Title: Lean manufacturing system implementation in Indian automotive components manufacturing sector - an empirical study

Authors: G.V. Prabhushankar; K. Kruthika; Souradeep Pramanik; Rajeshwar S. Kadadevaramath

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, SIT, Tumkur, India ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, SIT, Tumkur, India ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, SIT, Tumkur, India ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, SIT, Tumkur, India

Abstract: The Indian automobile industry is one of the largest industries in India and is witnessing an impressive growth during the last two decades. It has been able to restructure itself, absorb newer technology, align itself to the global developments and realise its potential. This has been achieved with the help of many process improvement approaches such as lean manufacturing system (LMS), Six Sigma methodology and certification to ISO/TS16949. Among the three approaches, LMS is very popular and most widely used in the automotive sector. In view of this, this study investigates the extent of implementation of LMS and its effectiveness on the Indian auto components sector. A questionnaire was used to collect data via direct interview and/or email. Totally, 27 industries which have adopted LMS were approached, out of which 20 responded positively. From this research, information on the reasons for using LMS, significant benefits of LMS, tools of LMS, performance measures of the companies on using LMS techniques has been summarised.

Keywords: automotive components; empirical study; lean manufacturing systems; LMS benefits; LMS tools; t-value; Cronbach alpha; India; lean manufacturing implementation; automobile industry; component manufacturing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2015.069442

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2015 Vol.9 No.2, pp.179 - 194

Received: 26 Sep 2014
Accepted: 06 Nov 2014
Published online: 16 May 2015 *

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