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This study aims at reviewing the articles on the themes of manufacturing strategy (MS) published in “Benchmarking: An International Journal (BIJ)” and investigating the trends of publication for future research.

Five-stage methodology to conduct a literature review is adopted comprising: (1) article collection, (2) inclusion/exclusion criteria, (3) reviewing the articles, (4) analyzing the articles and (5) future research directions. A total of 57 articles specific to MS domain published in BIJ are reviewed. Further, a bibliometric analysis comprising keywords co-occurrence, citation and co-citation using a VOSviewer© software followed by content analysis to analyze the type of research, type of industry and type of tool/method used is carried out.

The study helps to find the scope of the journal and research gaps in the MS domain to provide future research directions. Most of the work found is survey-based or case-based in nature. However, there is a need for empirical research to be done in the field of MS.

The study facilitates researchers willing to publish in BIJ to understand different themes of accepted papers concerning MS domain. The identified research gaps and future research direction can motivate researchers and practitioners to coin new approaches in the MS domain.

A comprehensive review and analysis of the MS literature published in BIJ has been provided. To the best of authors' knowledge, the current study is the only review study in MS domain focusing on one specific journal.

This paper demonstrates a multi-criteria analytic hierarchy process (AHP) framework for evaluating and benchmarking maintenance performance in the select agro-based industry.

Initially, 20 maintenance practices (criteria) have been identified after a detailed literature review and discussion with the agro-based industry (sugar, textile and dairy industry) executives. These are then grouped into six maintenance management areas referred to as group criteria. The multi-criteria methodology consists of three steps: criteria identification, hierarchical modeling and data collection and maintenance performance evaluation, and benchmarking. The multi-criteria methodology proposed in this work facilitates two ways of carrying out benchmarking: (1) within the agro-based industry and (2) between the agro-based industry. The methodology has been explained by taking a case example of 45 agro-based industries (18 dairy, 13 sugar and 14 textile) from the western region of India. The sensitivity analysis of the model has been performed to ascertain the robustness of the results.

There is a difference in the maintenance performance across the agro-based industries due to different maintenance practices perceived differently.

The outcome of the model is mainly given by the judgments of the agro-based industry executives. It is also sensitive to any change in the relative importance to the evaluation criteria or the perception about the maintenance performance.

The study contributes in identifying the weakness, if any, by comparing the agro-based industry under investigation with the benchmark factory at three levels, namely, overall performance (factory level), group criteria (maintenance management area level) and criteria (maintenance practice level) allowing further improvement.

The methodology assists in better decision-making and in improving maintenance performance.

Firms have been adopting lean manufacturing to improve their business performances. However, they are facing failures or less success in implementation, mainly due to lack of understanding in relating the lean practices (LPs) from the required performance measures perspective. In view of the lack of research and the importance of understanding them, the purpose of this paper is to prioritize LPs.

As LPs are scattered in the literature and a variety of performance measures are used, an extensive literature review is first carried out to identify the LPs and performance measures. The blend of interpretive structural modeling and interpretive ranking process interpretive tools is adopted in establishing the contextual relationship among LPs and then ranking them based on the performance measures. A three-dimensional priority matrix is proposed for better explanation of the results.

The proposed framework can help firms better understand LPs and their levels of importance in lean implementation.

The involvement of lean experts may produce some bias in evaluating the LPs.

The proposed framework can help practitioners to develop an industry-specific road-map for the result-oriented LP implementation. Based on the area of performance to be improved, practitioners can prioritize LPs for implementation.

This is the first study that provides a comprehensive review of LPs available in the literature and prioritizes them in accordance with performance with interpretive tools.

This paper aims to assess the feasibility of a hybrid manufacturing and remanufacturing system (HMRS) for essential commodities in the context of COVID-19. Specifically, it emphasises using HMRS based on costs associated with various manufacturing activities.

The combination of mathematical model and system dynamics is used to model the HMRS system. The model was tried on sanitiser bottle manufacturing to generalise the result.

The remanufacturing cost is higher because of reverse logistics, inspection and holding costs. Ultimately remanufacturing costs turn out to be lesser than the original manufacturing the moment system attains stability.

The study put forth the reason to encourage remanufacturing towards sustainability through government incentives.

The study put forth the feasibility of the HMRS system for an essential commodity in the context of a covid pandemic. The research implemented system dynamics for modelling and validation.

This study provides a systematic review of the literature within the manufacturing strategy (MS) domain focusing on the congruence aspect of different strategic functions to determine the state-of-the-art research progression and the trend of publications.

We have adopted a five-stage review methodology consisting - 1) Article Identification; 2) Inclusion/Exclusion; 3) Review of the Articles; 4) Literature Analysis; 5) Future research directions. 121 articles focusing on congruence aspects and specific to the MS domain are identified and reviewed. Bibliometric analysis comprising keyword co-occurrence using a VOSviewer© software, and citation analysis is performed. Further, content analysis is carried out to categorize articles based on the type of research methodology, type of tool/method used, and aspects considered for congruence study.

Based on the research gaps identified in the existing literature on the congruence aspect within the MS domain, this study offers future research directions. Majorly, the work found is an empirical survey. Literature scants to develop a framework that helps to quantify the congruence between two strategic functions.

This study facilitates researchers and practitioners to understand the congruence between different strategic aspects studied in the literature and the level of fit between them. Further, the identified research directions can encourage researchers and practitioners to conceive novel approaches to conduct future works on congruence theme.

The unicity of the current review lies in its theme, i.e. congruence aspect within MS. To the best of author's knowledge, no comparable study is observed to review the congruence aspect in any other domain.

Companies have been implementing lean manufacturing to improve their business performances. However, many of them have difficulties in the implementation because of various barriers, thus encountering failures. This paper aims to prioritize and analyze the lean barriers for better understanding and interpretation for successful lean implementation.

Extensive literature review has been carried out to identify the lean barriers. Subsequently, total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) has been adopted where lean experts’ inputs have been sought to obtain the self-interaction and reachability matrix. Further, driving power and dependence of lean barriers have been derived, and TISM-based lean barrier model has been developed.

Insufficient management time, insufficient supervisory skills and insufficient senior management skills are the significant barriers with highest driving power and lowest dependence. With low driving power, cost- and funding-related barriers such as cost of the investment, internal funding and external funding are found to be less important barriers.

This model provides a more realistic approach to the problems faced by practitioners during lean implementation. Thus, it provides a roadmap to implement lean by focusing on reducing or eliminating important barriers.

The paper not only provides a TISM-based model of contextual relationships among lean barriers but also describes the validation of this model.

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical investigation of maintenance performance (MP) management practices from the sugar industry in India.

Empirical data for this study were collected through field visits, interviews and published reports. Statistical methods including correlation, multiple regression and cluster analysis are utilized to accomplish the objective of the study.

Explanation with multiple regression analysis showed that the sugar industry MP is significantly and positively related to maintenance approach (MA), continuous improvement (CI), financial approach and spare part management (SPM). Cluster analysis showed that sugar industries focusing on MA, CI and policy development and organization are having higher MP. The cluster analysis also pointed out that there is a substantial variation in MP due to the type of ownership (private and cooperative) while no variation has been observed due to installed capacity (low and high).

The generalization of the results obtained in this work for the sugar industry can be possible through a larger sample size.

The study contributes to the better understanding of maintenance measures in the sugar industry and provides insights on the role of maintenance managerial practices in enhancing the MP.

The findings provide empirical evidence that maintenance practices across the sugar industry are important to improve MP.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a multi‐criteria decision making (MCDM) approach to evaluate product design alternatives in respect to the customer requirements.

This paper reports a systematic approach developed to concurrently satisfy the product requirements as well as the customer requirements. Mobile phone example has been elected to demonstrate the approach. Mobile product features and customer preferences data have been collected and analyzed to obtain the commonalities from the designer and customer perspective. Regression analysis has been carried out to establish the relationship between the product independent features with the dependent feature (Ex. Cost, Talk time). Based on the equations developed, different product configurations have been defined from the designer's point of view. Modified TOPSIS – a multi attribute decision making (MADM) method – has been employed to facilitate the most suitable product configuration selection based on the customer requirements.

The method facilitates design of the best product configuration that will maximize customer satisfaction with minimum cost.

The proposed methodology will provide a useful tool to the decision maker, which may help to eliminate the associated risks in the product design configuration that closely satisfy customer's expectations and product launching decision.

The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic methodology for segmenting customers based on the preferred product features, its cost and worth, so as to facilitate the designer to develop a product that will simultaneously minimize product cost and maximize customer satisfaction.

Post hoc – non-overlapping – non-hierarchical approach has been used for segmentation based on preferred product features by the customers. Allocation of product features to a particular segment is carried out by considering feature cost and customer worth for that feature. Automobile car has been selected as an example to demonstrate the methodology, where features data were collected from dealers and customer worth data were obtained by random generation method.

Methodology facilitates creation of n number of homogeneous segments from a heterogeneous customer group based on the cost and worth of product features. Total product cost decreases though product variety increased due to segmentation.

The proposed approach will help designers in segmenting (grouping) heterogeneous customers based on the preferred product features so that a most compatible (matching) product configuration for each segment, especially during product consolidation stage (beginning of the maturity phase of product lifecycle) can be developed to achieve maximum customer satisfaction.