Critical success factors for Lean Six Sigma programmes: a view from middle management

Abstract

Purpose -Many organisations are operating in a dynamic competitive environment and experiencing increasing competition. As a result organisations in the service sector are continually seeking opportunities to remove waste and improve performance. Six sigma has been embraced by the service sector and is receiving increasing attention within both academe and practice. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate lean six sigma from a middle managers' perspective. Design/methodology/approach -A mixed method approach was adopted involving a structured survey to 200 managers and semi-structured interviews with two of the management team. Findings -The paper highlights the importance of developing learning capabilities in the middle management team and the empowering of them. A greater role should be given to middle management in performance improvement and strategy formulation.Research limitations/implications -The research findings only apply to one case so it is difficult to make assumptions across different sectors. More research is required with regard to change management in lean six sigma implementations. Originality/value -This paper shows that developing dynamic capabilities in middle management along with a learning culture will facilitate participation in strategy formulation.

Investigating the readiness of people in manufacturing SMEs to embark on Lean Six Sigma projects

“…LSS projects focus on customer needs, financial enhancement (Shafer and Moeller, 2012;Cournoyer et al, 2013), improved efficiency ( Jayaraman et al, 2012) and process improved cycle time (Gupta et al, 2012) by reducing the variation in process, reducing non-value adding activities, better decision making and improved employee morale (Manville et al, 2012;Thomas et al, 2009;Biranvand and Khasseh, 2013). These benefits IJOPM 36,8 are also being extended to manufacturing SMEs, where the application of LSS appears to be increasingly in vogue (Dora and Gellynck, 2015;Thomas et al, 2009;Gijo et al, 2014;Cournoyer et al, 2013).…”

“…Senior management leadership has been recognised as the main organisational support and strategy to 856 IJOPM 36,8 promote LSS activities (Choi et al, 2012). It was noted by Kanpp (2015) and Manville et al (2012) that leadership style will facilitate the organisational change initiatives to embark on LSS. A further investigation also suggests that transformational leadership, which focuses on motivating the followers, would promote the participative model of leadership in which the leader's concern for fostering the individual subordinates is demonstrated (Kanpp, 2015;Laohavichien et al, 2011).…”

“…This is an important issue to investigate in manufacturing SMEs, since Choi et al (2012) have argued that LSS will impose process innovation and change through process measurement, analysis and improvement that needs to be adopted by all personnel. Nevertheless it is an organisational responsibility to bring about change when necessary and promote enthusiasm for that change which has been found as a critical factor in LSS deployment (Manville et al, 2012;Choi et al, 2012).…”

“…As two key components of LSS, Six Sigma is primarily a systematic and rigorous tool to uncover and reduce defect and variation in breakthrough projects, whilst Lean management focuses on continuous incremental reduction of waste, environmental sustainability, increasing the speed of the operation and delivering the value (Bamford et al, 2015;Piercy and Rich, 2015;Choi et al, 2012;Hilton and Sohal, 2012;Assarlind et al, 2012;Manville et al, 2012;Womack and Jones, 2005). A number of organisations have adopted LSS as the strategy for finding the balance between quality, cost and delivery (Antony, 2014) in a continuous improvement or breakthrough improvement approach (Assarlind et al, 2013).…”

“…Comprehensive training has been seen as one of the key success factors in LSS deployment in any organisation (Kumar et al, 2011;Antony et al, 2005;Zu et al, 2010;Arnheiter and Maleyeff, 2005), while Aboelmaged (2011) has highlighted the knowledge barrier as the most critical barrier factor which results in failure to accept change and impedes the implementation of LSS. It was also indicated by Manville et al (2012) that intellectual and EC will be further developed through learning. Moreover, research studies have highlighted the role of higher education and knowledge to provide better CI proposals by the workforce within organisations (Maleyeff et al, 2012).…”