Barriers in Adopting Lean and Green Practices in Indian Manufacturing Companies

Currently, Lean and Green practices are followed in almost all the manufacturing Companies. Lean practices focus on reducing and eliminating the wastages generated in the conversion process which include complex procedures, sub-optimal inventory storage, excessive motion, transportation, waiting, overproduction, defects, and underutilized manpower. Green practices focus on minimizing the negative effect on the environment and conserving natural resources in an efficient manner. The main goal of this study is to understand the barriers to implementing and following Lean and Green Practices. For this purpose, the responses of respondents from different manufacturing companies are evaluated. The respondents are qualified engineers and skilled managers from different manufacturing companies. The data is analyzed through the SPSS tool and the ANOVA test is used. This study confirms that the adopting of lean and green manufacturing is essential for the overall improvement of the manufacturing Companies, however, our study shows that many barriers to implementing these practices are quite common. The barriers to implementing Lean practices identified in this study are fear of failure, poor quality of human resources, lack of expert training and education, fund constraints, lack of kaizen culture, and resistance to change. The barriers to implementing green practices identified in this study are lack of environmental awareness, good reuse and recycle mechanisms, mechanisms to reduce pollution due to manufacturing process, eco-friendly raw materials, and sustainable strategies to reduce energy consumption, water usage, emission, and waste generation.