The Interplay of Lean Six Sigma, Industry 4.0, and Dynamic Capabilities: Pathways to Sustainable Competitive Advantage in North African Context

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the integrated effect of Lean Six Sigma practices, dynamic capabilities, and Industry 4.0 adoption on sustainable competitive advantage. This paper studies and evaluates different effects to give support to industrialists and practitioners. The aim is to enrich the literature with a model containing several interesting concepts for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In this study, we used a mixed study that follows a sequential explanatory model for which a survey with companies in north Africa was conducted, followed by semi-structured interviews that explain the results obtained quantitatively. This paper, for the first time on the African continent, a conceptual model dealing with the integrated effect of this concepts on the sustainable competitive advantage. The most significant result that the use of new technologies 4.0, by itself, has only limited effects on the efficiency and competitiveness of companies if it is only used from a technological perspective. Therefore, organizational changes and the introduction of management methods, based on industrial engineering, become imperative. The adoption of socio-technical and managerial approaches is also vital for any company aiming at the sustainable digitalization of its industrial processes.INDEX TERMS Lean Six Sigma (LSS), Industry 4.0 (I4.0), Dynamic capabilities (DC), sustainable competitive advantage (SCA), explanatory sequence model.