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The Indian marble and stone industry has got the potential to contribute well to the development of the emerging economy. However, unlike the other Indian industries, stone and marble industries are highly underrated sectors, which may become a critical factor for development. This paper analyses the sustainability factors in supply chain management practices.

A literature review is used to identify the barriers and drivers in sustainable supply chain management practices. Interpretive structural modeling has been used to obtain a hierarchy of barriers and drivers along with driving power and dependence power analysis. Further, MICMAC analysis is used for segregating the barriers and drivers in terms of their impact on sustainability.

The findings of the work of this research are that the attention of society, government, and commercial banks should be more toward the unorganized condition of stone and marble sector. There should be an increase in the commitment of stakeholders to reduce pollution and install safety, by enforcing more relevant laws and regulations and creating the importance of environmental awareness.

The main contribution of this research is to identify the barriers and drivers of sustainable supply chain management in a stone and marble industry. The paper proposes a sound mathematical model to prioritize the critical factors for responsible production and consumption of resources from sustainability perspectives of stone industry.

This research aims to outline the key factors responsible for industry 4.0 (I4.0) application in industries and establish a factor stratification model.

This article identifies the factor pool responsible for I4.0 from the extant literature. It aims to identify the set of key factors for the I4.0 application in the manufacturing industry and validate, classify factor pool using appropriate statistical tools, for example, factor analysis, principal component analysis and item analysis.

This study would shed light on critical factors and subfactors for implementing I4.0 in manufacturing industries from the factor pool. This study would shed light on critical factors and subfactors for implementing I4.0 in manufacturing industries. Strategy, leadership and culture are found key elements of transformation in the journey of I4.0. Additionally, design and development in the digital twin, virtual testing and simulations were also important factors to consider by manufacturing firms.

The proposed I4.0 factor stratification model will act as a starting point while designing strategy, adopting readiness index for I4.0 and creating a roadmap for I4.0 application in manufacturing. The I4.0 factors identified and validated in this paper will act as a guide for policymakers, researchers, academicians and practitioners working on the implementation of Industry 4.0. This work establishes a solid groundwork for developing an I4.0 maturity model for manufacturing industries.

The existing I4.0 literature is critically examined for creating a factor pool that further presented to experts to ensure sufficient rigor and comprehensiveness, particularly checking the relevance of subfactors for the manufacturing sector. This work is an attempt to identify and validate major I4.0 factors that can impact its mass adoption that is further empirically tested for factor stratification.

This study aims to address the adoption issues of green and sustainable practices in the hotel industry. The study identifies critical performance indicators (CPIs) and utilizes Hotel Carbon Management Initiative (HCMI) framework to prioritize CPIs for achieving a robust adoption framework for green and sustainable practices.

The hotel industry is driven by changing ecological degradation, and it is necessary to achieve feasible development goals. This research article formulates the CPIs derived from HCMI and decision-making model is created using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).

In this research, CPIs of HCMI are considered and aim to formulate five major CPIs of HCMI, namely air pollution, energy efficiency, water conservation, noise pollution and waste management. The study identifies the need for better control and sustainable growth in the Indian hotel industry with minimum carbon emissions coupled with the green approach adoption.

The CPIs work on minimization of risks and maximizing optimality of return on investment. The development of the hotel industry will be improved and immensely welcomed by capping the carbon emission with the green initiatives. This research is limited as urban hotels are surveyed in this study.

This work makes a valid argument to establish HCMI as a model initiative for environment quality improvement and further extension of other activities in the hospitality sector and scale-up sustainable practices for future-ready circular economies.

The objective of the present study is to identify and analyze a set of critical success factors (CSFs) for ice-cream industry [cold chain management (CCM)] that helps in increasing the efficacy, quality, performance and growth of the supply chain organization.

A questionnaire survey with companies in ice-cream sector and a panel study with experts were conducted to identify and validate CSFs and their associated sub-factors. Eight CSFs identified from the cold chain domain vetted for the ice-cream industry and then prioritized by using one of the most well-known decision-making frameworks, Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory. The general verdicts of the modelling and its application to the real-world case have been tested through an ice-cream company supply chain.

The result shows that the significant CSFs accountable for the growth of the ice-cream industry are the infrastructure and capacity building, consistent product improvement and operational efficiencies of the value chain. Subsequently, it was identified that the use of IT and related technologies and improved processes for operations also play a considerable role in the performance of ice-cream industry.

The study successfully outlines the effective CCM practices for critical issues. The proposed methodology and factor modelling case demonstration might be useful in analyzing the logistic chains of products such as fruits, drugs and meat.

The meritorious identification of critical areas and executing mitigation plans bring notable benefits to the firms such as improved operational efficiencies, improved time to market performance and product innovation, which bring additional benefits to the producers.

The ever-widening competitive global markets demand food business to demonstrate safe food supplies across the world. The causes of food borne illness are complex to determine and require a careful evaluation of all stages of food supply chain and food safety practices. The purpose of this paper is to systematically investigate the factors responsible for the assessment of food supply chain and evaluation of food safety system in India.

The study utilizes a combination of qualitative and quantitative approach by exploring expert’s opinion systematically using a semi-structured interview followed by careful grouping of responses using the grounded theory approach to build the research theme. The prioritization of the critical factors is carried out using Pareto analysis. The methodological review was carried out to identify factors and categorize them based on their impact on hierarchical logical relationship using total interpretive structural modeling approach to determine the enablers.

This paper attempts to deliver an inimitable list of seven vital factors for the effective design of evaluation system for food safety practices. The study provides a careful insight on the issue pertaining to designing of assessment system including competence building for assessor and availability of well-defined technical protocol. The recommendation for developing a robust food safety inspection system by implementing stricter regulation, enhancing competence and design initiatives is provided.

The study provides a unique list of factors for the assessment of food safety practices and develops the relationship. Food safety assessment is an integral part of food safety study which is systematically explored and conceptualized in this paper. The study is carried out using the opinion of Indian experts.

India is in the process to achieve an important place in $2,000bn global food trade. In order to achieve this goal, there is a need to develop a food safety system which is well written down in line with international practices that are highly coordinated based on self-compliance to assure consumer protection. Accordingly, many organizations undergo assessment of their food safety system to verify compliance internally as well as externally. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight on the critical factors and benefits by evaluating the food safety assessment practices.

A questionnaire-based survey is conducted among 96 Indian food business operators and regulators involved in assessment practices to obtain critical factors for the assessment of food safety practices. The questionnaire captures indicators for motivations or challenges and benefits of food safety assessment to identify critical factors using exploratory factor analysis. Model for the food safety assessment practices was developed based on multiple regression analysis by determining the impact of factors on the benefits of food safety assessment.

This paper identifies four factors responsible for assessing food safety practices, namely, business-centric approach, legislative needs, technical practices and organization resentment as a combination of reasons and challenges along with two benefits risk: protection and organization reinforcement. The regression analysis indicates that the organization reinforcement gets positively impacted by business and technical practices and negatively by organization resentment. Risk protection has a significant relationship with legislative needs.

This is the first attempt to systematically explore the factors around the assessment of food safety practices in India. This study provides inputs for the practical application of managers and regulators.

This paper compares impact of Industry 4.0 / emerging information and communication Technologies (ICTs), for example, Internet of things (IOT), machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and cloud computing, on 22 organisational performance indicators under nine combinations of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) and quality management systems (QMS).

Survey of 105 Indian organisations was done about their experience of using QMS, Lean Six Sigma and emerging ICTs. Respondents included both manufacturing and service enterprises of different scales and sectors. The responses collected were compared, and statistically significant difference among them was evaluated using chi-square test.

The study confirmed statistically significant difference among 20 organisational performance indicators under different combinations of QMS, LSS and ICTs. These indicators include quality performance, delivery performance, sales turnover, inventory level and so forth. However, for two indicators, namely, absenteeism and throughput, significant difference in responses was not established.

All possible combinations of QMS, LSS, only LSS tools and ICTs were not studied because of either theoretical impossibility (e.g. using LSS without LSS tools) or practically rare situations (e.g. organisations using ICTs and LSS without QMS). Furthermore, the impact from different sequences of implementing QMS, LSS and ICTs can be studied.

Using this study, practitioners can identify which LSS, Quality System and ICT combination results in best performance and quick success. On theoretical front, the study confirms impact of LSS and QMS on organisational performance.

This study evaluates organisational performance under several possible combinations of QMS, LSS, and emerging ICTs, which was so far unexplored.

The primary objective of this article is to examine current procurement, inventory control and management practices in modern healthcare, with a particular focus on the procurement and management of surgical supplies in a prominent public, highly specialized healthcare sector.

This study was conducted in three phases. In Phase 1, the study team interacted with various hospital management stakeholders, including the surgical hospital store, examined the current procurement process and identified challenges. Phase 2 focused on selecting items for a detailed study and collected the qualitative and quantitative details of the store department of the healthcare sector chosen. A detailed study analyzed revenue, output/demand, inventory levels, etc. In Phase 3, a decision-making framework is proposed, and inventory control systems are redesigned and demonstrated for the selected items.

It was observed that the demand for many surgical items had increased significantly over the years due to an increase in disposable/disposable items, while inventories fluctuated widely. Maximum inventory levels varied between 50 and 75%. Storage and availability were important issues for the hospital. It is assumed the hospital adopts the proposed inventory control system. In this case, the benefits can be a saving of 62% of the maximum inventory, 20% of the average stock in the system and optimal use of storage space, improving the performance and productivity of the hospital.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration to develop better systems for the procurement and delivery of common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels, and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration develop better systems for procuring and delivering common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study is an early attempt to develop a decision framework and inventory control system from the perspective of healthcare inventory management. The gaps identified in real hospital scenarios are investigated, and theoretically based-inventory management strategies are applied and proposed.