STUDY OF LEAN MANUFACTURING ISSUES IN INDIAN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

The lean manufacturing system (LMS) has attracted serious attention among the practitioners and researchers in the recent years. The principles and practices of lean manufacturing (LM) are not only implemented in the automotive industry, but also in service sectors, healthcare and other organizations. Although numerous articles dealing with the theory and practice of LM have been published, ironically, not many organizations have been successful in implementing the LMS and demonstrating a significant improvement in performance similar to that of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC). After having gone through literature available on the present topic, it has been concluded that major manufacturing industries in developed countries have been trying to adopt new manufacturing initiatives in order to stay alive in competitive market. However, few automotive industries are implementing the concept of Lean manufacturing in India. Lean manufacturing is one of those initiatives that focus upon cost reduction by identifying and eliminating non-value added activities. In developed countries, work is being undertaken on successful implementation of lean manufacturing in totality, but such studies have not been evidenced in Indian context.