Application of grey relational analysis in prioritizing the barriers to Green Manufacturing in Indian Context

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the barriers that hinder the attempts of manufacturing industries to implement green manufacturing technologies and practices in India. Green manufacturing practices have become important for environmental well-being and have been highly recognized across the nations. This becomes more important following the rate of depletion of natural resources. The present study attempts to discover the various barriers to green manufacturing so that effective strategies may be built to overcome them. The study proposes precedence of these barriers for effective decision-making from the industry managers’ point of view. The study followed an extensive literature review to explore twenty-one relevant barriers to green manufacturing adoption. Further, a mean ranking was performed to have a preliminary priority of the barriers among others. This preliminary ranking was verified by another mathematical algorithm – grey relational analysis for confirmation and robustness of the identified barriers in the Indian context. The study observed and concluded that among all the barriers identified from the extensive literature review, poor suppliers’ awareness and support, weak organizational structure to support GM and lack of awareness regarding the impact of GM on business are the major barriers among others, for the manufacturing sector to go green by adopting green manufacturing practices in their system. The study suggests a roadmap to determine which barriers are perceived on the higher or lower levels by the industry managers, which can be immediately worked upon. Second, the study put forward a direction for the industry decision-makers to formulate an effective strategy to gain a competitive advantage over others by adopting the green manufacturing practices inappropriate operations and functions