Unraveling the dynamics of lean manufacturing enablers on operational performance

Purpose Lean manufacturing (LM) is essential for businesses to remain competitive in today’s global economy and to meet the needs of consumers from three separate perspectives: price, dependability and production schedules. A fundamental goal of this research is to how lean management in manufacturing organization may improve product value for the customer, address customer concerns, minimize costs and boost the firm’s profitability. Design/methodology/approach The extensive literature analysis identified a number of LM enablers and manufacturing industry factors that might favorably affect the organizations operational performance. Initially, 16 enablers of LM and 16 factors operational performance were identified, which were later reduced to 8 factors each. After that, Grey-DEMATEL technique was applied to investigate the relationships between the factors by categorizing elements into two groups (cause and effect) and ranking them within each category. Findings The results show that F4 (Work Force Development) and F7 (Six Sigma) were the key enablers of LM. Similarly, F12 (Maintain Better inventory control/optimize inventory level) and F14 (Reduce conversion cost) are the key effect factors of operational performance. It eliminates inefficiencies in the production process and internal storage requirements while retaining a high level of dependability and flexibility in response to customer demands. Originality/value LM has unquestionably been a popular method for improving the production efficiency of industrial sectors for the last two decades. Despite the fact that LM has helped several firms reduce waste and thereby improve a range of efficiency metrics, many businesses are still struggling to effectively transform into lean firms. While previous studies have explored LM’s significance and its influence on different aspects of organizational metrics in various industries, this research pioneers in probing into the nuanced relationship between LM enablers and OP in a critical and procedure-intensive industry.