Original Article

Proc IMechE Part B:

J Engineering Manufacture
2018, Vol. 232(2) 371–378
A study on implementation of lean Ó IMechE 2016
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manufacturing in Indian foundry sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0954405416640169

industry by analysing lean waste issues journals.sagepub.com/home/pib

Suresh Prasad1, Dinesh Khanduja2 and Surrender K Sharma2

Abstract
Lean proliferates the value-adding work by eliminating wastes and reducing incidental and non-value-adding work to a
certain possible extent. Waste can be defined as anything other than the essential resources of people, machines, and
materials that are needed to add value to the product. According to the lean concept, any action which does not directly
enhance product’s value can be considered as waste. Analysis of lean waste issues is one of the primary steps to imple-
ment lean principles in many industries and the same is applicable for the foundry industry as well. The purpose of this
article is to investigate the importance of various lean waste issues in Indian foundry industry for improvement in pro-
ductivity and elimination of wastes, thereby initiating lean implementation. For the purposes of this study, we employed
the survey questionnaire method to collect data against 17 lean waste issues from 71 middle- to senior-level profession-
als belonging to Indian foundry industry. The survey instrument of lean waste issues is developed based on a number of
sources from the literature and formal discussions with academicians and foundry industry professionals. The responses
were received on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from never found to mostly found. Descriptive statistics is employed to
find out the relative significance of lean waste issues. Exploratory factor and reliability analyses are conducted to obtain
and validate constructs and measure each construct’s Cronbach’s alpha. Finally, the study concludes that there is a need
for elimination of lean waste issues to implement lean manufacturing and fulfil the requirements of Indian foundry
industry.

Keywords
Lean manufacturing, empirical study, waste issues, foundry industry, India

Date received: 16 October 2014; accepted: 29 February 2016

Introduction throughout India, out of which 95% can be classified as

In today’s immensely competitive environment, the role
of foundry industry is vital to the economies of many
developing and developed nations of the world. The
products manufactured by this industry are used in var-
ious other industries such as steel, electrical and electro-
nics, railway, aerospace, and automobile industries. To
produce a product in a foundry, it may undergo a vari-
ety of processes such as pattern making, mould making,
melting of metals, metal treatment and degassing, cool-
ing, fettling, recycling of sands, heat treatment, clean-
ing, drilling, polishing, machining, and surface coating.
Thus, the manufacturing of a product by casting in the
foundry industry requires a large number of processes
and there are great possibilities of waste generation.
At present, Indian foundry industry is facing heigh-
tened challenges from global competition in all aspects
of the business. There are more than 4500 foundry units
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and 5% as
large-scale enterprises.1 During the financial year 2012–
2013, Indian foundry industry has been acknowledged
as the world’s third largest producer of castings produc-
ing 9.3 million tons per annum after China and United
States producing 42.5 and 12.8 million tons per annum,
respectively. Apparently, the large gap in the produc-
tion of castings between India and China indicates that
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, I.T.S. Engineering College,
Greater Noida, India
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology,
Kurukshetra, Kurukshetra, India
Corresponding author:
Suresh Prasad, Department of Mechanical Engineering, I.T.S. Engineering
College, Greater Noida 201306, India.
Email: suresh_iftm@rediffmail.com
372
the industry is failing to utilize the availability of abun-
dant natural and human resources and manufacturing
potentials. Despite these challenges, foundry industry
will continue to provide essential components for many
of the manufactured goods. Torielli et al.2 explained
that foundries can become economically and environ-
mentally sustainable businesses only by implementing
the systematic approach offered by lean manufacturing
to eliminate the wastes generated. Panwar et al.3 high-
lighted that although implementation of lean practices
is more generally seen in the discrete part industries,
they are fairly frequently implemented in the process
industries as well.
Nowadays, lean manufacturing is one of the most
powerful strategies to achieve operational and service
excellence. It is being extensively practiced and imple-
mented by many manufacturing industries in different
countries across the world for improving productivity
and operational performance. Lean principles aim to
increase productivity by extracting as much output as
they can obtain from lesser inputs while eliminating
wastes in terms of human effort, inventory, waiting,
and so on from the systems and operations.4 Waste
consists of non-value-adding activities that contribute
to the product costs and can be considered as any
action for which the customer is unwilling to pay for.5
In any process or industry, waste is referred to as the
misuse of resources, as the product which is not appro-
priate for sale, as the resources that tie up cash, or as
the inventory which provides little or no benefit to the
industry or to its customer. Any process inside a manu-
facturing facility can be classified as an incidental activ-
ity, value-adding activity, or non-value-adding
activity.6 These activities are described as follows:
 Incidental activities. The processes, such as inspec-
tion, that do not add value to the product, but are
still required in the current production system;
 Value-added (VA) activities. The processes, such as
the final assembly of a product, that increase value
of the product;
 Non-value-added (NVA) activities. The processes
that do not add any value to the product.
After having gone through the literature and dis-
cussing waste issues in terms of lean manufacturing
with the industry professionals and academia, it has
been observed that the lean approach can provide
many benefits to Indian foundry industry. But the pres-
ent status of lean manufacturing is not up to the mark
in the industry and needs the attention of researchers
and foundry managers for the implementation of lean
concepts, principles, and practices. Thus, the main idea
of this study is to facilitate foundry industry in taking
up new initiatives, such as lean manufacturing, to
become more cost-competitive in today’s global mar-
ket. Although these methodologies have been around
for several years, the purpose of this study is to bridge
the gap between the theory and practice of lean and to
Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture 232(2)
study and investigate the importance of various lean
waste issues in Indian foundry industry for improve-
ment in productivity and elimination of wastes.
This study performed a survey to find out significant
lean waste issues for elimination in Indian foundry
industry. First, we systematically identify different lean
waste issues based on a number of sources from the lit-
erature and formal discussions with academicians and
foundry industry professionals. Then, we conduct a fac-
tor analysis to obtain and validate constructs of lean
waste issues. Finally, we perform reliability analysis to
verify the reliability of the constructs and use descrip-
tive statistics to identify significant lean waste issues
and their constructs. The results obtained from the
analyses have been analysed and reported in this article.
The article is structured as follows. The next section
‘Literature review’ reviews the literature relating to lean
manufacturing and its waste issues. Section ‘Research
methodology’ provides the research methodology devel-
oped for analysing lean waste issues. Section ‘Data anal-
ysis’ presents the descriptive statistics and factor analysis
of these waste issues. In section ‘Results and discussion’,
implications of the results are discussed and suggestions
for eliminating lean waste issues are presented. The con-
clusion of this study is provided in section ‘Conclusion’.
Literature review
In the early 1980s, Japanese firms were leading the
world’s automobile manufacturing sector with low-cost,
best quality products, and just-in-time (JIT) delivery
systems due to the Toyota Production System (TPS).
The quality and efficiency improvement practices
applied by Toyota in their production system, known
as TPS, were first referred to as lean manufacturing in
the book entitled The Machine That Changed the World
published by Womack et al.7 in the year 1990. Lean
principles focus on the continuous identification and
elimination of wastes and have begun to be propagated
across the world owing to its influence on manufactur-
ing operations. According to Hopp and Spearman,8
lean manufacturing is ‘an integrated method that car-
ries out production of goods or services with least possi-
ble buffering overheads’. Today, publications dealing
with implementation of lean principles and practices in
industries other than the automotive industry9,10 can be
extensively seen within the literature such as in the aero-
space,11,12 aviation maintenance repair overhaul,13
hand tools,14 and steel industry.15 Elimination of wastes
can be seen as an integral feature and ultimate target of
most of the articles related to lean manufacturing
within the literature. This shows that lean manufactur-
ing is a universal philosophy implemented for eliminat-
ing wastes to a certain extent in any manufacturing
industry.16 Eliminating wastes can reduce product costs
and enhance quality, but practically it is not viable to
eliminate all the seven wastes absolutely even in an effi-
cient system whose operations are waste dependent,
Prasad et al. 373

Table 1. Explanation of wastes affecting the productivity in the industry.6,7,17–19

Waste Explanation

Over-production Producing products more than the customer demands at that time which inhibits smooth flow of
products and information, hampering productivity, and quality
Waiting Interruptions in production during the change of shift or due to errors resulting in the waste of time and
increases costs of products
Transportation Unnecessary movement of products which are not essentially requisite to complete the processing
Inventory Excessive storage of goods in the form of raw materials, work-in-process or finished products,
increasing lead time, and operational costs
Motion Unnecessary movement of workers inside the company leading to a poor flow of goods and longer lead
times
Defects Frequent faults in the quality of product resulting in higher scrap or rework which leads to increase in
lead times and costs, resulting in poor quality of products
Unused creativity Lack of ability to utilize the talent, knowledge, creativeness, and innovation of employees due to
improper management support or disincentive methods or schemes

that is, has waste as a part of its functionality.5 Waste is
anything other than the essential resources of equip-
ment, effort, machines, materials, parts, space, time,
and workers that are vital to add value to the product
and for which the customer is willing to pay for.9,17 The
seven types of waste categories identified from the TPS
include over-production, waiting for equipment and
human resources, transportation, inventory, motion,
defects, and over-processing.18 Moreover, the underuti-
lization of creativity of employees is considered as the
eighth waste.7Table 1 provides the explanation of most
of the aforementioned wastes. However, the goal of
lean principles is not to just deal with the elimination of
these wastes but also to ensure that the flow of produc-
tion is smooth and well-organized.4
Cleaner production focuses on eliminating wastes
and inefficiency at their source in the foundries rather
than finding ‘end-of-pipe’ solutions once the wastes
have been generated.20 The survey results of Wong
et al.21 showed that many Malaysian electrical and elec-
tronics industries are committed to implementing vari-
ous lean tools and techniques for reducing wastes, but
they do not adopt a single tool in isolation. Singh
et al.22 suggested that implementation of lean principles
can be beneficial in recession times since it provides the
necessary flexibility to quickly change their strategies to
meet customer’s expectations and to reduce the price of
their product. The influence of e-supply strategy was
empirically examined by So23 on lean manufacturing
adoption in electronic-enabled manufacturing supply
chains which aim to create lean suppliers through waste
reduction. Lyonnet et al.24 developed a methodology to
assess the level of maturity in companies regarding
their insight of lean manufacturing and its application.
A digital imaging of products was utilized by Hussein
and Diab25 to conduct a 100% online inspection since
traditional methods of measurements have many short-
comings, such as high costs, calibration, the transition,
time, and precision problems. Saurin and Ferreira26
have conducted a study on harvester assembly line in
Brazil to present guidelines for assessing impacts of
lean manufacturing on working conditions on
employees either at a plant or departmental level.
Barber and Tietje27 showed in what way the application
of an essential lean technique, called value stream map-
ping (VSM), can be useful in the sales organization. A
case study was described by Abdulmalek and
Rajgopal28 in which lean principles were adapted for
the process sector for application at a large integrated
steel mill. In their study, they used VSM to identify
opportunities for various lean techniques. A study by
Conti et al.29 presents the possible stress on workers
due to cycle time reduction because of lean implemen-
tation in the industry. However, all lean concepts,
tools, and techniques cannot be implemented in any
industry at a time.30
Research methodology
The study on lean waste issues has been carried out to
improve the productivity and operational performance
of Indian foundry industry. The initial step in this
research is to systematically study lean concepts and its
different wastes in the context of the foundry industry.
To collect data for this study, a survey instrument of 17
lean waste issues has been developed based on a num-
ber of sources from the literature (refer Table 1) and
formal discussions with academicians and foundry
industry professionals. We developed a structured
questionnaire that included 17 items on lean waste
issues using a 5-point Likert scale. For the grading of
questions in the questionnaire by the respondents, a 5-
point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5 was provided,
where 1 signifies never found, 2 signifies rarely found, 3
signifies sometimes found, 4 signifies frequently found
and 5 signifies mostly found. The grades indicate the
relative significance of lean waste issues for their elimi-
nation in Indian foundry industry.
The data employed in this study consist of question-
naire responses from various managers and executives
of Indian foundries having a management experience
of middle to senior level. The addresses of foundries
were selected from various directories available at
374 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture 232(2)

Table 2. Factor analysis of lean waste issues.

Lean waste issues Constructs

A B C D

Over-production 0.544 0.487 0.304 0.203

Waiting of equipment 0.522 0.266 0.372 0.135
Waiting of transport 0.580 20.052 0.491 0.192
Idleness of workers due to lack of electricity 0.679 0.006 0.084 0.391
Lost people potential 0.684 20.284 0.039 0.214
Unused creativity 0.742 0.235 0.171 20.084
Excessive inventory of work-in-process 0.273 0.480 0.394 0.293
Unnecessary movement of equipment 0.107 0.556 0.372 0.289
Idleness of workers due to lack of equipment 0.187 0.826 0.001 0.101
Poor plant layout 0.417 0.557 0.235 0.129
Frequent warranty claim 0.169 0.218 0.515 0.438
Excessive scrap 0.186 0.269 0.758 20.106
High rework or defects in product 0.097 0.000 0.658 0.362
High rejection of goods 0.353 0.193 0.513 0.239
Excessive inventory of raw materials 0.076 0.526 0.165 0.548
Excessive inventory of finished product 0.301 0.078 0.123 0.680
Unnecessary movement of workers 0.114 0.293 0.141 0.743

Extraction method: principal component analysis; rotation method: varimax with Kaiser normalization; rotation converged in seven iterations.
Italic values indicate significant factor loadings of each lean waste issue on four constructs.

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and Foundry

Informatics Centre (FIC) of India. The importance of
the identified lean waste issues is justified with the help
of a survey of foundries in India. Initially, a pilot study
was conducted only to assess and improve the question-
naire. Based on a number of sources from the literature,
a preliminary questionnaire has been designed for a
pilot survey of 27 foundry industry in India selected on
a statistical basis covering different regions and a vari-
ety of products. This questionnaire was distributed to a
number of foundry industry professionals to get their
suggestions as a part of the pilot survey. The final ver-
sion of the questionnaire was framed by incorporating
their comments and feedback and on the basis of vari-
ous other information collected from the pilot survey.
The final questionnaire was administered by mail to 368
professionals, along with a write-up of the objectives of
the survey and its benefit to foundry industry. Out of a
total of 368 questionnaires sent to the professionals, 71
valid responses were received, making a response rate of
19.29%. Thus, the analysis is based on 71 valid
responses received from different experts of Indian
foundry industry. Thereafter, the data collected have
been subjected to assessment by using a standard
research analysis software package called SPSS. The
results obtained from these analyses have been used for
discussion in section ‘Results and discussion’.
Data analysis
Factor analysis
An exploratory factor analysis was performed using the
survey data to obtain and validate constructs of lean
waste issues in Indian foundry industry, as shown in
Table 2. The constructs were obtained using the
Table 3. KMO and Bartlett’s test.
KMO measure of sampling 0.858
adequacy
Bartlett’s test of sphericity Approx. chi-square 462.204
Df 136
Significance 0.000
KMO: Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin; Df: degree of freedom.
principal component analysis method, followed by a
varimax rotation with Kaiser normalization. The
Kaiser criterion (eigenvalues . 1) was retained in
conjunction with an evaluation of scree plots. The
scree test and initial eigenvalue test indicated the
occurrence of four significant constructs for lean
waste issues which were retained after the rotation.
The four constructs explain 59.7% of the inherent
variation. The four constructs of lean waste issues
obtained are shown in Table 5 and are labelled as the
waste of man and machine productivity, waste due to
poor plant layout, waste due to poor quality, and
waste due to poor planning. Table 2 shows that factor
loadings for all retained items ranged from 0.53 to
0.79. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure of
sampling adequacy test and Bartlett’s test of spheri-
city are performed to check that the survey data being
used are appropriate for factor analysis.31,32 The out-
put obtained by these tests has been shown in Table
3. In this analysis, the value of the Bartlett’s test
comes out to be 462.204 (p \ 0.001), representing the
accuracy of factor analysis. Additionally, the KMO
measure of sample adequacy is analysed, which pro-
duces a value of 0.86, and clearly exceeds the recom-
mended threshold value of 0.60.
Prasad et al. 375

Table 4. Descriptive statistics of lean waste issues.

Lean waste issues Mean SD N

Over-production 2.90 0.988 71

Waiting of equipment 2.94 0.809 71
Waiting of transport 2.96 0.917 71
Idleness of workers due to lack of electricity 2.76 0.886 71
Lost people potential 2.97 0.925 71
Unused creativity 3.01 0.870 71
Excessive inventory of work-in-process 3.00 1.042 71
Unnecessary movement of equipment 3.20 0.920 71
Idleness of workers due to lack of equipment 2.87 0.925 71
Poor plant layout 2.86 0.946 71
Frequent warranty claim 2.80 0.804 71
Excessive scrap 3.00 0.941 71
High reworks or defects in products 3.06 0.791 71
High rejection of goods 3.14 1.018 71
Excessive inventory of raw materials 3.21 0.893 71
Excessive inventory of finished product 2.96 0.977 71
Unnecessary movement of workers 3.20 0.995 71

SD: standard deviation.Five-point Likert scale ranging from very less to very high (1: very less; 2: less; 3: medium; 4: high; 5: very high).

Figure 1. Importance of lean waste issues.

Descriptive statistics and reliability analysis
Descriptive statistics is discussed for assessment of
mean and standard deviation (SD) of lean waste issues
in the foundry industry. The descriptive statistics, its
mean, and SD of lean waste issues are shown in Table
4 and Figure 1. The descriptive statistics showed that
the means of lean waste issues range from 2.76 (idleness
of workers due to lack of electricity) to 3.21 (excessive
inventory of raw materials), with the SDs ranging
between 0.79 and 1.04 (Table 4).
Reliability analysis has been performed to assess the
internal consistency and reliability of the survey instru-
ment. The reliability of the data can be confirmed by
analysis of the values of Cronbach’s33 alpha. It can be
calculated using a standard user-friendly data analysing
software package known as SPSS. The coefficients of
Cronbach’s alpha for an empirical study should be
above the threshold limit of 0.70 as suggested by
Nunnally34 to ensure the constructs internal consis-
tency and reliability. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients
have been analysed, as recommended by Flynn et al.35
for an empirical research. The reliability of the four
constructs has been confirmed by further analysis of
the values of Cronbach’s alpha, of 0.78, 0.77, 0.72, and
0.70, respectively, for each construct. All Cronbach’s
alpha values are above the threshold limit of 0.70,
which ensure the constructs internal consistency and
reliability.34
Results and discussion
This study is based on a survey of 17 lean waste issues
which have been identified based on literature review
and discussion with professionals of Indian foundry
376 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture 232(2)

Table 5. Constructs of lean waste issues.

Constructs Lean waste issues

A: Waste of man and machine
productivity
B: Waste due to poor plant layout
C: Waste due to poor quality
D: Waste due to poor planning
Over-production; Waiting of equipment; Waiting of transport; Idleness of workers due to
lack of electricity; Lost people potential; Unused creativity
Excessive inventory of work-in-process; Unnecessary movement of equipment; Idleness of
workers due to lack of equipment; Poor plant layout
Frequent warranty claim; Excessive scrap High rejection of goods; High rework or defects
in products
Excessive inventory of raw materials; Excessive inventory of finished product; Unnecessary
movement of workers

Table 6. Descriptive statistics, alpha and KMO values, and rank of constructs.

Constructs No. of items Mean Cronbach’s alpha KMO value Rank

Waste due to poor planning 6 3.12 0.78 0.66 1

Waste due to poor plant layout 4 3.00 0.77 0.76 2
Waste due to poor quality 4 2.98 0.72 0.76 3
Waste of man and machine productivity 3 2.92 0.70 0.83 4

KMO: Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin.

industry. As apparent from Table 4, excessive inventory
of raw materials is the most significant waste issue for
lean implementation in Indian foundry industry with a
mean value of 3.21. Unnecessary movement of workers
and equipment since both are having a mean value of
3.20 is the second biggest waste issue for lean imple-
mentation in the industry. It is then followed by other
lean waste issues. The idleness of workers due to lack
of electricity with a mean value of 2.76 is the least sig-
nificant waste issue and does not seem to play a large
role in the industry.
The factor analysis was conducted (refer Table 2) to
validate all lean waste issues, as shown in Table 5. The
factor analysis suggested the occurrence of four signifi-
cant constructs to represent lean waste issues. The lean
waste issues have been categorized into four constructs
as the waste of man and machine productivity, waste
due to poor plant layout, waste due to poor quality,
and waste due to poor planning. The means of all four
categories of lean waste issues range from 2.92 to 3.12,
as observed from Table 4, which indicates that there is
not much variation in their significance and all
these waste issues must be gradually eliminated from
the operations and systems of the foundry industry.
Table 6 provides the descriptive statistics, alpha and
KMO values, and rankings for all four constructs of
lean waste issues. Internal consistency or reliability of
lean waste issues can be examined using the Cronbach’s
alpha coefficient.33,34 The reliability of the four con-
structs of lean waste issues, as shown in Table 6, was
confirmed by the analysis of Cronbach’s alpha values,
of 0.78, 0.77, 0.72, and 0.70, respectively, for each con-
struct. All constructs for lean waste issues possess a
reliability or alpha value above the threshold value of
0.70, indicating that the reliability of survey instru-
ments is fairly maintained.
As apparent from Table 6, waste due to poor plan-
ning is the most significant waste construct in Indian
foundry industry, with a mean value of 3.12. Thus, it
seems that the foundry industries lack a separate plan-
ning department for developing good coordination
among other departments. To eliminate this waste,
software such as material resource planning and enter-
prise resource planning can be used in the raw materi-
als and finished products store to implement pull
production system. Moreover, the pattern shops must
make use of computer-aided design to design patterns
while integrating these systems with automated cutting
tools. These steps would certainly eliminate various
lean waste issues, such as the over-production, unneces-
sary movement of workers and equipment, as well as
the inventory to the minimal level. Waste due to poor
plant layout is the second main construct to lean imple-
mentation, with a mean value of 3.00. A reasonable
explanation would be that the shop-floor of the foun-
dry industry may not be well-organized or lacks proper
arrangement which prevents smooth flow of semi-
finished products to different shops. To eliminate this
waste, the foundry industry should implement lean
practices, such as cellular manufacturing and VSM, to
plan the movement of products and facilitate opera-
tions and obtain maximum advantage of the correspon-
dence among parts.36 Waste due to poor quality, with a
mean value of 2.98, has a great importance in the foun-
dry industry since it becomes the reason of high rework
on the products and are rejected as well due to its unac-
ceptable quality, which finally becomes scrap. To elimi-
nate this waste, industrial housekeeping techniques
Prasad et al.
along with total quality management (TQM) practices
and statistical process control must be implemented to
initiate progress inside the firm in the form of excellent
quality and increased efficiency while making sure that
the processes are operating at their full potential.
Wastes due to man and machine productivity are not
as influencing but are identified with considerable
importance since it reduces the operational perfor-
mance and productivity of the foundry industry. As the
operational processes of foundry involve a large num-
ber of non-value-adding activities, such as inventory,
inspection, salvage, rework, over-processing, waiting,
transportation, and various other processes, it contri-
butes to wastage of many resources in terms of lead
time, labours, materials, consumables, and equipment.
Hence, if any foundry industry is moving towards lean
implementation, it should target all categories of lean
waste issues identified for elimination. Lean practices
serve as a roadmap for the foundry industry aimed at
the elimination of wastes. Therefore, it is recommended
to apply most of the recommended lean practices to
eliminate all these waste issues to a certain extent.16,37
The findings of this study provide obvious evidence
that lean implementation is associated with the elimina-
tion of identified non-value-adding activities in the
foundry industry. This study also provides help to the
managers of foundry industry to implement advanced
manufacturing systems, such as lean manufacturing, by
suggesting lean practices for the elimination of wastes
and promoting development within the foundry indus-
try. Implementation of advanced manufacturing sys-
tems would surely make them more concerned to cost-
competitive production in today’s global market.
Worley and Doolen38 have provided the evidence that
top management support and leadership is prerequisite
and vital for lean implementation and elimination of
wastes in any manufacturing industry. In line with this
finding, many researchers in the literature agreed that
participation and investments of top management in
lean manufacturing events are essential.39–42 Therefore,
this study hypothesizes that there are big opportunities
in the foundry industry for the elimination of waste
issues if lean practices are utilized in an appropriate
way with full support and leadership of senior and top
management.
Conclusion
Till now, lean concepts were not properly implemented
in the foundry industry as little attention has been paid
to the elimination of lean waste issues in the industry.
The objective of this article is to conduct an empirical
analysis for assessing the significance of lean waste
issues in Indian foundry industry through survey ques-
tionnaire method, which has been achieved by applying
several statistical analyses. The significant aspect of this
study is to identify lean waste issues in the foundry
industry and make the industry move towards the
377
elimination of these lean waste issues, thereby initiating
lean implementation. The major contribution of this
study is the development of a systematic methodology
for assessing the significance of lean waste issues in the
foundry industry and establishing the validity and relia-
bility of the constructs through rigorous analyses.
Besides, the findings of this study also contribute to the
prediction of the future of Indian foundry industry. We
have empirically found that all lean waste issues must
be gradually eliminated to a certain extent from the
processes of the foundry industry to initiate lean imple-
mentation. The study suggests that the implementation
of lean principles and practices by eliminating waste
issues along with strong market demand may allow
foundry industry to reinvest, modernize, and dramati-
cally improve quality and efficiency.
This article has certain limitations which provide
avenues for future research. First, the limitation of this
study is that the survey includes a sample size of 71
responses, which can be considered fairly low. In future
research, this sample size could be expanded and the
methodology developed for the foundry industry can
be readily extended to other manufacturing industries
such as forging, fabrication, machining, and rolling mill
industry. Second, the data have been collected from
various categories of foundry industry, such as ferrous,
non-ferrous, and die-casting foundries that use differ-
ent types of furnaces and moulding machines. Lean
waste issues are assumed to have similar ineffectiveness
in almost every foundry industry since their impacts
are similar; however, they may possess different value
to different organizations depending on their context.
Hence for better results, identical categories of the
foundry industry may be considered collectively with
specific data analyses.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express thanks to two anon-
ymous reviewers for thoughtful and positive recommen-
dations that greatly improved this article. The authors
also desire to give their heartiest thanks to all the foun-
dry professionals and experts who devoted their pre-
cious time for filling our questionnaire.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest
with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publi-
cation of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the
research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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