Investigations on the implementation of lean practices in indian pump manufacturing industry

Abstract

In the context prominence given to the manufacturing sector and make the sector to be more vibrant and efficient in terms of quality and quantity. There will be a need for a viable mechanism for converting the production process as an efficient one to meet the national and global competition. It was thought the lean manufacturing concept may be more suitable to reduce the wastes in the production line for which the customer doesn t want to pay. This research study has been focused on the usage of the lean concept in pump manufacturing industries in India. The reason to take the pump industry is the value it has got in domestic and industrial use and its predominant presence in both. Therefore, the pump industries manufacturing all types of pumps have been considered for this study. A survey was conducted in this regard to understand the level of implementation of lean in the Indian pump industries. In this regard, three categories of pump industries, small, medium and large scale industries were taken for the study. Extant of literature was surveyed and identified seven important Lean Implementation Measures (LIMs), namely Reason to Implement Lean, Lean Tools, Reason for Low Priority Towards Lean Implementation, Major Barriers in Lean Implementation, Level of Waste in the company, Success Factors of Lean Practice and Key Lean Performance Indicators. Based on the survey a questionnaire was developed by incorporating the LIMs. A general survey was conducted all over India by using a structured questionnaire. Another questionnaire was used to validate the findings of the questionnaire. Out of 171 responses received, 11 responses were rejected due to various reasons like not properly filled or responded to the questionnaire and hence considered only 160 responses for this study. The target population of the study was taken from all types of pump industries in India. Stratified Random Sampling Techniques was applied in getting the responses from different cadres of employees working in different categories of th