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Improved performance in operational (lean) and environmental (green) dimensions has been extremely critical to the global competitiveness of organizations. As the performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is influenced by various external and internal factors, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the lean–green performance of Indian manufacturing SMEs by investigating the influential relationships of various factors along with the set of lean and green practices adopted by the firms.

The study employs a holistic approach by integrating multiple case study and data envelopment analysis (DEA) in eight manufacturing SMEs to verify a set of five propositions relating issues such as organizational factors, quality and environmental management certifications, implementation of lean and green practices with operational and environmental performance in Indian SMEs. Within-case analysis and cross-case analysis are used for a qualitative investigation of cases while DEA with four input variables, two desirable output variables and one undesirable output variable, is used for quantitative investigation with returns to scale (RTS) and damages to scale (DTS) analysis.

The RTS/DTS results suggest that Indian SMEs exhibit decreasing RTS and increasing DTS, implying that they need to decrease their operational sizes in order to improve the operational and environmental performance. The possible alternative and more practical strategy could be to introduce new technology innovation and holistic adoption of manufacturing excellence initiatives such as lean and green.

The research findings provide insights into the lean and green performance enhancement approach in the context of SMEs. The study extends key managerial implications and policy-related guidelines.

The present situation of COVID-19 pandemic has put the health-care systems under tremendous stress and stringent tests for their ability to offer expected quality of health-care services, as it decides the sustainability and growth of health-care service providers. This study aims to deliver a quantitative framework for service quality assessment in the health-care industry by classifying the health-care service quality parameters into four balanced scorecard (BSC) perspectives.

To determine the service quality for the Indian health-care system, decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory and analytical network process are integrated in a fuzzy environment to contemplate the interaction among BSC perspectives and respective performance measures.

The results indicate “internal processes” perspective assumes the key role within BSC perspectives, while performance measures “nursing staff turnover” and “staff training” play the key roles. The results also signify that “patient satisfaction” is the most vital issue and can be strongly influenced by measures belonging to the “learning and growth” perspective. In “learning and growth” perspective, “staff training” is the most decisive criteria, very highly influencing “patient satisfaction”, highly influencing “profitability,” “change of cost per patient (both in and out patients)” and “outpatient waiting time” while moderately influencing “staff satisfaction,” “bed occupancy” and “nursing staff turnover”. Moreover, “staff training” criteria have a positive influence on “nursing staff turnover.”

The contributions of this study are in two folds in the domain of quantification of service quality for the health-care system. First, it delivers an assessment framework for Indian health-care service quality. Second, it demonstrates an application of the framework for a case situation and validates the proposed framework.

The Indian manufacturing sector currently contributes 16–17% to gross domestic product (GDP) and gives employment to around 12% (2014) of the country's workforce. Among the various initiatives planned under Atma Nirbhar Bharat and “Make in India”, the Indian government aims to increase the share of the manufacturing sector to country's GDP to 25% by 2025. To ensure sustainable growth of the Indian manufacturing industries in global market, successful and implementation of strategies such as lean manufacturing, green manufacturing along with six sigma are crucial. This research aims at identification and analysis of barriers to successful implementation of integrated Lean Green Six Sigma (LG&SS) strategies.

Based on an evaluative literature review and expert's opinion, this research identifies 18 barriers to lean, green and six sigma implementation in the manufacturing industry in India. The inter-relationships among the barriers is identified using an integrated approach of ISM (interpretive structural modelling) and Fuzzy Matrice d’Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliquée á un Classement (MICMAC).

ISM helps to derive key managerial insights and implementation plan based on the identified inter-relationships among the barriers. Fuzzy MICMAC analysis classifies the barriers into four categories, namely, autonomous, driver, dependent and linkage to understand their relative impact on the implementation of LG&SS practices in the Indian manufacturing industry. “Lack of cooperation and mutual trust between management and employees”, “The scarcity of time and work pressure”, “lack of continuous improvement work culture” and “lack of cooperation from suppliers” that forms the top most level of the model. “Weak legislation” is a highly significant barrier to LG&SS implementation in the Indian manufacturing industries.

It is expected that the findings of this research will help the Indian manufacturing industry to derive a sustainable competitive advantage through an effective implementation of LG&SS practices.

This study can be seen as the first attempt in investigating barriers to successful implementation of lean, green and six sigma strategies in the Indian manufacturing industries using ISM and fuzzy MICMAC analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the critical success factors (CSFs) behind the successful implementation of lean-green practices in Indian small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs).

The analysis employs two modeling approaches such as interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and interpretive ranking process (IRP) for examining the contextual relationships among the CSFs and ranks them with respect to key lean-green performance areas. A critical review of literature has led to the identification of total 25 CSFs for lean-green implementation. The list is reduced to 18 most relevant CSFs for the context of Indian SMEs based on experts’ (from industry and academia) opinions. The ISM is utilized to develop ten-level hierarchical model of CSFs. In order to gain greater insights into the nature of variables, the matrix of cross-impact multiplications applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis has been conducted.

The results show “Government support” as the most significant to the successful lean-green implementation in Indian SMEs and it is placed at the base of the ISM hierarchy. The CSF “Green disposal initiatives” is identified at the top level of the ISM hierarchy. Further, MICMAC analysis identifies five independent variables, eight linkages variables, four dependent variables and none autonomous variable. This may help SME managers to decide about resource priorities toward successful implementation of lean-green initiatives. Subsequently, the IRP has examined the dominance relationship and identifies “Organizational capabilities” as the most significant CSF.

This research intends to enable practitioners in prioritizing and managing strategic and tactical challenges involved in lean-green implementation in Indian SMEs.

This study makes an initial attempt in analyzing factors critical to successful implementation of integrated lean and green manufacturing practices in Indian manufacturing SMEs using ISM. The analysis is further enhanced by applying IRP to rank the CSFs by investigating the influence lean-green integration on various performance measures.

India’s manufacturing sector employs about 12% of the labour force and contributes to about 17% of the nation’s GDP. The Indian government intends to implement several initiatives under the “Make in India” and Atma Nirbhar Bharat banners to increase the manufacturing sector’s share of the nation’s GDP to 25% by 2025. Applying lean manufacturing, green manufacturing and Six Sigma is crucial to ensure that India’s manufacturing sectors grow sustainably in international markets. This study aims to identify sustainability indicators and ascertain their respective weights to evaluate the sustainability performance of the Indian manufacturing industry.

This research identifies 25 sustainability indicators and classifies them into the triple bottom line of sustainability based on an evaluative literature review and expert opinion. The Best Worst Method was utilised to determine the weights of the sustainability indicators. The sustainability index was developed to evaluate economic, social and environmental sustainability.

The sustainability performance of a foundry in a significant Western Indian State city was assessed by applying the developed sustainability index. After the adoption of integrated lean, green and Six Sigma (LG&SS) strategies and related practices in the foundry, there has been a notable improvement of 68.03% in the economic index, 61.62% in the social index and 13.24% in the environmental index.

The proposed sustainability index is applied and evaluated specifically for assessing the sustainability performance of Indian manufacturing SMEs. It can be used to substantiate firm’s sustainability performance and also to assess the improvement in firm’s performance in economic, environmental and social dimensions after implementing various operational excellence practices. However, it cannot serve as a benchmark tool across similar companies or organisations.

The developed sustainable index can be used to analyse the company or organisation’s sustainability performance and see how various strategies have improved things. Practitioners can use this index to assess social, economic and environmental performance and focus on areas that need improvement.

The proposed sustainability index serves as a vital tool for monitoring a firm’s progress in triple bottom line (TBL) dimensions of sustainability, tracking a diverse range of indicators and encouraging sustainable organisational practices.

This study attempts to assess the economic, social and environmental performance of Indian Manufacturing SMEs by proposing a sustainability index.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a balanced scorecard (BSC)- and strategy map-based quantitative framework for assessing the lean and green performance of the supply chain (SC). As the SC competitiveness demands efficient and effective utilization of resources throughout the value chain, not only adoption of lean and green SC paradigms but simultaneously its performance evaluation is also vital.

The lean and green SC performance measures are classified into four categories of BSC. A fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) methodology combined with analytical network process is proposed for examining the causal relationships between BSC perspectives and respective assessment criteria. The application of the proposed assessment framework is demonstrated for the case of Indian textile SC.

The research delivers a quantitative assessment framework for evaluating lean and green performance of the SC. The results obtained for a typical case of Indian textile SC revealed that “delivery performance,” “profitability” and “operational cost” are the most crucial performance measures. The perspective of “internal processes” is the most significant of all BSC perspectives while “learning and growth” perspective acts as the driving force to improve lean and green SC performance.

The paper makes two contributions in the domain of lean and green assessment of SC performance. First, it proposes an evaluation framework to investigate into the causal relationships among the BSC perspectives and related factors. Second, it undertakes an empirical investigation for Indian textile SC to develop key managerial insights and provide policy-related recommendations.

Popularity of organic food and food products is growing across the globe due to rising awareness towards health and environment, leading to quality life. However, the multitude of challenges associated with the purchase and consumption of organic food remain insufficiently addressed within the context of developing nations, such as India. This study attempts to fill this gap by identifying the crucial barriers and analyzing them further to establish contextual relationships among them.

In total, 18 barriers identified with a literature review are classified into 6 major barriers (constructs) using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Further, fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) approach is employed to relegate these barriers and sub-barriers into the cause-and-effect group. Moreover, causal relationships among these barriers are also established to assist organic food producers and food processing industries in developing the strategies to overcome these barriers.

The study results indicate that “acceptability,” “preferability” and “reachability” are the most prominent barriers. Moreover, “reachability’ is the leading cause group barrier, while “acceptability” is the major effect group barrier. “Usualness,” “visibility” and “readiness” of the organic food exhibit significant challenges in the organic food consumption.

The findings of this study act as a roadmap and guiding principle for various stakeholders, such as organic food manufacturers, organic food processing industries, government policymaking bodies and food certification agencies, in organizations and government regulatory agencies for devising and implementing targeted strategies to enhance the accessibility, appeal and, in turn, adoption and consumption of organic foods. This successively contributes to broader efforts in improving public health and ensuring sustainable agricultural practices.

The contribution of this study is two-fold. First, it investigates the interdependences among the organic food consumption barriers. Second, it provides policy-related recommendations to enhance the consumption of organic food, especially in India.

The purpose of this study is to identify a comprehensive list of main enablers of successful implementation of green manufacturing (GM) practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Based on the inputs from Irish SMEs' experts, a validated conceptual hierarchy model of the identified enablers is developed to analyse and prioritise the most dominant ones.

Data were collected using a questionnaire survey responded by various professionals in Irish manufacturing SMEs. Experts' opinions were analysed using interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) to distinguish the mutual influences amongst the nine identified enablers.

The findings revealed that from the Irish SMEs' perspective, strong green supply chain relations are the outcome of successfully implementing GM and not a driver of the other enablers. Furthermore, lower manufacturing costs are found to arise as a result of GM practices in SMEs.

It is discussed that emulating the actions of larger companies will not necessarily yield the same results for SMEs. Innovation will become a cornerstone of remaining competitive in a sustainable environment, which is facilitated by closer green supply chain relations.

The reported findings in this article contribute to theory and practice of GM and SMEs research domains by systematically identified, classified and ranked enablers in a conceptual hierarchal model from the perspective of Irish SMEs. This research lays the foundations for further analysis of the GM practices enablers in a time when UN mandates and EU regulations are increasingly impacting SMEs all around Europe and especially Ireland.

The purpose of this paper is to report a study on analysis of barriers for cyber-physical system (CPS) adoption in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

In Industry 4.0 scenario, Indian SMEs are struggling to bring their manufacturing processes in line with large manufacturing sector. CPS is considered as the backbone of Industry 4.0, and its implementation in SMEs will make significant changes pertaining to manufacturing automation. However, due to the lack of a proper CPS implementation strategy, SMEs face many challenges in its adoption. Hence, this study identified 18 possible barriers and seven performance measures pertaining to CPS adoption in Indian SMEs. Interpretive ranking process (IRP) is used to develop the contextual relationships among CPS barriers. IRP process include structured step-by-step matrix-based approach in which dominance among various alternatives is determined using performance measures developing a structured ranking model.

The developed IRP model revealed that CPS barriers “Lack of skilled manpower (CPSB2)” and “Lack of robustness with respect to environmental conditions in automotive environments (CPSB7)” are the most significant barriers (top two) hindering CPS adoption in SMEs.

In the present study, barriers for CPS adoption has been analyzed. In future, barriers for adopting other Industry 4.0 technologies could be analyzed.

The present research work is one of the few studies which analyzed CPS barriers in SMEs and provided improvement suggestions to the most significant barriers for its smooth adoption. The managerial and practical implications have been derived.

The analysis of barriers for CPS adoption in SMEs is the original contribution of the authors.