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The present study aims to explore the barriers to Lean Six Sigma (LSS) implementation in the healthcare sector and develop the ranking of finalized barriers using the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach under a fuzzy environment.

The LSS barriers are identified through the literature review and validated by the expert's opinion and statistical analysis. A total of 124 experts were identified through the purposive sampling method for conducting this study. A questionnaire survey method is used to collect the data related to identified LSS barriers in the healthcare sector. The screened barriers are ranked through the Fuzzy DEMATEL approach.

In this study, a total of 21 barriers were identified with the help of a systematic literature review and screened 13 significant barriers by the expert opinions of healthcare personnel. The result reveals that “Lack of top management commitment and support, lack of awareness about LSS”, “resistance to culture change and inadequate resources emerges as the most critical barriers”. The prioritization of barriers facilitates the managers to make effective policies and guidelines for LSS implementation in healthcare organizations.

To avoid LSS implementation failure, the practitioners and researchers need to focus on LSS barriers as per suggested ranking more conventionally and make plans and adoption policies accordingly.

This study is unique in terms of investigation and empirical analysis of LSS implementation barriers in the healthcare sector in the Indian context. The outcomes of the present study will help the managers of healthcare organizations to make the strategies and policies for LSS implementation as per the recommended LSS barriers.

Titanium (Ti) alloys are in high demand in manufacturing industries all over the world. The property like high strength to weight ratio makes Ti alloys highly recommended for aerospace industries. Ti alloys possess good weldability, and therefore, they were extensively investigated with regard to strength and metallurgical properties of welded joint. This study aims to deal with the analysis of strength and microstructural changes in Ti-6Al-4V (Grade 5) alloy after tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding.

Two pair of Ti alloy plates were welded in two different voltages, i.e. 24 and 28 V, with keeping the current constant, i.e. 80 A It was a random selection of current and voltage values to check the performance of welded material. Both the welded plates were undergone through some mechanical property analysis like impact test, tensile test and hardness test. In addition, the microstructure of the welded joints was also analyzed.

It was found that hardness and tensile properties gets improved with an increment in voltage, but this effect was reverse for impact toughness. A good corroboration between microstructure and mechanical properties, such as tensile strength, hardness and toughness, was reported in this work. Heat distribution in both the welded plates was simulated through ANSYS software to check the temperature contour in the plates.

A good corroboration between microstructure and mechanical properties, such as tensile strength, hardness and toughness, was reported in this study.

This paper aims to focus on the selection of an appropriate nature-inspired texture pattern for cutting tool tribological surface. The selection process uses the recognized skin textures of different snakes scrolling on highly rough and projected surface conditions to analyze suitability of texture based on the texture geometry and machining conditions. The work also aims to propose a texture pattern selection process to incorporate on cutting tool tribological surface.

The selection of alternative nature-inspired texture patterns based on the texture pattern geometry and machining properties leads to a multi-criteria decision-making problem. Thirteen criteria are considered for selecting an appropriate texture pattern among 14 alternatives, i.e. nature-inspired texture patterns. In the present work, an integrated analytical hierarchy process (AHP)-TOPSIS, AHP-multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis (MOORA) and AHP-Vlse Kriterijumska Optimizacija Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) approaches have been proposed for the selection of an appropriate nature-inspired texture pattern. AHP is used for the formulation of decision-making matrix and criteria weight calculations and ranking of alternatives is done by three methods. Spearman’s correlation compared and found positive relations between rank assigned by methods. Experimental validation is done in Lathe for selected texture effects.

The texture parameters C-1 (Width of texture) and C-2 (Depth of texture) are found significant, while T-2 (Blended Krait) and T-6 (Banded Racer-1) texture is found optimal to generate on cutting tool surface.

Only some nature-inspired texture patterns have been recognized before the selection; an infinite number of textures are available in nature. The size of the texture pattern is difficult to identify by the selection process because each texture pattern may have different effects on tribological surfaces.

The proposed selection methodology of nature-inspired texture patterns will help identify optimal texture geometry for specific tribological applications. The nature-inspired texture patterned tool has a significant impact on the cutting force and temperature due to its tribological effect on the cutting tool surface; it decreases the power required for machining. The machining characteristics like roughness are found to decrease by using nature-inspired texture patterned tools.

Various nature-inspire texture studies to generate specific effects on the tribological surfaces may be started study for the surface of aircraft, ships, bearings, etc. Small and big fabrication industries may benefit by decreasing the cost of machining using nature-inspired texture-patterned tools. Research society will pay attention to nature’s inspiration.

Novel snake-skin-inspired texture patterns are recognized and hybrid MCDM methods are proposed to select optimal texture pattern. Proposed method used single time normalization to effectively rank the alternatives. The insights gained from this research can be extrapolated to address similar challenges in selecting nature-inspired textures for various applications.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-05-2024-0163/