Sustainable Operations in India

In the current business scenario, firms need to increasingly focus on environmental sustainability issues, as a result of stricter regulatory enforcements that lay emphasis on cleaner production, and also due to growing pressures from the stakeholders. This paper aims at understanding the organizational factors that contribute towards the successful implementation of sustainability initiatives in a process industry setup. A qualitative case study from a major cement manufacturing firm located in India helps us to identify the key drivers in the context of sustainability. The case findings reveal that organizational culture and practices followed lead to the emergence of innovative and economically viable solutions, which help in achieving the sustainability targets. These exploratory results obtained can be further analysed in the backdrop of other industries.

Sustainability is fast emerging as the new paradigm of conducting business. With increasing focus on the environmental impact of firms’ operations, there is a need to understand the factors that drive green initiatives of firms. In this work, we aim to understand those factors by studying environmentally friendly initiatives of firms. Our observations, primarily based on the emerging economies of India and China, serve to provide an insight into fast-growing economies which also often face scrutiny for poor environmental performance. We observe and analyse common factors that determine firms’ green initiatives. The work aims to derive insights into environmentally friendly practices of firms in emerging economies and also provides directions for further research in green operations.

Sustainability has become the buzzword in recent times. While manufacturing leads to considerable advantages like contributing to the GDP, providing goods and services for consumer, and generating employment opportunities, it is also contributing to the detriment of the environment and the natural resources, which run counter to the philosophy of sustainability. In order to achieve sustainability in manufacturing, substantial investments have to be made towards innovation, which can be protected under the intellectual property regime. But the IP rights prevent others from copying the technology, which is antithesis to the concept of sustainable manufacturing. Companies need to be aware of the IP policy of India, which facilitates the protection of environment and the natural resources. Also, India as a country needs to relook at the IP strategies available to ensure that it has sufficient access to technology, which can help in the proliferation of sustainable manufacturing technologies. This chapter provides for two levels of strategies, both relating to IP rights, which can be adopted by India, in order to achieve sustainable manufacturing in the country. The first level is the IP policy strategies that can be adopted by India, in light of the international treaties like TRIPS, the WTO system, as well as other treaties, conventions and protocols. The second level is the IP strategies that can be adopted by the non-governmental sector including the private commercial sector as well as the academic sector (both public funded as well as private funded). While the former analyses the TRIPS agreement and tries to understand how the objectives stipulated therein have been captured by the Indian IP legislations, the latter looked at strategies like investing towards R&D, licensing of technology, patent pools and copyright collectives, open source and open innovations, and also government initiatives that could ensure the implementation of sustainable manufacturing technology in India.

Maintenance has a noteworthy capacity in enhancing performance of facilities, be it excavation of natural resources or manufacturing a small pin. The significant role of the maintenance is mostly about producing a facility with utmost sustainability. For example, what maintenance emphasizes on is that it is more valuable to the users and environment to ensure that the existing facility is in optimum performance and at the same time discouraging the construction of new facilities. The obligations and duties of present-day maintenance associations are principally worried about the formation of sustainable future. This paper aims to propose a system framework for a sustainable approach to maintenance. Sustainable maintenance includes cooperation of numerous frameworks, simple or perplexing, with respect to manufacturing, overhauling, assembly, ecology, economics, society, and environment while carrying out the maintenance act. The proposed write-up is an attempt to move toward a sustainable approach to maintenance in its most ideal path by any sector or industry.

Lean concepts application in food processing domain facilitate Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to acquire core competence through waste elimination and streamlined process. 16 factors inducing lean concepts in food processing domain were identified based on the literature review and expert opinion. Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) approach is used to develop the structural model. The dominant factors identified include ‘Supplier development’, ‘Employee involvement in problem solving’ and ‘Adoption of statistical process control for identifying process variation’. Also, MICMAC analysis is conducted to categorize the factors. Influential factors for lean adoption are being correlated with corresponding sustainability dimensions.

Freight transportation planning is an important part of the country’s economy. Due to increased demand of the freight in today’s supply chain, an optimal mix of existing mode of transportation is required. Intermodal freight transportation is a combination of at least two different modes of transportation. In this chapter, a levelized cost analysis method is used to determine the total levelized cost of the vehicle over its useful life. Also, the total cost varies due to externalities with the given length of route. An intermodal shift of the rail–road mode is also calculated and the optimal cost corresponding to that route was found. In this chapter, all the parameters related to the levelized cost of vehicle is fixed and averaged for a given route length.

The logistics sector in India is evolving rapidly and growth is dominated by changing tax structure and rising investments in infrastructure and technology. Whilst the majority market share in the logistics market is held by land (road and rail) transport, waterways and air cargo are also crucial for international trade. This chapter provides an overview of the logistics market in India and describes the factors that drive the growth and challenges faced by the industry. It provides a brief overview of road freight transport, rail freight transport, air cargo transport and ocean freight transport and the challenges faced in the Indian logistics market. The growth factors outlining the impact of policy decisions and the various future investment opportunities available are discussed. The chapter also presents key strategies to create a sustainable integrated logistics network.

Rapid industrialization and increasing consumption of goods have had an adverse impact on the environment. The distribution of goods affects the local air quality, generates noise and vibration, causes accidents and is a significant contributor to global warming. Factors such as distance travelled, nature of the road, load carried, speed and other vehicle parameters affect the consumption of fuel and hence increase the emissions from vehicles. Minimizing the consumption of fuel helps to reduce the emission of harmful greenhouse gases and particulate matter. Taking an alternative route between the same pair of nodes with different length and velocity may result in reducing the fuel consumed. This chapter presents a mathematical model to evaluate alternative routes between nodes for routing a fleet of heterogeneous vehicles with the objective of minimizing the fuel consumption. The results provide insights on the impact of the solutions on the fuel consumed, usage of vehicles, distance travelled and cost.

The Indian government framed Batteries Rules 2001 to limit the negative environmental externalities in the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) of used lead–acid batteries. But, even a decade and half after implementation of the policy, the negative externalities exist. Various sections of the society blame the government for lax enforcement and monitoring. In this context, we attempt to answer two questions: (1) why did the policy fail to meet its objectives? and (2) what are the implications of this for other policies? This chapter is intended to contribute to the growing literature on government policies and their impact on CLSC. Literature has not paid adequate attention to the nature of policy and gap between policy formulation and policy implementation. This paper helps to fill this existing gap in the literature using the case of Indian Batteries Rules 2001.