A systematic review of the integration of best practices for world class manufacturing

Abstract

Manufacturing organisations are trying to become world class by integrating best practices. While multiple authors have studied world class manufacturing (WCM), no paper consolidates these results. Further certain inconsistencies are found in existing WCM frameworks. A need was therefore felt to clearly identify and define the scope of best manufacturing practices identified from different countries and industries. 173 research papers on WCM were collected from different online databases and reviewed for the purpose of this study. A descriptive analysis was performed to understand the timeline, geographic, author and journal related trends of the papers. Papers were also classified based on content and industry settings. The best practices identified were defined and the popularity of each best practice was evaluated on the basis of number of mentions. The paper finally proposes a new framework for WCM, inspired from the functioning of the human body.