Identification and Prioritization Lean Six Sigma Barriers in MSMEs

Abstract

The competition in market is increasing day by day and there is always fluctuation in demand and supply. To retain in market, organizations have to meet the customer demand to get customer utmost satisfaction. Mainly, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are struggling with such problems as they are having limited resources. To stay remain in competition there is only one way to improve productivity by optimum utilization of available resources by reducing waste and defects in product and processes. In this context, Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is emerging as a potential strategy that can be able to improve the processes very easily. LSS is the integration of two different continuous improvement approaches; Lean and Six Sigma that is used to reduce waste and variation in processes but many organizations still facing challenges to implement LSS successfully. So, the main aim of present study is to identify the barriers of LSS and prioritize them using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The most critical barrier category comes out as management based barrier as it possess highest AHP index. This study will help the mangers and researchers to focus on critical barriers of LSS so as to implement it in a smoother way.