PurposeIn this study, the authors assess the current state of lean product development and the lean production shop floor, along with the impact of the former on process quality and the latter on product quality and customer complaint reduction. The interplay between process and product quality and customer complaint reduction is assessed, along with their impacts on business performance.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 377 managers working at auto-component manufacturing firms in India. Confirmatory factor analysis was used for scale validation, and structural equation modelling was employed to test the research hypotheses.FindingsThe results of the statistical analyses reveal the positive influence of a lean production shop floor on process quality and lean product development on product quality and customer complaint reduction, and thereby on business performance.Practical implicationsThe findings of this research provide insights into the interplay between lean and quality factors and their influence on customer complaint reduction and business performance. Practitioners can use the proposed model to strategically design unique products and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the production shop floor, which can help enhance the product and process quality. This can reduce customer dissatisfaction and improve the business performance.Originality/valueFew studies have simultaneously investigated the influence of lean product development and lean production shop floors in the Indian manufacturing context. To the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts to include customer complaint reduction as a construct in a lean model. It helps identify and prioritise the enablers of business performance and provides valuable insights for practitioners to strengthen lean implementation to attain a competitive edge.

This paper aims to review various prevalent manufacturing practices, such as leanness, agility, innovativeness, and sustainability in industries. This paper further investigates the scope of interconnections between them and explores various gaps that can be used for future research. An all-inclusive systematic review of 106 research papers was done during a time frame from 1991-2020 that considered numerous aspects, such as research tools and techniques used, data gathering approaches applied (empirical, case study, and literature review studies), and further data assortment techniques were also applied based on inquiry approach of various research methodologies (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-method approach). This research paper also considered characteristics, such as country of origin, targeted demography, objectives, and publication timeline. Notably, leanness, agility, innovativeness, sustainability, performance measurement, and MSMEs are well studied and analyzed in prior studies. Moreover, research findings highlighted the popularity of these practices in large-scale industries. However, very little literature supports the acceptance of these practices in manufacturing MSMEs. Moreover, the holistic effect of these practices and their interrelationship is an important aspect that has been ignored in previous studies, so there is an urge for adequate attention towards the extensive literature review in this domain. This literature review only considered manufacturing industries and excluded the service industries. Notably, this literature review enlightens the path and shows future directions for research to develop efficient, effective, and sustainable manufacturing practices for manufacturing industries. The inferences from this study may enlighten a new path for future studies related to manufacturing MSMEs.

Old manufacturing methods have become obsolete and are ineffective in the current era of highly competitive global markets. The customer expectations have seen a dramatic shift in tastes and preferences due to large product availability that keeps on improving with time. Nowadays companies are forced to adopt new manufacturing methods that facilitate growth, notably lean manufacturing tools, and related techniques have seen a positive acceptance worldwide. Furthermore, kaizen is one of the effective tools that are based on the principle of the right use of workers’ potential and capabilities. The present case study is done in an industry engaged in manufacturing child parts which are used in gearbox assembly, transmission, hydraulic lift assembly, etc. for original equipment manufacturers. Henceforth, these issues formed the basis for the current study. Furthermore, a road map was developed that was based on understanding the current manufacturing process, thorough analysis of records, followed by detailed employee interviews. Moreover, this study used a kaizen approach that involved people from the shop floor that lead to many positive suggestions and practical implementation. Finally, this study successfully improved overall product quality and met customer expectations without any major financial investments. The positive findings of this case study saw tangible gains in the form of Withdrawl Nut P252006 additional rework cost reduced from 5.82% to 0.41% and in-house rejection (scrap) cost reduced from 0.84% to 0.03%. Pre Loading Nut P124034 additional rework cost reduced from 5.97% to 0.34% and in-house rejection (scrap) cost from 0.89% to 0.02%.