Lean Six Sigma for small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises: a systematic review

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the most common themes within Lean Six Sigma (LSS) relating to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within manufacturing organisations and to identify the research gaps in the existing literature. Design/methodology/approach Tranfield et al.’s (2003) systematic review methodology was utilised encompassing three stages: planning, conducting and reporting/dissemination. Findings The literature revealed that there are many areas in which LSS has been utilised with varying successes. In total, 52 journals have been reviewed and it has been concluded that although LSS is a powerful methodology, there are many gaps that exist in the literature and further research is needed to address these in the field of LSS. Research limitations/implications The papers included in the systematic review were peer-reviewed papers available in English. Due to these limitations, relevant papers may have been excluded. Moreover, the authors have excluded all conference and white papers for their inclusion in this study. Practical implications It is vital that LSS practitioners are fully aware of the benefits, limitations and impeding factors when implementing a LSS initiative. Therefore, this paper could provide valuable insights to ensuring maximum value, is obtained from LSS implementation in SMEs. Originality/value This systematic review identifies research gaps in the current literature and highlighting areas of future research which will be beneficial to many SMEs in their pursuit of value optimisation.

Scoping review of the readiness for sustainable implementation of Lean Six Sigma projects in the manufacturing sector

“…Therefore, in light of the aims of this study, we conducted a SR of relevant literature by using a comprehensive pre-planned strategy to identify a gap in the literature about readiness assessment of sustainable implementation of LSS projects in manufacturing. The SR approach elucidates the effects of previous research through a broad synthesis of contributions and gaps of current research (Alexander et al, 2019;and Albliwi et al (2015). The SR method, thus, serves as a rigorous, transparent and explicit means to ensure a comprehensive literature review (Garza-Reyes, 2015).…”

Product Quality Improvement Policies in Industry 4.0: Characteristics, Enabling Factors, Barriers, and Evolution Toward Zero Defect Manufacturing

“…They understand well the causes and consequences of choices in terms of impact on the system, the products, the employees, and more, in order to do their best to succeed. (Bendell, 2006;Gupta and Jain, 2013;Nithia et al, 2015;Pacheco et al, 2015;Costa et al, 2018;Ismail et al, 2019) SS (Bendell, 2006;Oke, 2007;Kumar and Antony, 2008;Gamal Aboelmaged, 2010;Pacheco et al, 2015;Costa et al, 2018;Patel and Desai, 2018) L6S (Alsmadi and Khan, 2010;Antony et al, 2017;Alexander et al, 2019;Siregar et al, 2019) TOC (Kasemset, 2011) 2 BFT Lead-time reduction LM (Gupta and Jain, 2013;Bhamu and Singh Sangwan, 2014;Pinho and Mendes, 2017;Costa et al, 2018;Gladysz and Buczacki, 2018) SS (Oke, 2007;Kumar and Antony, 2008;Costa et al, 2018;Patel and Desai, 2018) L6S (Alsmadi and Khan, 2010;Antony et al, 2017;Alexander et al, 2019) TOC (Rahman, 1998;Ikeziri et al, 2019) TQM (Nandurkar et al, 2014) 3 BFT Quality improvement LM (Gupta and Jain, 2013;Bhamu and Singh Sangwan, 2014;Yusup et al, 2015;Pinho and Mendes, 2017;Costa et al, 2018;Ismail et al, 2019) SS (Oke, 2007;Gamal Aboelmaged, 2010;…”

“…Therefore, one must be able to identify the full list of improvements and determine the right timing for each one to be done. (Arnheiter and Maleyeff, 2005;Gupta and Jain, 2013;Bhamu and Singh Sangwan, 2014;Sundar et al, 2014;Nithia et al, 2015;Yusup et al, 2015;Pinho and Mendes, 2017;Costa et al, 2018) SS (Arnheiter and Maleyeff, 2005;Oke, 2007;Kumar and Antony, 2008;Van Iwaarden et al, 2008;Tjahjono et al, 2010;Costa et al, 2018) L6S (Albliwi et al, 2015;Antony et al, 2017;Muraliraj et al, 2018;Ruben et al, 2018;Alexander et al, 2019;Siregar et al, 2019) TQM (Al-Khalili and Subari, 2014;Dedy et al, 2016) 2 CFF Lack of top management commitment LM (Gupta and Jain, 2013;Bhamu and Singh Sangwan, 2014;Alhuraish et al, 2015;Nithia et al, 2015) SS (Kumar and Antony, 2008;Van Iwaarden et al, 2008;Tjahjono et al, 2010;Alhuraish et al, 2015) L6S (Alsmadi and Khan, 2010;Albliwi et al, 2015;Muraliraj et al, 2018;Ruben et al, 2018;Alexander et al, 2019;Siregar et al, 2019) TQM (Al-Khalili and Subari, 2014;Dedy et al, 2016) 3 CFF Resistance to change LM (Gupta and Jain, 2013;Alhuraish et al, 2015;…”

Quality Management In Precast Concrete Industry: Problems And Perspectives

“…The results of implementing experience approaches were reflected in the works of (Alexander, Anthony, & Rodgers, 2017;Alkunsol, Sharabati, AlSalhi, & El-Tamimi, 2016, Deamonita, Pujiyanto, & Rosyidi, 2017Nemati, Dave, Sias, & Perkins, 2019;Kȩsek, Bogacz, & Mirza, 2019;Mousavi Isfahani, Tourani, & Seyedin, 2017;Yadav, Mathiyazhagan, & Kumar, 2017;Salam, 2008;Sigrid Nordby, 2017;Messinger, Rogers, & Hawker, 2019) analysis of which highlights one common essential point: the success of the implementation of any approaches depends on strict compliance with the conditions, the assessment of the existence and implementation of which is not subject to formalization, it is subjective, meanwhile underperformance or non-performance of these conditions are inherently flawed as a quality management system project: 1) it should be initiated by top -management of a company;…”