India is emerging as a new manufacturing destination and many companies are seeking ways to increase the value of their products and services by eliminating unnecessary processes and wasteful practices from their production systems. The powerful lean manufacturing approach that has proved successful as an operations model in developed economies, as well as in some large Indian companies, is now increasingly being recognized by the small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this research is to investigate the adoption of lean production in India and to examine the lean practices deployed by the SMEs. The case study methodology was utilized and the paper presents the findings of four SMEs in India that have implemented lean strategy to drive significant improvement in manufacturing performance

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Lean production has emerged in the past decades as one of the most popular themes in the business and manufacturing literature as it is the most extended production paradigm currently applied in industry. The lean approach is characterized by five principles (value, mapping the value stream, flow, pull and continuous improvement) that facilitate the reduction of waste (muda). In parallel, the environmental performance of a company in terms of pollution prevention, reduction and use/waste of resources is an issue increasingly concerning companies and customers in recent years. The focus on these issues has spurred an area of research that is commonly known as green production. Lean and green production concepts are both focused on waste reduction, and several authors have studied their relationships (commonalities and divergences) and the synergic effects of integrating these two management approaches. This research conducts a literature review in order to: (1) identify if firms which have applied lean principles and methods have improved their environmental measures; (2) highlight the environmental measures that are positively affected by lean practices adoption; and finally (3) underline the most important lean practices in relation to impacting environmental performance. The results are condensed in a final matrix that links some key lean practices to specific environmental measures. This matrix is of great interest for both researchers and practitioners since it suggests some possible relationships between various lean practices and the improvement of specific green performances. The findings give light regarding the state-ofthe-art relationships between the lean and green production approaches.

Previous evidence suggests that both lean and green production paradigms are focused on waste reduction and that lean practices help organizations to enhance sustainability objectives, and particularly environmental performance. However, the impact of lean practices on the environment is still unclear. This study therefore aims to analyse the relationship between lean and environmental performance in manufacturing with a strong empirical focus. This research was conducted in two main stages: first, an extensive review of the relevant literature was carried out, followed by a multiple case study analysis conducted in five manufacturing companies. Onsite data were collected from the firms during a five years' time span of research and developing semi-structured interviews. Furthermore, a cross-case analysis was carried out to map the results. Findings indicate that the environmental performance of the companies analysed is generally enhanced in the long-term after the implementation of lean. Moreover, the results from the multiple case study suggest that the environmental performance of the firms under analysis is mainly improved by using JIT and TQM practices in a lean transformation context. The research findings provide further results remarking the possible negative impact of practices such as Kanban deliveries, 5S and TPM on various environmental performance indicators.