006) presented an
application of the TOPSIS method for solving the
material selection problem of metallic bipolar plates
for polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC), which often
involves multiple and conflicting objectives. Olson
(2004) reviewed several applications of TOPSIS
using different weighting schemes and different
distance metrics, and compares results of different
sets of weights applied to a previously used set of
multiple criteria data. Deng et al. (2000) formulated
the inter-company comparison process as a multicriteria analysis model in their paper, and presented
an effective approach by modifying TOPSIS for
solving the problem. Jahanshahloo et al. (2009) in
their paper presented a new TOPSIS method for
ranking decision making units (DMUs) with interval
data yielding the interval score for each alternative
III.
PROBLEM BACKGROUND AND
METHODOLOGY
In general, the success of implementation of any
particular management practice frequently depends
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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 30 Number 1 - December 2015
upon organizational characteristics, and not all
organizations can or should implement the same set
of practices (Galbraith, 1977). Indian MSMEs are an
integral part of Indian economy. The contribution to
the economic development of the country is indeed
significant, but due to liberalization and globalization
Indian MSMEs are facing tremendous challenges in
the market. Imports and MNCs and especially china
are becoming Manufacturing sector accounts for
about 17% in India’s GDP compared to China (35%),
Thailand (34%), Malaysia (31%), and Indonesia
(25%) (Upadhye et al., 2010). Manufacturing
contributes more than 75% in Indian exports. Large
scale industries have started implementing Lean
concept. But it is very sad to say that Indian
industries are still struggling to implement these
techniques. Very few small and medium scaled
industries have successfully implemented; many of
them were not able to implement fully, some were
failed
STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODEL (SEM)
SEM approach is considered because there is no
difficulty in hypothesis testing as it takes the
confirmatory approach rather than the exploratory
approach. It can incorporate both observed and latent
variables. Moreover, no one has used SEM approach
to arrive at lean score. The SEM model consists of two
folds – one is the lower order model and the other is
the higher order model. In the lower order model, the
data obtained through the survey for the sub-criteria
are given as the input. The construct score arrived
through the lower order model are inputted to the
higher order model. This construct score acts as an
observed variable data for the higher order model.
This is shown in Fig.32
The influence of Management and organization,
Safety and environment concern ,Resistance to
change ,Quality, Finance, Employee Trust, Skills
and Expertise, Customer focus and performance
measures has been proved by hypotheses H1 ,H2,
H3, H4, H5, H6, H7, H8, H9. So the proposed
model explained a significant percentage of variance
in lean manufacturing
Fig. 3.2 Higher Order Model
Table 1 Hypothesis Testing
S.N
o
Causal
Hy
Point
t
Hypothes
Path
pot
Estim
valu
is
hesi
ate
es
Support
H1
0.26
4.43
Yes
H2
0.25
4.91
Yes
H3
0.65
3.88
Yes
s
1
Strong
Manage
ment
and
Leaders
hip
2
Safety
and
Environ
mental
concern
3
Resistan
ce to
Figure 3.1 Lower Order Model
ISSN: 2231-5381
change
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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 30 Number 1 - December 2015
4
Quality
H4
0.78
3.04
Yes
5
Financia
H5
0.52
5.33
Yes
H6
0.83
4.97
Yes
H7
0.55
4.55
Yes
H8
0.47
4.19
Yes
H9
0.72
4.66
Yes
l
capabilit
ies
6
Employ
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
0.4563015432
0.4445750355
0.4346356701
0.4327553478
0.4130280481
0.4013501145
0.3480210776
0.3347308779
0.3217089206
ee Trust
7
Skills
and
Expertis
e
8
Custom
er focus
9
Perform
ance
RESULT
Lean manufacturing is an integrated manufacturing
strategy which is focused on the maximization of
capacity and minimization of system variability.The
factors (Latent factors) given by SEM model is
considered for the relative weightage of the criteria.
The relative weightages of the criteria are found out
from LISREL and tabulated in the table 4.1
Table 3 Weightages of the Critical Factors
Measure
Critical Success Factors
Management and leadership
Weight
0.0515
s
Safety and Environmental
0.0496
Concerns
TOPSIS METHODOLOGY
Table 2 Companies Rating from higher to Lower
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
Company
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0.7405113555
0.6974690946
0.5906443951
0.5607480061
0.5598063809
0.5541365123
0.5294336904
0.4883267073
0.4798947610
0.4629311646
0.4586704376
Resistance to change
0.1299
Quality
0.1550
Finance
0.1039
Employee
0.1650
Skills and Expertise
0.1090
Customer Focus
0.0930
Performance Measure
0.1431
The above table gives relative weight ages for all the
9 success factors and shows that Employee Trust,
Quality turned out to be the most important factor
industries prefer.
The companies are ranked with TOPSIS technique
have been Shown below
Table 4 TOPSIS
MSMEs
Rank(TOPSIS)
COMP 3
Ist
COMP 8
2nd
COMP 15
3rd
COMP 9
4th
COMP 4
5th
COMP 17
6th
COMP 13
7th
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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 30 Number 1 - December 2015
COMP 20
8th
COMP 19
9th
COMP 1
10th
7.
th
COMP 14
11
COMP
7
12th
COMP 11
13th
COMP 2
14th
COMP 12
15th
COMP 16
16th
COMP 18
17th
COMP 6
18th
COMP 5
19th
COMP 10
20th
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
CONCLUSION
Lean manufacturing is a strategic tool, which is
used to reduce waste and to improve the
efficiency
and
competitiveness
of
an
organization. This research is intended to provide
valuable
insights
into
MSMEs
lean
manufacturing initiatives upon manufacturing in
Indian companies. There are a number of
findings that can be considered important for any
organization considering implementation of lean
strategies. Overall it can be seen that all the
twenty industries have similar philosophies
when it comes to lean It is hoped that the work
carried out has focused some light on to a better
understanding of lean manufacturing principles.
The ranking obtained from TOPSIS is useful for
the industries to pay their attention on some
basic important issues while achieving the
prescribed targets.
14.
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