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Notwithstanding the research attention given to the importance and capability of the student relationship management strategy in higher education sustainability, there is no any systematic framework for implementation. This research as one of the preliminary studies has been undertaken to provide a structural framework of strategic practices for positioning this strategy at an operational level. In doing so, a methodological approach was implemented in two tiers. Firstly, a systematic review of the leading-edge literature on the customer relationship management systems was performed owing to the lack of significant research on the topic, as well as the structure and nature of the concept. Then, the principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation, which is a method of exploratory factor analysis was used to finalize the research. The findings revealed an articulated structural framework with five hypotheses, which may partially or fully be applied to narrow the major gap in the current knowledge. The measurement scale has also been developed for simplification in implementation of the application. Limitations and directions for future research were accordingly discussed.

The research for this article was built upon the discussion concerning sustainable value stream mapping (Sus-VSM), which had recently emerged towards advancing sustainable manufacturing systems. Research on this sustainable-oriented lean tool has been confined to only a handful of studies only. Specifically, the lack of a continuous improvement process, where subsequent value stream developmental maps can be established to continue the cycle, is highlighted as a notable shortfall of this application. To fill the gap, this paper proposes a methodological approach, based on the DMAIC improvement cycle, to systematically implement and conduct Sus-VSM studies. The proposed methodology is practically validated with an industrial case to support this narrow body of knowledge. The research findings revealed that a DMAIC-based approach can be effectively applied to systematize the Sus-VSM towards sustainable manufacturing. The paper also provides a guiding reference for operations managers who wish to undertake similar improvement projects and make their manufacturing operations more sustainable, and, hopefully, inspire other researchers and practitioners to broaden the study of this under-researched field, which is now receiving growing interest in various industries.

Green Lean Six Sigma has been recently clarified to improve the environmental sustainability performance of operations, but it seems glaringly scarce and in need of cutting-edge studies to integrate the concepts of green, lean, and Six Sigma into one unified application. This paper is accordingly aimed at constituting the application of Green Lean Six Sigma as a cleaner production. In doing so, a Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control (DMAIC)-based approach that is one of Six Sigma's well-known methods was proposed to systematize a Green Lean tool-environmental value stream mapping. Thus, this paper as one of the preliminary studies aligns environmental value stream mapping with DMAIC through presenting the proposed methodological approach, which relies on the five DMAIC phases-Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control-and considers green wastes in each phase simultaneously. To support the narrow body of knowledge, this proposed approach was validated via the action research-oriented case study implemented in the substrate manufacturing system that seeks to develop the environmental sustainability of its production processes and subsequently its general competitiveness. The findings indicated the effectiveness of a DMAIC-based approach in systematizing environmental value stream mapping and improving its efficacy to achieve environmental sustainability. The case analysis revealed that the application can significantly lessen the consumption of chemicals and energy in the system by 28% and 21%, respectively.