The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-4166.htm

IJLSS
12,2 Requirements, challenges and
impacts of Lean Six Sigma
applications – a narrative
318 synthesis of qualitative research
Received 17 June 2019 Mohamed Alblooshi and Mohammad Shamsuzzaman
Revised 10 September 2019
16 February 2020
Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, College of
7 March 2020 Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Accepted 22 April 2020
Michael Boon Chong Khoo
School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
Abdur Rahim
Faculty of Business Administration,
University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, and
Salah Haridy
Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, College of
Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates and
Benha Facility of Engineering, Benha University, Benha, Egypt

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify, present and categorise the main requirements,
challenges and impacts of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) applications. Emphasis is given to the soft impacts of LSS
applications, which are intangible in nature and difficult to quantify and measure, highlighting the most
frequently cited ones.
Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative synthesis of the studies using the narrative synthesis
approach is adopted to descriptively summarise and categorise the requirements, challenges and impacts of
LSS applications. The studies were searched by using the following keywords: “LSS applications,” “LSS
requirements,” “LSS challenges” and “LSS impacts” in almost all major electronic databases such as Emerald,
Taylor and Francis, ScienceDirect and Wiley. A total of 116 articles published between 2007 and 2017 in 41
academic journals were collected and reviewed. Consideration was also given to a number of substantial
publications in 2006, 2018 and 2019.
Findings – In addition to its process efficiency and financial impacts, LSS was found to have another impact
category related to individual and organisational behaviours. Management commitment, training and
organisational culture were concluded to be amongst the most important and required categories for successful
LSS applications. It was also found that the lack of awareness of LSS tools and benefits and the lack of change
management and resistance to change were amongst the most cited categories of implementation challenges.
Research limitations/implications – The studies published between 2007 and 2017 are mainly
considered in this paper. It is believed that 10-year publication period considered in this research is sufficient to

International Journal of Lean Six

This article is a part of an on-going PhD research. The authors would like to thank the editor and the
Sigma anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions that helped greatly in improving
Vol. 12 No. 2, 2021
pp. 318-367 the quality of the paper.
© Emerald Publishing Limited This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial,
2040-4166
DOI 10.1108/IJLSS-06-2019-0067 or not-for-profit sectors.
study the evolution, benefits, limitations and future trends of a particular research topic. However, the exclusion Lean Six
criteria used in the search process with respect to the articles’ year of publication and search terms and keywords
may limit the generalisation of the research findings. In addition, the qualitative nature of this research study and Sigma
the lack of empirical data to support its findings is another limitation that future research should consider. applications
Practical implications – This research paper may serve as a valuable source of information for LSS
researchers as it will provide them with useful and new insights and directions for further research in LSS. It
will also increase the awareness of LSS practitioners about the kind of impact LSS has, and therefore, achieve
a better utilisation of its tools by ensuring availability of application requirements and overcoming
application challenges. 319
Originality/value – This study differs from previous research studies as it focusses attention on the soft
impacts of LSS applications and highlights them. The study identifies and prioritises LSS application
impacts, requirements and challenges. The study on these aspects was found to be limited and lacking in
previous research studies.
Keywords Lean, Six sigma, Lean six sigma, Requirements, Challenges, Impacts,
Narrative synthesis, Literature review
Paper type Literature review

1. Introduction
This study explores and identifies the soft aspects of the impacts of Lean Six Sigma (LSS)
applications and their requirements and challenges by providing a closer and deeper look at
previous research. In addition to the financial and marketing impacts that have been proven
for LSS, there are impacts that are neither direct financial impacts nor direct marketing
impacts. Such impacts are called the intangible impacts and are often referred to as the soft
impacts of LSS that are hard to quantify and measure (Johnstone et al., 2011). The study is
divided into four main sections. Section 1 provides a brief description of Lean, Six Sigma
(SS) and LSS. In addition, a summary of existing literature reviews on LSS is provided.
Section 2 presents the methodology of the research, highlighting search strategy, narrative
synthesis methodology, descriptive analysis and patterns of publications and data analysis
where publications have been discussed and reviewed in detail. In Section 3, the collected
information is analysed and categorised, highlighting the most often cited LSS
requirements, challenges and impacts. Finally, Section 4 provides concluding remarks.

1.1 A brief description of Lean Six Sigma

Given the complex and highly competitive nature of businesses nowadays, classical
management approaches are not sufficient or capable of dealing with highly dynamic and
uncertain environments. Therefore, organisations look for innovative and creative ways and
tools to be able to sustain their position and to face market challenges. Lean, SS or LSS are
examples of tools that are used for improving customer satisfaction, reducing costs,
speeding up processes and maximizing shareholders’ value (Tsironis and Psychogios, 2016).
Organisations have to go through a change process while implementing any of the
previously mentioned business improvement tools and a supportive organisational culture
is very crucial so that an organisation can stay stable and strong in such conditions (Ndaita
et al., 2015).
SS is a data-driven project management approach that is used by organisations as a
strategy to increase the level of quality by reducing the defects, therefore increasing
customer satisfaction, achieving business performance, improving operational performance,
developing employees’ skills and achieving strategic objectives (Aboelmaged, 2011).
Derived from Deming philosophy, SS is a process-focussed, customer-oriented and profit-
driven tool. Based on statistical thinking and process control, SS emphasises the
IJLSS identification of problems and then understanding the causes of defects (Antony and Desai,
12,2 2009). SS was first deployed by Motorola in the late 1980s and spread widely after its
adoption by General Electric in 1995, after which it became popular worldwide and was
applied by organisations from different sectors (Jesus et al., 2015). SS originates from sigma,
which represents the amount of variation in a process in statistics and sigma quality level
refers to the likelihood of occurrence of defects. By using scientific methods, SS achieves
320 targeted improvement and reaches a quality level in which there are only 3.4 defects per
million opportunities; an opportunity here refers to the chance for non-conformance
(Mehrjerdi, 2011). From the business point of view, SS is a strategy and philosophy that is
used to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of processes to enhance business
profitability and meet customer satisfaction (Chakraborty and Leyer, 2013). From the
perspective of management sciences, this top-down strategic and operational management
approach is achieved by using comprehensive quantitative methods. It aims at improving
organisational learning through education and collaboration within and across functional
departments (Malik and Blumenfeld, 2012). It was originally developed for the
manufacturing industry, but the concept was then extended and applied to other fields such
as public services, banking, human resources (HR), training and product development
(Goffnett et al., 2016).
Lean is a philosophy that was developed by Toyota in 1996. It synchronises processes to
increase their efficiency and eliminate waste, thus bringing value to customers. It is a
sociotechnical tool as it emphasises the culture of showing respect to others, the
responsibility of contributing to the organisation’s efforts by bringing value to its customers
and engagement in achieving the organisational vision (Goffnett et al., 2016). Such as the
principles of total quality management (TQM), Lean aims to enhance the quality of products
and services and support organisational strategic objectives; it uses a top-to-bottom process
to eliminate waste in which the participation of all stakeholders is required (Pakdil and
Leonard, 2015). From a philosophical perspective, Lean is often referred to as Lean thinking
and is considered to be a guiding principle and a roadmap. From a practical perspective,
Lean implements tools to achieve objectives such as waste elimination, cost reduction and
quality and productivity enhancement (Boyle et al., 2011). Strategically, Lean is considered a
way of thinking and a mind-set. From an operational point of view, Lean is a set of tools and
techniques that are applied to achieve certain process improvement objectives (Wiengarten
et al., 2015). It is based on the continuous flow of activities, reduction in setup time, high
employee engagement levels, continuous improvement and supplier development (Jabbour
et al., 2014). The guiding principle of Lean is to improve efficiency by producing a high value
output that is also economically viable from a customer perspective while using less time,
material, manpower and other required resources. The Lean journey is long and dynamic
and requires continuous learning and adaptation of the way employees operate and the way
they view the organisation. It also needs to focus on the purpose and cultural aspects that
will influence the technical aspects (Radnor, 2010). The first extension of Lean principles to
non-manufacturing sectors was the management of inbound and outbound supply chain
and health care. Implementation of Lean is a complex task due to the cultural changes and
process transformation that it involves and requires. It is a mind-set that people in an
organisation should believe in and act based on its principles (Sharma et al., 2015).
While Lean focusses on the cultural aspects of organisations and aims to speed up
processes through the elimination of waste, SS is a scientific and statistical approach for
eliminating defects and reducing costs of poor quality (Tsironis and Psychogios, 2016). In
fact, Lean lacks the statistical approach needed for reducing variation and SS does not really
take into account the speed aspect along with quality (Delgado et al., 2010). It should also be
mentioned that while Lean deals with waste, aiming to speed up and increase the efficiency Lean Six
of processes, SS targets increasing the overall quality of products and services by Sigma
eliminating defects and failures from the design to the development stage throughout the
product lifecycle. LSS is a synergy between Lean and SS that seeks to enhance business
applications
performance, ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of the processes, and therefore increase
customer stratification and profitability. LSS is considered to be an integration of human
aspects such as leadership, teamwork and cultural change with process aspects such as
process capability and measurement (Maleyeff et al., 2012). It is a unified hard and soft 321
systems philosophy and a balanced approach that integrates and rolls the tools and
techniques including in both Lean and SS. It enables originations to use the advantages of
each tool and adopt the problem-solving tools related to its context to develop an
infrastructure for supporting process improvement across the organisation (Assarlind et al.,
2013). It is used for eliminating waste, variations and defects, thus targeting the
enhancement of the overall quality level, reducing costs and speeding up processes to meet
customer expectations and maximize shareholder value (Laureani et al., 2010). LSS was
successfully deployed in the manufacturing sector and organisations from the service sector
started adopting it as well. In such sectors, Lean aims to reduce time waste, whereas SS aims
to reduce the variations and causes of defects (Delgado et al., 2010).

1.2 A summary of existing literature reviews on Lean Six Sigma

Muraliraj et al. (2018) used a content analysis approach to review and analyse a total of 261
articles that contained the keyword “Lean Six Sigma” from 102 journals on LSS trends,
existing literature gaps and future research opportunities from the dimensions of study
objective, year of publication, journal name, research methodology, study geographical
location, industry, implementation of critical success factors (CSFs) and challenges and most
contributions by universities. Literature on LSS applications in the service industry was
reviewed by Sunder et al. (2018), aiming to construct a morphological framework and
identify research gaps and future research opportunities. A total of 175 papers published
between 2003 and 2015 were reviewed and a morphological framework was constructed on
the dimensions of application area, outcomes, implementation systems, tools, integration
with other management philosophies and evaluation methods. Amongst the broad areas
identified as future research opportunities, it was mentioned that there is a need to confirm
whether LSS drives incremental and disruptive innovation and establishes a continuous
improvement culture in service organisations. The integrability of LSS with innovation
practises was highlighted as an area for investigation and future research. Validation of
various tangible and intangible impacts and outcomes of LSS is also required where there is
a need to better understand such kinds of impacts, their attributes and what they are
influenced by. For example, it was highlighted that there is a need to check whether LSS
impacts employee satisfaction and other organisational HR aspects and whether it fosters
organisational learning capacities. In a study by Lande et al. (2016), articles published
between 2000 and 2015 on LSS CSFs in the manufacturing and service industry were
systematically reviewed. Deblois and Lepanto (2016) provided a similar systematic
literature review, but focussing on acute care and LSS continuous improvement approaches.
Focussing on the same sector, Mason et al. (2015) reviewed publications on LSS applications
in the surgical process and defined a number of common categories. Abu Bakar et al. (2015)
reviewed literature on LSS CSFs published after 2010, focussing on prior implementation
readiness factors. The application of LSS as an integrated concept and the requirements for
successful implementation were discussed by Assarlind et al. (2013). Instead of investigating
LSS CSFs, Albliwi et al. (2014) looked into LSS deployment critical failure factors from the
IJLSS dimensions of country’s evolution, organisational size and industry nature by reviewing 56
12,2 papers between 1995 and 2013. Albliwi et al. (2015) carried out a systematic literature review
of 37 journal papers published between 2000 and 2013 on LSS applications in an attempt to
identify important research trends and Zhang et al. (2012) assessed the maturity of LSS
research and application by reviewing papers published between 2000 and 2011. Yadav and
Desai (2016) reviewed 189 articles published between 2001 and 2014 on quality
322 improvement from the dimensions of year of publication, journal name, country, tool uses,
research methodology and industry. Sreedharan and Raju (2016) reviewed a total of 235
papers on LSS, categorising them based on their definition, research methodology, sector,
year of publication, author profile and country of research. The research did not consider
requirements for successful LSS implementation and the challenges faced during its
adoption process. In another publication by Raval et al. (2018), a total of 190 articles on LSS
were systematically reviewed, aiming to identify its current state and research gaps by
examining application field, year of publication, journal and publisher name, research
approach, tools, benefits, CSFs and barriers. LSS implementation benefits and challenges in
the manufacturing, health care, HR, financial and education sectors were reviewed in detail
by Singh and Rathi (2018), classifying the spread of the tool in the mentioned sectors. A
review of theoretical and application-oriented literature on LSS implementation in small and

Reference Purpose

Muraliraj et al. (2018)
Sunder et al. (2018)
Lande et al. (2016)
Deblois and Lepanto (2016)
Mason et al. (2015)
Abu Bakar et al. (2015)
Assarlind et al. (2013)
Albliwi et al. (2014)
Albliwi et al. (2015)
Zhang et al. (2012)
Yadav and Desai (2016)
Sreedharan and Raju (2016)
Raval et al. (2018)
Singh and Rathi (2018)
Table 1.
Summary of existing
LSS literature review Prasanna and Vinodh (2013)
papers
Enhanced the understating of LSS by summarising past and present
research trends highlighting gaps and future research opportunities
Reviewed literature on LSS applications in the service industry to
construct a morphological framework and identify research gaps and
future research opportunities
Reviewed articles on LSS CSFs in the manufacturing and service
industry
Looked into continuous improvement approaches of Lean and SS in
the acute care industry by conducting a systematic literature review
Looked into the application of LSS in surgical processes by reviewing
a number of articles published in medical databases
Worked on a literature review of the CSFs of LSS focussing on prior
implementation readiness factors
Introduced new factors of importance for successful LSS application
Systematically reviewed a number of papers on LSS critical failure
factors
Identified important themes of LSS applications in the manufacturing
sector by systematically reviewing a number of journal papers
Assessed the status and the maturity of LSS application
Systematically reviewed a number of articles on quality improvement
by analysing them from the dimensions of year of publication, journal,
country, research design and type and application sector
Reviewed LSS literature from the aspect of its definition,
demographics, methodologies and industries
Reviewed a number of LSS articles by providing insights on its
current state and other dimensions
Reviewed literature on the benefits and challenges/critical barriers of
LSS implementation in the health care, HR, financial and education
sectors
Analysed the literature on LSS implementation in SMEs discussing
the type of research, benefits and frameworks
medium enterprises (SMEs) was provided by Prasanna and Vinodh (2013), focussing on Lean Six
research type, benefits achieved and frameworks. Sigma
Table 1 below summarises and highlights the purposes of the existing LSS literature
review papers discussed above:
applications
An analysis of existing LSS literature review papers reveals a number of limitations and
research gaps that researchers who plan to conduct similar reviews should note and take
into consideration. For example, many of the literature review papers discussed were limited
to only articles that contained “Lean Six Sigma” in their titles or as a keyword (Muraliraj
323
et al., 2018; Raval et al., 2018; Singh and Rathi, 2018). It should also be noted that most of the
articles reviewed were academically based and lack practitioners’ input (Raval et al., 2018).
In addition, only commonly used and most reputable databases such as Emerald,
ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Taylor and Francis, Elsevier, Google Scholar and Inderscience
were used for the search process, which may have limited the content variety and the
number of articles reviewed (Muraliraj et al., 2018; Raval et al., 2018; Singh and Rathi, 2018;
Sreedharan and Raju, 2016; Yadav and Desai, 2016). In terms of geographical scope, most of
the articles reviewed were concerned only with developed countries such as the USA and the
UK, where most of the publications originated from, but not with developing countries
(Muraliraj et al., 2018; Yadav and Desai, 2016). We may also notice that all of the literature
review papers discussed were published after the year 2012. Sreedharan and Raju (2016)
highlighted that organisations lack guidance on implementation of LSS as a synergised tool
and Zhang et al. (2012) mentioned that LSS is still at an elementary stage. This makes it very
obvious that the research on LSS as an integrated tool is a relatively new research area that
is not yet well researched compared to the research on Lean only or SS only.
It was observed that there are not many comprehensive, broad and detailed reviews
covering all LSS-related aspects and dimensions, as most of the studies focussed only on its
process and implementation (Raval et al., 2018). There is also a lack of justification of the
sustainability of LSS benefits other than enhancing financial outcomes, process excellence
and customer satisfaction. For example, it was mentioned that LSS promotes radical and
incremental types of innovation and it is hard to find studies that provide evidence on
whether such an impact or other kinds of hidden impacts as classified by Raval et al. (2018)
do actually exist and if they continue (Muraliraj et al., 2018). Similarly, Sunder et al. (2018)
recommended further investigation of the impact of LSS applications on innovation,
organisational culture and its learning capacities and employee satisfaction. A good number
of articles highlighted the need for categorising and understanding the priorities of LSS
requirements, enablers and barriers across various sectors (Muraliraj et al., 2018; Raval et al.,
2018; Singh and Rathi, 2018; Sreedharan and Raju, 2016; Yadav and Desai, 2016).
Consideration of cultural, work and other contextual factors while studying the mentioned
LSS aspects was also highlighted as a future research direction (Muraliraj et al., 2018; Raval
et al., 2018; Sreedharan and Raju, 2016).
Hence, there is a need to provide more in-depth knowledge to justify the importance of
LSS as an integrated tool and to identify and prioritise its different kinds of impacts,
implementation success requirements and barriers. Unlike all of the previous LSS literature
reviews that either focussed on a certain LSS aspect in specific contexts, countries and
sectors or dealt only with the categorisation of LSS literature, the objective of this paper is to
highlight and categorise the soft impacts of LSS applications along with its implementation
requirements and challenges as experienced in a variety of sectors and countries, both
developed and developing, which makes this research a valuable contribution to both
academics and LSS practitioners.
IJLSS 2. Methodology
12,2 2.1 Search strategy
The research work started with a planning stage based on the predefined research objective
where a number of key journals and key search terms such as LSS applications, LSS
requirements, LSS challenges and LSS impacts were identified. Only accessible, full text
academic journal articles from almost all major electronic databases such as Emerald,
324 Taylor and Francis, ScienceDirect and Wiley published between 2007 and 2017 were
considered in this paper. It is believed that 10-year publication period considered in this
research is sufficient to study the evolution, benefits, limitations and future trends of a
particular research topic. Similar timeframes were followed in many other literature review
studies such as Sunder et al. (2018), who considered 12-year period (2003-2015), Lande et al.
(2016), who covered 15-year period (2000-2015) and Albliwi et al. (2015), who reviewed a 13-
year period (2000-2013). In addition, a few relevant articles that focusses on requirements,
challenges and/or impacts of LSS applications published in 2006, 2018 and 2019 were also
considered. Even though these articles were not published within the 10-year timeframe
specified in this research, they were cited as they discuss interesting aspects related to the
applications of LSS in service industry and its critical success requirements. The
aforementioned databases are reputable and reliable. They are commonly used as rich
databanks with a wide variety of journals in different fields including engineering and
quality management as highlighted by Muraliraj et al. (2018) and Yadav and Desai (2016).
Previous literature review studies by many authors such as Sreedharan and Raju (2016),
Sreedharan et al. (2018) and Singh and Rathi (2018) used similar databases. The keywords
and the search terms used for the search process were very specific, covering certain aspects
of LSS. It is worth mentioning that not only articles on LSS applications were reviewed, as in
previous literature review papers but also articles on the application of Lean only or SS only
were considered. As a result, the number and the contents of the articles collected provided a
very inclusive overview of the research subject, covering a variety of sectors and countries.
Books, conference papers, websites, reports and other grey literature were excluded. Articles
that were not related to the search domain or did not contain the key search terms specified
were also not considered. An electronic search using the aforementioned inclusion and
exclusion criteria was conducted and a list of more than 200 articles was initially identified,
then filtered based on the title and abstract to exclude non-relevant articles and finally the
list was narrowed down to 116 articles. The shortlisted articles were descriptively analysed
and their contents were reviewed to categorise the information targeted to be collected.
Figure 1 illustrates the literature review research methodology followed in this paper.

2.2 Narrative synthesis methodology

The target was to provide a comprehensive understanding and explanations of the different
aspects and perspectives of LSS requirements, challenges and impacts experienced by
multisector organisations. A narrative synthesis approach was used to compile the data and
collect them into a sort of map. In addition, given the qualitative nature of the variables
being discussed, there was a need to provide very deep and profound information to ensure
full integration of the studies being reviewed and coverage of all aspects relevant to the
research topic. As this research is part of a data collection process for exploring a new
category of LSS applications impacts that have not been discussed much or deeply
investigated in previous research studies, the expected output of the narrative synthesis
process was a descriptive summary of the studies, which will go through a content analysis
process in the next stage of this research (Denyer and Tranfield, 2006).
 1. Planning - Define research objective Lean Six
- Identify key journals and key search terms
- Identify search inclusion and exclusion criteria
Sigma
applications
2. Executing - Conduct an electronic search using a
predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria

- Review search results in terms of title and

325
abstract of each paper

- Exclude non
relevant articles
with reason
based on title or
abstract

3. Reporting - Download relevant articles

- Descriptive analysis of the articles and identify
patterns of publications

- Data synthesis and report papers from the

aspects of the requirements, challenges, and
impacts of LSS applications Figure 1.
Literature review
research
- Discuss findings
- Conclude and provide future research direction methodology

2.3 Descriptive analysis and patterns of publications

The collected literatures were classified according to year of publication, research area,
journal name, paper type, application sector and tool used.
2.3.1 Distribution of articles by year of publication. As stated earlier, this research was
limited to journal articles published between 2007 and 2017, with consideration given to few

25

20
No. of Publications

15

10

Figure 2.
Distribution of
0 articles by year of
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
publication
Year of Publication
IJLSS publications in 2006, 2018 and 2019. Referring to Figure 2, 2014 was a boom year for LSS
12,2 publications regarding the areas covered in this study (i.e. requirements, challenges and
impacts), followed by the years 2015, 2016 and 2012 that had 15, 13 and 13 publications,
respectively. A possible reason for the significant jump in the number of LSS publications in
the year 2014 is the increase in the popularity of the topic and the acceptance it began to
receive by both old and new journals as a rich subject for academics and practitioners. In
326 years 2007, 2008 and 2011, there were limited publications contributing to this field,
compared to the years 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2017. The review also included two articles
published in 2006 and 2019 along with five articles published in 2018.
2.3.2 Distribution of articles by research area. Even though there were some articles that
covered more than one research area, each article was categorised and listed under only one
research area that it was most closely related to and fit the best. A total of seven research
areas were identified as follows:
 Application impacts: direct application of the well-known LSS tools and analysis of
their impacts.
 Framework development: development of LSS implementation roadmap and guide.
 Application challenges: difficulties and obstacles faced during the implementation of
LSS.
 General review: general highlights about LSS tools.
 Future trends and research opportunities: future of LSS and how it may evolve.
 Relationships: valuable relationships that LSS has with other factors and variables.
 Application success factors: requirements for a successful deployment of LSS tools.

As illustrated in Figure 3, 59% of the publications were in the area of application impacts, as
it is the most comprehensive topic and usually covers the other aspects of the research areas
mentioned, followed by publications that provided a general review of the research topic,
which constituted 12% of the total number of the publications reviewed. Publications about
framework development and application success factors made up 10% and 7%,

Future trends and Relationships

research opportunities 3%
Application challenges 3%
6%
Application success
factors
7%

Framework
development
10% Application impacts
59%
General review
Figure 3. 12%
Distribution of
articles by research
area
respectively, of the total reviewed publications. Publications related to future trends and Lean Six
research opportunities and relationships amounted to 6% of the total publications reviewed, Sigma
3% each. Similarly, publications about application challenges were 6% of the total number
of the publications. Despite this classification and for the purpose of this research, the
applications
articles were analysed and discussed from the perspective of LSS applications’
requirements, challenges and impacts.
2.3.3 Distribution of articles by journal name. The articles reviewed were extracted from
a total of 41 journals from various aspects including quality, management sciences,
327
engineering management, business, technology, manufacturing, health care, construction,
marketing, supply chain and performance management disciplines. The largest numbers of
articles were published in three journals named International Journal of Quality and
Reliability Management, International Journal of Productivity and Performance
Management, and Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management. Other leading
journals in terms of publications reviewed were TQM and business excellence, the TQM
journal and International Journal of Operations and Production Management. Figure 4
illustrates the contribution from each journal.
2.3.4 Distribution of articles by paper type. In terms of the paper type and given the
nature of the search terms used, most of the publications reviewed were research papers.
There were also a number of case studies of various approaches: brainstorming, site visits,
observation, project, action research, survey and interview based. A literature review paper
was the approach used in nine articles. Other types of papers included conceptual,
viewpoint, general review and technical papers. Figure 5 shows the different paper types of
the reviewed publications.
2.3.5 Distribution of articles by application sectors. Based on application sectors, there
were 26 publications from the manufacturing sector, which made up a large portion of the
publications. That is in line with the fact the LSS was started in the manufacturing sector
and that its applications were more popular in manufacturing-related fields. Other sectors
where LSS is popular are higher education (HE) and health care and the classification of the

Arab Economics and Business Journal

International Journal of Construction Management
International Journal of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine
International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management
Journal of Chemical Health & Safety
Journal of The Textile Institute
Journal of the American College of Surgeons
Physics Procedia
Procedia CIRP
Procedia Manufacturing
Quality Engineering
Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
Research Journal of Textile and Apparel
Quality Assurance in Education
Management Research News
Library Management
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development
Journal Name

Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering

Journal of Health Organization and Management
Journal of Facilities Management
Journal of Business Strategy
Industrial Management & Data Systems
European Journal of Marketing
Construction Innovation
Assembly Automation
Quality and Reliability Engineering International
Leadership in Health Services
International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance
Business Process Management Journal
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences
Benchmarking: An International Journal
Production Planning & Control
International Journal of Production Research
International Journal of Lean Six Sigma
Production Planning & Control: The Management of Operations
International Journal of Operations & Production Management
The TQM Journal
Figure 4.
Total Quality Management & Business Excellence
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management
Distribution of
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management
International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management articles by journal
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 name
No. of Publications
IJLSS 90

12,2 80

70

60
328
No. of publications

50

40

30

20

10

Figure 5. 0
Distribution of Research paper Case study Literature Conceptual Viewpoint General review Technical
review paper paper
articles by paper type
Research method

publications revealed that there were 22 articles in these sectors. Some of the other sectors
covered were service, call centres, financial, supply chain and logistics, public, construction,
corporate communication, food, HR, tourism, textile and apparel, telecom, policing,
technology, aerospace, airline and hospitality as illustrated in Figure 6.
2.3.6 Distribution of articles by tools used. Although the study is about LSS as an
integrated approach, publications about Lean only or SS only were considered as well, based

30

25
No. of publications

20

15

10

Figure 6.
Distribution of
articles by
application sector
Application sector
 Continuous
Improvement, 1%
Lean Six
Sigma
applications
Six Sigma, 21%

329
Lean Six Sigma, 57%

Lean , 21%

Figure 7.
Distribution of
articles by tools used

on the assumption that whatever is applicable for Lean and SS individually can be
generalised to LSS. As shown in Figure 7, LSS publications contributed to 57% of the
publications reviewed, followed by publications about either Lean or SS applications, each
of which contributed to 21% of the publications reviewed. A number of publications about
continuous improvement were reviewed as well, amounting to only 1% of the total reviewed
publications.

3. Data synthesis and analysis

In this section, the collected articles are discussed in detail to gather information about
requirements, challenges and impacts of applications of LSS in different sectors.

3.1 Requirements of Lean Six Sigma applications

In a dynamic environment where the future is difficult to forecast, Manville et al. (2012)
stated that LSS can be a strategy that gives organisations the flexibility required to deal
with the changing demands of customers. Sreedharan et al. (2018) reviewed literature on the
CSFs of LSS applications based on which management commitment was found to be the
most important factor followed by training, communication, employee involvement and
customer focus. In addition, it was found that knowledge of the tools, organisational
structure, employee involvement, teamwork and supplier focus were also required for
successful application of LSS. Bhasin (2013) mentioned that the Lean concept should be
viewed as a business philosophy that is much more than the technical aspects of its tools. It
is argued that the application of tools such as LSS is facilitated not only by the technical
knowledge of the tools but also by some other organisational factors such as culture,
working environment and work-related procedures – these being the prerequisites that ease
the implementation process and ensure a successful application of the tools. The review of
an article by Tsironis and Psychogios (2016) showed that top management involvement and
leadership commitment facilitates the implementation process, along with a suitable
organisational culture that promotes quality and helps in overcoming obstacles to
implementation. As supported by previous studies, Tsironis and Psychogios (2016) also
found that having clear objectives for LSS projects and linking them to customer
requirements and the firm’s strategy were very important. The availability of resources, in
terms of tools and techniques, will act as an infrastructure for the implementation.
IJLSS Interestingly, previous implementation of quality programmes and the availability of
12,2 documented procedures will smooth the implementation of LSS as they increase the level of
preparation and provide the knowledge and experience needed to deal with the different
challenges faced (Tsironis and Psychogios, 2016). Nakhai and Neves (2009) highlighted the
importance of changing the organisational culture to fit the conditions required for LSS
adoption. In addition, teams skilled in problem-solving and decision-making will have a
330 positive impact on implementation. In addition, De Jesus et al. (2015) mentioned that there
should be clear criteria for project selection where the priority should be always given to the
areas that require improvement and that the organisation is measured for. In line with the
previous studies, Antony et al. (2018) highlighted that the implementation of LSS requires a
visionary leadership to set direction and provide a roadmap, a supportive organisational
culture that makes the adoption of LSS tools easier and smoother, criteria for selecting
projects with high potential for improvement and an effective communication plan of project
progress, results and lessons learned to ensure engagement and alignment.
Sunder and Antony (2018) proposed a conceptual framework for deployment of LSS in
higher education institutions (HEIs). Based on the proposed framework, it was mentioned
that readiness for LSS implementation, awareness of its value to the organisation and
alignment of its strategy with organisational excellence vision are a crucial part of the
leadership agenda. The formation of teams that involves identifying the right stakeholders
and providing them with the necessary education comes next. That is followed by LSS
project selection and the initiation and implementation stage, which is concluded when
business performance and quality excellence objectives are met. Leadership must play an
active role in ensuring the success of LSS deployment by promoting it as a way of doing
things rather than just a process improvement tool; this can be reflected in the
organisational values, norms and culture that leadership stands for. Leadership
commitment is a must for successful implementation of SS, as it provides the support
needed in terms of increasing staff awareness of quality-related concepts by ensuring proper
communication of the SS project objectives, training them on the soft and hard SS skills and
empowering and motivating them to participate and take responsibility (Mehrjerdi, 2011).
Looking into the leadership role, Suresh et al. (2012) mentioned that leaders should be
visionary, ambitious, dynamic, flexible, energetic, organised, productive, persuasive,
optimistic, trusting and passionate, which will have a direct positive impact on the
successful deployment of SS initiatives. Similarly, in a study looking into the role of
academia in future SS development, Antony (2007) highlighted that leadership style, which
is the interaction with the culture that exists in the organisation, is amongst one of the most
important CSFs for a successful implementation of SS. Kumar et al. (2008) mentioned that
the top management buying the concept of SS and being committed to it is amongst the
most important factors for successful implementation of SS and sustaining its results.
The relationship between organisational exposure to information sources and the
implementation of Lean in the manufacturing sector was examined by Boyle et al. (2011).
Information sources, external and internal, are used by managers as a guidance so that they
can better understand the implementation process of Lean and its tools, and information can
be obtained through trainings, conferences, workshops, experts and plant tours. For that,
management has to be committed and allocate the necessary resources for the
implementation in terms of training, HR and other required financial investment. The
relationship between the manager’s exposure to external information sources, management
commitment and the extent of Lean thinking was found to be directly proportional.
It was found that creating a culture and an overall atmosphere that supports the
adoption and implementation of LSS is essential. Knapp (2015) investigated the relationship
between organisational culture types and LSS implementation covering aspects related Lean Six
to management involvement, statistical methods and supporting infrastructure. It was Sigma
found that the group and developmental culture types support the implementation of
LSS more than hierarchal and rational culture types, as they support teamwork, flexibility,
applications
risk taking and innovation, which are needed for the successful implementation of SS.
Knapp (2015) also highlighted that an organisation has to be able to adjust its culture to
market conditions given the dynamicity of the working environment. In another research
paper by Pakdil and Leonard (2015), the cultural aspects of Lean were discussed and it was 331
found that Lean does need a culture that is heavily based on group works, empowerment
and attention to external involvement including suppliers and customers. In line with the
previous study, Pakdil and Leonard (2015) concluded that a balanced culture that combines
the strengths of group, developmental, hierarchal and rational culture types will be the most
desired organisational culture type. That is because of the duality of its concept that
emphasises innovation and the need for control, which as a result ensures a successful
implementation of Lean and sustains its impacts. Understanding cultural factors is essential
for the success of organisations that wish to extend their operational networks globally and
meet international manufacturing standards as highlighted by Wiengarten et al. (2015), who
evaluated the impact of cultural aspects of collectivism and level of individualism on the
efficacy of Lean processes. It was found that some western organisations faced some
challenges when implementing Lean and that they did gain the same benefits the Japanese
organisations have gained. That was due to the cultural differences that were not considered
by western organisations at the time of implementation, as it is hypothesised that Lean can
be more effective, in terms of its impact and driving operational performance, in
collectivistic national cultures such as in Japan. Lean is a problem-solving and decision-
making approach that requires individuals to work in groups to overcome any
implementation complexities, and that is facilitated by Japanese culture that highly values
groups and unity. Lean and SS are change methods that require a larger scale change at
both the organisational and individual levels. Douglas et al. (2017) discussed the relationship
between organisational climate in readiness for change with respect to LSS adoption. It was
found that national culture plays a role in transferring LSS concepts between nations and
that a quality-driven organisational culture can facilitate the implementation of LSS. A
change in culture will occur only when a change in organisational climate takes place; that is
a change in the employees’ shared perceptions, behaviours and work-related practises
that they follow. In a study conducted by Maleyeff et al. (2012), it was highlighted that
LSS practitioners should be aware and understand the adaptions required to evolve the LSS
body of knowledge to make it relevant and applicable to a highly dynamic context. LSS
practitioners should also consider risk factors and the impacts of ambiguity on the project’s
progress. Workforce considerations such as its diversity, employees’ knowledge, innovation
and regulatory environment are also important where it is expected that the number of
regulations will increase and therefore regulations’ risk on business security should be
considered.
Table 2 below summarises the requirements of LSS applications cited in the articles
discussed above along with some other references.

3.2 Challenges of Lean Six Sigma applications

It was found that one of the reasons behind the failure of any continuous improvement
initiatives is the lack of motives or the wrong motives for implementation and the
misunderstanding of the expectation. Understanding the cultural context and being aware
of the organisational capability in introducing a change and coping with it or transforming
IJLSS
Reference
12,2
Manville et al. (2012)
332
Sreedharan et al. (2018)
Bhasin (2013)
Tsironis and Psychogios (2016)
Nakhai and Neves (2009)
Jesus et al. (2015)
Antony et al. (2018)
Sunder and Antony (2018)
Mehrjerdi (2011)
Table 2.
Summary of the
Suresh et al. (2012)
requirements of LSS
applications
Requirements of LSS applications
Linking LSS project objectives to organisational strategy and
customers
Understanding and awareness of LSS tools
Project selection and management
Management commitment
Training
Management commitment
Training
Communication
Employee involvement
Teamwork
Customer focus
Supplier focus
Knowledge of the tools
Organisational structure
Clear implementation strategy
Adoption of new organisational culture, working environment and
work-related procedure
Training on LSS technical skills
Having clear, strategic and customer-based objectives for LSS projects
Having a committed leadership and a quality-based organisational
culture
Technical knowledge of the tools and other soft skills
Availability of resources and documented procedures
Previous implementation of quality programmes
Project selection and management
Teamwork
Changing organisational culture
Clarifying financial outcomes
Management commitment
Skilled teams
Customer focus
Management commitment
Project selection
Customer and financial focus
Visionary leadership
Supportive organisational culture
Criteria for project selection
Communication plan
LSS strategy
Teamwork
Training
Project management
Leadership support
Organisational culture
Leadership commitment and engagement
Communication of success stories and lessons learned
Project selection and management
Changes to organisational culture
Leadership characteristics, styles, models, indexes and types
(continued)

Reference
Antony (2007)
Kumar et al. (2008)
Boyle et al. (2011)
Knapp (2015)
Pakdil and Leonard (2015)
Wiengarten et al. (2015)
Douglas et al. (2017)
Maleyeff et al. (2012)
Chen and Lyu (2009)
Hu et al. (2008)
Karthi et al. (2013)
Timans et al. (2014)
Wang and Chen (2010)
Wang and Chen (2012)
Laureani and Antony (2017)
Perini (2017)
Grima et al. (2014)
Kumar et al. (2011)
Psychogios and Tsironis (2012)
Ali et al. (2016)
Koning et al. (2008)
Pamfilie et al. (2012)
Sabry (2014)
Lean Six
Requirements of LSS applications
Sigma
Leadership style applications
Top management commitment
Organisational structure flexibility and change adaptability
Innovative organisational climate
External information sources
Supportive internal infrastructure 333
Management commitment
Supportive and flexible organisational culture
An organisational culture that is heavily based on group work
Attention to external environment
Adjusting the national and organisational culture
Group-based problem-solving and decision-making
Disciplined workforce
Changes to organisational culture
Value definition
Identification of risk factors
Workforce considerations
Technical knowledge of the tools
Project selection and prioritisation
Shop floor cooperation
Top management commitment
Linking LSS project objectives to organisational objectives
Management commitment
Resource availability
Training
A supportive organisational culture
Leadership
Business processes
Leaders
Management commitment
Project selection
Training
Leadership
Cultural change
Training
Leadership support, commitment and strategic orientation
Teamwork
Training
Tools and resources
Quality-driven culture
Management commitment
Awareness of the importance of the tools
Understanding of the tools
Training
Resource allocation
Organisational culture
Leadership attitudes
Changing organisational culture
Communication plan
Management commitment
Training
Closer suppliers’ relationships
(continued) Table 2.
IJLSS
Reference Requirements of LSS applications
12,2
Adopting the philosophy
Open organisation
Flexible operation
Employee empowerment
Problem-solving tools
334 Youssouf et al. (2014) Being knowledgeable of the process and the technical tools
Mehrabi (2012) Management involvement
Training
Project management
Continuous cultural change
Table 2. Technical and business knowledge of the tools

itself must be identified at very early stages before the implementation starts (McLean and
Antony, 2014). Risk categories associated with the implementation of Lean were identified
and classified by Marodin and Saurin (2015). Three groups of risks were identified as
follows: management of the process, top and middle management support and shop floor
involvement. Amongst the three aspects, it was found that the management of the process
has the greatest number of risks including lack of motivation, lack of knowledge and
communication and difficulties in visualising the perceived benefits.
Aboelmaged (2011) identified 47 barriers to SS implementation, examples of which are
resistance to change, intangibility and sometimes uncertainty of the results, weak
presentation of SS findings, lack of awareness about SS value, poor knowledge about LSS
tools and its application, no cross-functional teams, lack of top management support, lack of
supportive organisational structure, the presence of some social and psychological aspects
that are hard to be controlled, etc. The identified barriers were categorised to seven barrier
factors, of which it was found that knowledge and support barriers, referred to as soft
barriers because of their intangible nature, were the ones reported to be the most challenging
barriers to overcome.
In the HE sector, LSS was found to be less popular than in other sectors. Antony et al.
(2012) stated that LSS terminologies that were originally developed for the manufacturing
sector did not fit the HE context and the perception that LSS provides fast and quick results
could be wrong or exaggerated. The culture of HEIs might not support the openness needed
for adopting LSS because of the lack of understanding the various customer types involved:
students, faculty, admin staff, etc., not linking LSS project objectives with customers and the
organisational overall strategy, lack of a proper communication plan that would ensure
alignment of all teams’ efforts and lack of resources in terms of budget and time. Antony
et al. (2018) found that lack of management support, lack of understanding of LSS
methodology and its applicability in the context of HE processes, the organisational culture
of HEIs that is highly based on academic autonomy and constrained by other government
regulations and the sustainability of LSS impacts were amongst the most critical challenges
to LSS applications.
Although Lean was very effective in US hospitals and did actually improve medical care
processes, there were some challenges faced during the implementation such as the lack of
leadership and the failure to understand the concept of Lean. A study by Grove et al. (2010)
discussed the challenges faced during the implementation of Lean in the health service
sector in the UK. When it comes to understanding Lean concepts, it was found that it will
Reference Challenges of LSS applications
Lean Six
Sigma
McLean and Antony (2014) Lack of motives and wrong expectations applications
Misunderstanding of the requirements of application
Marodin and Saurin (2015) Risks associated with process management
Aboelmaged (2011) Resistance to change
Lack of top management support
Lack of supportive organisational structure 335
Unleashed SS business strategy
Lack of knowledge and complexity of the tools
The intangible nature of the results
Lack of cross functional teams
Antony et al. (2012) The culture of HE that does not fit LSS terminologies
Lack of management support and commitment
Lack of process thinking and ownership
Lack of understanding the various customer types
Not linking LSS project objectives to customers and organisational overall
strategy
Lack of a proper communication plan
Lack of resources
Antony et al. (2018) Lack of management support
Lack of understanding of LSS methodology
Organisational culture of HEIs
Sustainability of LSS impacts
Grove et al. (2010) Lack of leadership support
Lack of understanding the principles of Lean
Krueger et al. (2014) Poor project selection
Failing in approaching LSS as a cultural change
Timans et al. (2014) Lack of resources Table 3.
Grima et al. (2014) Being impatient for the results Summary of the
Kumar et al. (2011) Lack of understanding of the tools challenges of LSS
Not linking project objectives with organisational goals applications

not be effective to follow a similar application’s approach of other quality improvement

initiatives without understanding the principles of Lean.
The Table 3 below summarises the challenges of LSS applications discussed above along
with other barriers reported in the reviewed articles.

3.3 Impacts of Lean Six Sigma applications

3.3.1 Manufacturing sector. The review of previous research studies showed that
manufacturing sector is the dominant sector when it comes to LSS applications and this is
expected, given the fact it is the sector where LSS was originally developed. Douglas et al.
(2015a, 2015b) discussed the outcomes of implementation of LSS in East African service and
manufacturing organisations. Amongst the perceived benefits, it was found that LSS helped
increase productivity, sales and profitability, which resulted in reducing poor quality costs
and customer complaints. In another research, B.R. et al. (2015) provided an overview of
Lean management application in the aerospace industry that was found to have a very low
level of diffusion of Lean manufacturing. Despite that, the case study discussed revealed
that Lean helped achieve better utilisation of staff and reducing the cost of manpower, net
operating, waste and material costs. In a review by Assarlind et al. (2013) of the applications
of LSS in the manufacturing industry seeking to identify improvement opportunities for
IJLSS future LSS applications, it was mentioned that LSS helped to increase organisational ability
12,2 to adopt innovation.
The impact of Lean production system on the performance measures of the machine tool
industry was investigated by Sharma et al. (2015). Lean implementation in the machine tool
industry is still in an early stage and it was found that Lean is not the most preferred
business improvement approach by Indian organisations. In other manufacturing
336 organisations, it was found that Lean affects design quality, information quality, quality of
conformance, quality of material flow and the firm’s competitive potential. Lean can also
increase productivity, reduce lead time and improve first pass correct output.
The dynamic nature of the market and the high competition levels oblige organisations
to adjust their operations to adopt to the continuously changing market conditions. Jabbour
et al. (2014) discussed a case where Lean manufacturing practises were extended between a
focal firm and its supplier. The Lean philosophy can be combined with supply chain
management so that attention can be given to internal and external production flow. As both
Lean and supply chain management deal with the flow of activities to ensure meeting
customer expectations, they can be synergised. Suppliers play an important role in reducing
waste across the supply chain, where it was found that suppliers who adopt Lean practises
are competitively advantaged and can perform better than others who do not. Lean
manufacturing success can be facilitated by information and knowledge sharing between
suppliers and focal firms. For example, Toyota used approaches such as associating
suppliers and learning teams to transfer Lean manufacturing knowledge to suppliers. In the
case given, some of the benefits obtained by extending Lean manufacturing practises from a
focal firm to a supplier in the supply chain include reducing lead time and inventories,
improving process layouts and increasing organisational flexibility to adapt to changes in
demand.
It is claimed that LSS can have a greater impact if it is combined with organisational
development methodologies such as the socio-economic approach to management (SEAM).
A framework for bringing SEAM to LSS to facilitate operational change was introduced by
Goffnett et al. (2016). Compared with LSS, which is a quantitative approach that focusses on
defined technical processes, SEAM is more of a qualitative tool that focusses on people’s
behaviours and perceptions. In addition, while SEAM ensures an alignment between
strategies and processes, LSS is more concerned with a controlled process improvement that
is confined to the area of customer needs and does not go beyond. None of the LSS tools
deals with evaluation of human attitudes and behaviours, and therefore, SEAM can support
and strengthen LSS tools in this regard. They complement each other and can have a
synergistic effect as they have the ability to deal with technical processes, as well as the soft
elements of an organisation that are related to its human factor, leading to sustainable
process improvement.
In another research by Thomas et al. (2008), a model was proposed for combining the
concepts of total productive maintenance (TPM) and SS. TPM is an approach for carrying
out maintenance activities of machinery and equipment to achieve an optimal and effective
performance. It aims to reduce waste resulting from poor maintenance and ensures that a
high output value from machinery is obtained by increasing its operation’s life cycle. The
proposed Six Sigma maintenance (SSM) model is considered to be a standard operational
framework that combines the two approaches so that they can be applied simultaneously. It
emphasises a technical problem-solving approach while dealing with maintenance related
issues, achieves saving in experimental and project costs and develops a continuous
improvement culture across the organisation.
 3.3.2 Higher education sector. Lean was implemented worldwide by public and private Lean Six
sector organisations, for example, in HE, where it helped increase the satisfaction of Sigma
stakeholders in the education process, reduce operational costs and leverage resources to
meet the objectives of the education process. Lean was also useful for reducing the delivery
applications
time of knowledge and improving the quality of course materials and other university
administrative processes (Gupta et al., 2016). Balzer et al. (2016) provided an overview of
Lean implementation in HE to guide future implementations. Some of HE processes where
Lean is popular are introducing new majors, admission of new students, recruitment of 337
faculty and staff, course registration processes, purchasing and maintenance request
processes. Lean helped reduce student waiting time at counselling centres from 3 to 0 weeks
by creating the walk-in service, reduce the time for replying to prospective students
enquiries, reduce response time to maintenance requests from 24 to 3 days only, where it
was reported that 80% of the requests were completed on the same day they were requested,
reduce administrative staff recruitment process from 22 to 8 weeks only, and achieve US
$27.2m as financial improvement. In another study that explored Lean’s applications in
eliminating waste in HEIs, Douglas et al. (2015a, 2015b) found that the application of Lean
helped improve quality by simplifying and accelerating processes related to course and
curriculum design and student assessment. It was also found that Lean had a positive
impact on many of the indicators that are often measured in HEIs such as student
satisfaction and staff-student ratio, as it helped in directing the money saved towards
activities that improve such indicators. An LSS framework for improving curriculum design
and delivery in HE was developed by Thomas et al. (2017), who stated that Lean can help
HEIs facilitate the change adoption process and increase their readiness for it, as well as
increasing leadership awareness of the value and benefits of Lean. Lean impacted the
performance of students and faculties positively, as it helped in simplifying curriculum and
making it specific, consistent and relevant.
The status of LSS implementation in HEIs was investigated by Sunder and Mahalingam
(2018). The authors presented a case study to enhance students’ use and utilisation of the
central library by increasing the average daily student footfall and average daily count of
book issue/return transactions. As a result of LSS application, a new book search feature
was introduced that reduced student enquiries by 30%. It was also found that the
improvement of library infrastructure helped in reducing students’ complaints. Library staff
were able to save 30% of their time to use on other activities. In terms of financial benefits, a
total annual saving of INR 1,680,000 was achieved. The authors also discussed another case
for improving faculty and student satisfaction of computer centre services due to the high
number of complaints received and the very low satisfaction levels. LSS was perceived as a
learning experience and motivating factor for people involved in its application. It was
found that it helped in improving satisfaction rates from 2.89 to 4.4 on a Likert scale (1-7) due
to faster processing of complaints, high employee satisfaction and performance that led to
staff handling more responsibilities and a cost saving of INR 360,000 annually. In another
study by Antony et al. (2018), who looked into the implementation of LSS in the UK HEIs, it
was found that LSS resulted in high levels of process transparency, employee morale,
teamwork and collaboration. LSS also helped increase the overall awareness of the value
and importance of process excellency and achieve efficient utilisation of financial and non-
financial resources.
To attract the brightest minds and external funds, universities should continuously seek
to improve their processes to reduce administrative operational costs and provide better
services for the university community and other industry and market partners (Svensson
et al., 2015). Svensson et al. (2015) studied a case from King Abdullah University of Science
IJLSS and Technology in Saudi Arabia where LSS was applied to streamline the processes of the
12,2 support functions such as procurement, IT and finance to ensure a smoother service delivery
to the university community and improve the on-boarding process for new international
students. The article gave examples of universities that successfully deployed LSS such as
MIT and St Andrews University, who were able to achieve benefits such as changing the
culture of the institution, increasing student satisfaction rates and establishing performance
338 measures of processes.
Isa and Usmen (2015) examined the application of LSS tools in improving the overall
quality of facilities management (FM) services at universities that cover the design,
construction, renovation, operation and maintenance of premises including utilities
management, health, safety, security, transportation and parking. In the case studied, there
were delays in delivering FM services associated with high operational costs. Applying LSS
in a process related to building and renovating laboratories revealed that activities such as
revisions and rework throughout the design stages and cost estimation exercises had a
negative impact on project timeline and cost and resulted in a dissatisfied end user.
Academic libraries are challenged by the surrounding environments and have to cope with
the changes in the design of the buildings, digitization of collections or other services.
Beasley and Rosseel (2016) integrated cost avoidance, Lean design and sustainability in the
context of the library at the University of Alberta, which is one of the top teaching and
research universities in Canada. Lean principles were used in designing a new storage
library facility that houses the physical collections of the library and facilitated the process
of moving collections between campuses with a more efficient workflow. Lean was also used
to provide free and fee-based library research support services to ensure prompt fulfilment
of the needs and requirements of research staff.
3.3.3 Health-care sector. Health care is a complex process and the sector is challenged not
only by the trade-off between the quality of medical care services and cost-effectiveness
targets but also by issues such as medical errors, high costs and staff shortages. The
applicability of LSS in the context of health-care services is highly relevant due to the
complexity of the processes and delays in the emergency, operating, imaging, laboratory
and bed management departments that resulted in dissatisfied patients and physicians.
Applications of LSS helped in overcoming the challenges and establishing an error and
variation-free workplace that is also efficient, safe and cost effective (Alessandro et al., 2013).
Deblois and Lepanto (2016) reviewed the applications of Lean and SS in acute care,
highlighting some impacts that were categorised as impacts on health outcomes, impacts on
care processes, impacts on quality of care and impacts on economic aspects. All effects on
health outcomes were positive and examples of these were improving the sigma score and
reducing the rate of catheter-related bloodstream infection. Regarding the impacts on care
processes, Lean and SS helped reduce the duration of processes such as patient waiting time,
length of the stay, time to resolve errors, turnaround time and improving human and
equipment management, which was reflected as reducing overtime, efficient allocation of
staff and freeing up their time so that each can serve more patients. With respect to impacts
on the quality of care, it was noted that the impacts were also positive and covered areas
such as reducing medication and diagnosis errors, incidents, adverse events and patient
falls. Economically, it was noted that Lean and SS reduced waiting time and enhanced
productivity, which resulted in an overall increase in the satisfaction level of patients.
Curatolo et al. (2014) provided an analysis of Lean approaches in hospitals that are
challenged by the need for reducing operational costs, increasing efficiency and enhancing
patient care. Lean is a tool that can assist hospitals to deliver those results and it helped in
reducing patient waiting time in different departments within hospitals, reducing medical
errors and improving the efficiency and quality of some other medical services. A health Lean Six
care application of Lean resulted in reducing patient waiting time in the MRI and CT scan Sigma
department and improving patient access, which improved the overall patient experience.
Lean also helped reduce the mortality rate and length of stay, which in return provided more
applications
beds to accommodate new patients. The reduction of medical errors and waiting lists for
surgeries were other examples of benefits achieved where the on-time starts were increased
and the operating room waiting time was reduced (Gupta et al., 2016). Other cases for
organisations from the health-care sector that implemented SS were discussed in an article 339
by Miguel and De-Carvalho (2014). Some of the reported benefits of SS implementation in
health care were reducing blood exam cycle time in a Korean hospital, reducing the ratio of
follow-up to new case patient visits in the UK genitourinary medicine clinic and reducing the
pharmaceutical error rate in a clinic in Taiwan.
A case study for LSS implementation in a large semi-urban hospital in Ireland was
discussed in an article by Alessandro et al. (2013). The article presented 5 mini LSS projects,
each of which had a different approach and target. One of the projects used the sort,
straighten, shine, standardise and sustain approach (5S) to manage the ward inventory and
it resulted in a neat and organised storeroom with easier access to the available stock.
Another project was the use of define, measure, analyse, improve and control (DMAIC) to
improve the provision of medical reports, where it was found that it resulted in decreasing
the defect rate, which is the unavailability of the required record, from 31% to less than 3%.
The “seven wastes” approach of Lean was applied to laboratory processes to eliminate
waste and non-value-added activities. Mistake proofing techniques with the help of control
charts and root cause analyses were used to analyse fall prevention in an acute hospital
setting and helped in ensuring a more active role for the assessment and prevention of
patient falls. Lean was also used to examine the effectiveness of written communication of
patient care plans between the clinic and other stakeholders. In addition, the use of Lean
helped reduce the lead time of written communication from 15 to 3 days with no impact on
cost. That helped in reducing the number of queries coming from patients and freeing up
clinic staff time so they could focus on other value-adding activities.
Bhat et al. (2014) presented a case study for the implementation of LSS in the Indian
health-care sector where the aim was to reduce the cycle time of the registration process
thereby reducing patient waiting time and increasing the utilisation of the staff. The project
was successful in meeting its objectives; the cycle time was reduced to 1.5 min from 3 min,
the patient waiting time was reduced by 94% and was associated with a reduction in queue
length by 91%. The scheduled utilisation of staff at the registration counter was reduced by
48%, which freed them to carry out other tasks within the department.
Controlling costs and improving the quality of services are putting continuous pressure
on health-care systems to improve their processes. Timmons et al. (2014) discussed the
implementation of Lean in the emergency department and the role of professions in the
process. The Lean programme in the emergency department was divided into a number of
subprojects covering the aspects of patient allocation to different units within the emergency
department and the treatment of patients who were seriously ill or injured. Overall, Lean
was positively perceived by emergency department clinicians in terms of acceptance and
Lean was found to be capable of helping emergency departments achieve service innovation
and meet the 4-h target imposed by the UK Government, which specifies that patient
waiting time in emergency departments should not exceed 4 h from arrival to admission,
transfer or discharge.
3.3.4 Public sector. The financial pressure resulting from the financial crisis and the
budget cuts it imposed put a big burden on the UK public sector to review its services and
IJLSS decide whether to reduce, withdraw or continue services. Antony et al. (2016) showed the
12,2 role of LSS in making organisations in the UK public sector more effective and efficient by
giving some examples of real applications while showing the challenges faced. In its efforts
for improving offender management related processes, Bedfordshire Police successfully
deployed LSS and achieved GBP 700,000 cashable savings and had delivered efficiencies
worth GBP 1.8m. In Scotland, the significant efforts put into retyping submissions to the
340 Procurator Fiscal Service were found to be of no value to customers. Accordingly, the
process was reviewed, resulting in savings worth GBP 200,000. In the National Health
Service, LSS was used to redesign the clinical processes that were found to be defective more
than 30% of the time, where LSS was applied operationally to reduce costs and strategically
to achieve other benefits at an organisational level. In education, LSS was applied to
rationalize the scanning process in the library to increase the efficiency and quality of the
process. That resulted in reducing the number of steps in the process from 28 to less than 16
with the involvement of only one department instead of originally four departments
involved in the process, reducing the turnaround time by more than 70%. The overall cost
saving was estimated to be around GBP 10,000 against an initial investment of only GBP
1,000. In addition, a city council in the UK applied the DMAIC methodology to a scanning
process and was able to reduce the number of non-value-added steps by 20%, reduce the
error rate by 30%, reduce variation in scanning time by 30% and achieve cost efficacies of
3.5 full-time equivalent. LSS can help public service organisations identify what people
value and remove waste accordingly, thereby achieving cashable savings in terms of
expenditures and non-cashable benefits in terms of better allocation and utilisation of
employees’ skills to deal with the emerging challenges and more collaboration amongst
departments within a particular public agency and amongst agencies as well. Some other
examples for successful LSS applications in public sector were reviewed in an article by
Antony et al. (2017). In the UK, public health and education sectors are major employers
where LSS is increasingly applied to improve the quality of services and enhance efficiency.
In a public hospital, LSS was applied to reduce patient waiting time variations and helped
reduce patient waiting time by 57%, which had positive impacts on the treatment and
recovery of patients. It also emphasised creative thinking and improved employee morale.
LSS was also applied to improve the fill rate for teacher vacancies in the local government,
where it successfully improved the fill rate process by more than 35% through the
development of a new process.
Barraza et al. (2009) examined the application of Lean in improving local council services
in Spain through the application of Lean Kaizen. Early applications of Lean Kaizen started
in the private manufacturing sector and the concept was transferred to other non-
manufacturing contexts such as education, health care, supply chain, financial institutions
and hospitality. Lean Kaizen was applied to improve work standards, reduce time delays
and improve the overall service delivery of processes such as tax collection and police force
recruitment. It helped local councils to increase the efficiency of their processes by
eliminating non-value-added activities, which ensured better utilisation of manpower and
reduced cost and service request response time.
3.3.5 Small and medium enterprises. SMEs need to develop process improvement
programmes that can enable them to maintain a competitive advantage and survive in the
market. However, and as such process improvement programmes usually require
knowledge and financial capabilities that SMEs lack, LSS was found to be not very popular
in the context of SMEs. Antony et al. (2017) mentioned that LSS plays a role in reducing
rework and generating financial savings for SMEs. The application of LSS approaches and
tools requires innovative thinking and therefore it can provide opportunities for incremental
innovation and drive innovation capabilities in SMEs. The implementation of LSS in Lean Six
manufacturing-based SMEs in the UK was discussed by Thomas et al. (2014), where it was Sigma
found that LSS applications benefitted many SMEs in terms of strengthening their
relationships with the customers, applying changes to the organisational hierarchy with
applications
fewer layers and easing the communication process. Looking into quality initiatives
implemented in manufacturing SMEs in the UK and comparing those who adopt SS
and those who adopt other initiatives, Kumar et al. (2009) found that organisations that
applied SS performed better and received more benefits. Some of the reported operational 341
and strategic benefits of LSS were reducing scrap rate, cycle time, delivery time, costs and
employee and customer complaints. An integrated model that combines the concepts of
Lean and SS for manufacturing-based SMEs was introduced by Thomas et al. (2008). Such
an approach can help SMEs to ensure the effective implementation of the process and
achieve the benefits of both Lean and SS. The results of the implementation of the proposed
framework included reducing pilot line rejection rate by more than 50%, which was
reflected in potential savings of around US$29,000, increasing the part per hour from the
production system by 31%, reducing energy usage by 12% per annum and reducing the
equipment down time to only 2%. The proposed model developed a continuous
improvement culture across the organisation and emphasised the technical problem-solving
approach.
Albliwi et al. (2017) assessed the status of LSS implementation in SMEs in Saudi Arabia
using a descriptive survey questionnaire. In terms of LSS impacts, it was found that
increasing customer satisfaction was the greatest perceived benefit for LSS in Saudi
organisations, followed by reducing cycle time, improving quality, reducing costs of poor
quality and reducing waste. This is unlike what the literature indicated, where financial
gains and profits are the greatest perceived benefits. Other cited benefits are improving
communication and integration between functional departments and enhancing employee
engagement.
An overview of the attitude of tourism SMEs towards business improvement tools was
provided in an article published by Sutton (2015). England’s tourism economy is challenged
by various global economic trends and its customer service standard is reported to be
inconsistent. In general, the processes of tourism and hospitality organisations are
characterised to be frequent, complex and involve a high level of interaction with customers.
The service delivery approach followed by employees can significantly distinguish an
organisation from its competitors, and therefore HR can be used as a competitive advantage
that organisations should use. Human Sigma is an approach that was developed for service
organisations as an effort to complement the SS approach. It aims to improve the
engagement of employees and customers to build loyalty and satisfaction from both
perspectives. Employees and customers are categorised based on different engagement
levels, where engaged individuals will be more productive and innovative than others.
Benefits for the implementation of business improvement tools include improvement in
teamwork, collaboration and communication, a high level of employee motivation and
empowerment, increasing customer satisfaction and retention, better organisational image
and reputation and establishing a culture for continuous improvement.
3.3.6 Financial sector. Organisations should continuously invest in process innovation to
sustain competitive advantage and maintain their market position. LSS is a process
innovation initiative that enables organisations to control and enhance product quality,
thereby improving customer satisfaction. Delgado et al. (2010) discussed some of the
benefits obtained by implementing LSS in financial services organisations (e.g. GE Money
Portugal). The application of LSS helped financial organisations increase efficiency by
IJLSS reducing operational expenses and focussing on value-adding activities, which, in turn,
12,2 helped increase productivity and the ability to cope with changes. In another study by
Chakraborty and Leyer (2013), deployment of SS in financial service organisations was
investigated and it was found that banks and insurance companies usually struggle when
implementing SS at companywide level. A framework for helping organisations to better
understand SS and introduce its elements across all organisational levels was proposed.
342 Through its innovative activities, the benefits of SS exceeded the improvement in the
financial performance of the organisation to cover other areas such as improvement in
organisational cultural and operating model aspects and increasing employee satisfaction.
An application of Lean in the insurance sector showed that Lean helped reduce the time of
issuing the insurance policy by 50% and reduced labour costs and errors by 26% and 40%,
respectively. It also resulted in reducing loss pay-out and claims processing cycle time,
which decreased the number of pending claims. Another application of Lean in insurance
resulted in reducing information requests per insurance application from 5.5 to 2.6, which
reduced the total waiting time of information requests by almost half (Gupta et al., 2016).
The impacts of LSS implementation at the national bank of Kenya’s operations division
were explored by Ndaita et al. (2015). Application of LSS helped in dealing with problems
such as inaccurate customer statements and non-instant posting of financial transactions. It
also helped by reducing lead time to 10%, which had a great positive impact on customer
satisfaction and the number of call-backs received. A positive change in operational culture
and management commitment were observed as well.
Choi et al. (2012) investigated the impact of SS-based management activities on process
innovation and organisational competitiveness. SS helped in achieving a cultural
transformation and adopting international business strategies. SS had also a positive impact
on process innovation based on measuring and analysing processes that requires the
systematic and scientific problem-solving approach that SS can provide. As a result,
organisation competitiveness was improved.
3.3.7 Supply chain and logistics sector. Inventory management requires a high level of
coordination between suppliers and buyers to be able to deliver the expected quality level. In
addition, suppliers are involved at the early design stage of new products so that they can
organise their supply accordingly. Wiengarten et al. (2013) discussed the impacts of Lean
practises on supply chain performance where it was found that Lean leads to a stronger
buyer-supplier partnership, decreases inventories and risk through better information
sharing and knowledge management, enhances product quality and stabilizes prices across
the supply chain. Lean practises focus on suppliers’ involvement and have positive impacts
on the dimensions of operational supply chain performance. In another research by Moyano-
Fuentes and Sacrista¨n-Di¨az (2012), Lean supply chains in purchasing and supplying
activities of the manufacturers that involve scheduling and optimisation activities to
enhance quality and speed up services through a continuous improvement approach were
discussed. Lean helped in externalisation in the phases of the product life cycle, which
enhanced the relationship between suppliers and customers and formed a partnership
between them. Application of Lean also helped in enhancing teamwork and morale, as well
as helping staff acquire and develop new skills. Logistics is an essential part of the supply
chain and is characterised by three main elements, namely, cost, speed and service quality.
Zhang et al. (2016) discussed the application of Lean and SS in improving logistics services,
where it was found that cost saving, reducing cycle time and improving delivery and
productivity were amongst the benefits most often experienced.
Malik and Blumenfeld (2012) discussed the impact of LSS and other quality management
capabilities on organisational learning capability in a business process outsourcing
environment. The organisation’s learning capability plays an important role in establishing Lean Six
its learning culture, creating knowledge resources and developing other intangible assets Sigma
that shape and sustain its competitive advantage. It was found that commitment to quality,
information sharing and teamwork lead to a shared vision which in return helps an
applications
organisation direct its efforts towards learning processes and information-sharing
mechanisms. In addition, a continuous improvement culture helps organisations to be open
and more flexible in acquiring new knowledge and increasing their commitment towards
effective quality-based learning. The organisation’s LSS capabilities have a strong impact 343
on its learning capabilities as LSS facilitates the learning process and provides an
infrastructure for higher level of employee engagement. LSS is considered to be a leadership
and strategic approach to enhancing operational gains and developing learning capabilities.
3.3.8 Telecom, corporate communication and call centre sectors. The telecom industry is
challenged by the need for ensuring flexibility, robustness and agility of their processes,
which are claimed to be in conflict with each other. Organisations need to make efforts to
achieve these three attributes to be competitive and profitable at all times. Andersson et al.
(2014) applied DMAIC at a production facility where there were some issues related to long
lead time and low delivery precision. LSS had indeed helped in making the processes more
flexible, robust, reliable and close to agile, which can be improved by training, strengthening
the organisational culture and ensuring high collaboration with key stakeholders in the
supply chain.
The focus on corporate communications is increasing due to globalization pressures,
unstable business environments and other reasons related to protecting the corporate image
and reputation. Organisations should look for ways to effectively and promptly
communicate value-added information to a large number of stakeholders who might not be
in one geographical location, using less financial and HR. Barnes and Walker (2010)
presented a case for using LSS in improving corporate communications. LSS can benefit
corporate communications as it can eliminate mistakes, redundancies and barriers to
enhance the quality of the outcomes of the communication process. It can save resources, in
terms of time and manpower, so that more attention is given to the content of the
communication process – that is making it more creative and linking it to the organisational
strategic objectives.
Piercy and Rich (2009a, 2009b) investigated the effectiveness of Lean production
methodologies in a pure service context and used call service centres as an example of
application. Application of Lean helped to qualify and empower workers to act
independently and deal with the different enquires received without the need to refer to the
concerned department, which used to delay the process. In addition, Lean changed the way
the organisation operates – from separate independent departments to one unit that
integrates the efforts of all departments. Organisational structure was changed to be of a
cross-skilling design that has fewer functional barriers and a flatter structure, which led to a
faster decision-making process and was associated with some physical changes to the
workplace. It was also observed that working conditions were improved, which was
reflected in high levels of employee engagement and low absenteeism rates. The following
operational performance improvement were reported:
 37% reduction in average number of calls per day.
 37% reduction in average number of letters and emails per day.
 56% reduction in percentage of failure demand.
 44% reduction in the longest time to complete customer request.
 42% reduction in average time to complete customer request.
IJLSS  20% reduction in the number of steps to total cycle.
12,2  57% reduction in average number of policy holders at work in process.

Laureani et al. (2010) showed that the application of LSS can help in increasing the efficiency
of operations in a call centre through better utilisation of human and technical resources,
which as a result will help reduce the running cost and employee turnover. It also helped in
344 identifying the sources of errors and even beyond, that to cover aspects related to the
reasons why customers contact call centres. The DMAIC approach was applied to improve
the first call resolution rate and the results were positive, as the percentage of unresolved
enquires after the first call dropped. The success of the project strengthened the
management’s awareness of the applicability of LSS concepts in the call centre context and
improved employees’ communication, involvement and understanding of the process. In
addition, a culture of continuous improvement was promoted. The inbound call process,
which is a customer calling to submit a claim request for resolution where an automated
menu system is used to reroute calls to the concerned department, was studied by Piercy
and Rich (2009a, 2009b) as the average time for closing a customer request was too long. The
application of Lean enabled staff to better understand customer requirements and to become
more aware of the inbound call process in terms of what contributes to its success and
brings value to customers. The process was redesigned and a number of unnecessary steps
were eliminated to speed up the process, better serve customers and reduce costs associated
with rectification works. In another study by Gupta et al. (2016), Lean applications in call
centres enabled the staff to better understand the process and eliminate all sources of waste.
It reduced the time to complete a customer enquiry which helped in serving more customers,
cutting costs and achieving saving targets. It also helped in increasing the first-call
resolution ratio and reducing operator turnover. Examples of other benefits are as follows:
 Enabling capacity expansions without additional facilities.
 Increasing productivity and operational performance.
 Improving understanding of demand and its relationship with resources and
supply.
 Establishing a culture of continuous improvement.
 Reducing variability and defects.
 Improving quality and efficiency.

3.3.9 Multi sectors. Antony et al. (2019) presented a case study for organisational learning
drawn from LSS applications in Scottish policing services. One of the LSS applications in
policing services was applying DMAIC tools to improve consistency of occupational health
services provided to employees, which led to reducing the number of rejected referrals and
resulted in reduced contract costs, better utilisation of managers’ time and high employee
attendance rates. Another example was the application of DMAIC to review the typing
processes for developing reports such as prosecution reports and civilian witness
statements. LSS was useful for improving current performance, enhancing report quality,
reducing report preparation waiting time, allocating staff efficiently and freeing up their
time to focus on other value-adding activities. A third application was using the Lean
approach to streamline and standardize the sick pay process, which is directly related to
police staff wages and workload to reduce labour costs in the sick pay process. A number of
benefits were obtained, including establishing a standardized and clear process
implementation and eliminating organisational overpayment risk. In general, LSS resulted
in eliminating barriers between functional departments, increasing employee engagement Lean Six
and morale, and deriving incremental process innovation in many processes related to Sigma
policing services.
Wickramasinghe and Wickramasinghe (2016) examined the effects of continuous and
applications
incremental improvement efforts on job performance of shop floor employees in textile and
apparel firms and the role that Lean played in mediating this relationship. Job performance
is an organisational variable that can be described by the job-related and non-related soft
and hard competencies such as communication skills, demonstrating efforts and 345
cooperation, behaviours and attitude and supervision and leadership skills. Lean is a
journey that requires a change in the organisational culture and its social structure, and
therefore organisations have to adopt new work and behaviour-related habits and practises
as part of the Lean implementation process. It was found that the continuous improvement
influenced the job performance.
An exploratory study of the implementation of Lean construction techniques in
sustainable construction was carried out by Ogunbiyi et al. (2014). Lean construction is a
philosophy that is based on continuous improvement efforts, elimination of waste, value
creation, customer and process focus, improved communication and relationships,
management of projects and supply chain. Sustainable construction is simply achieving
sustainability in built assets through the integration of environmental protection, social
well-being and economic prosperity aspects into construction-related processes. That can
increase customer satisfaction, provide some flexibility with respect to adapting to any
natural or social changes and use resources efficiently. Some of its environmental benefits
are reducing utility consumption and improving water and air quality. The economic
benefits are not limited to decreasing operational cost and increasing sales price. Some of its
community-related benefits are enhancing occupant’s comfort, reducing liability and
improving health and safety in the working environment. In addition to the previously
mentioned benefits of sustainable construction, Lean construction and sustainability can
increase competitiveness through better utilisation of resources, reducing costs and
enhancing quality. Using Lean construction tools can help in reducing accident rates and
waste, boosting efficiency and quality, achieving cost saving in utilities consumption
and improving environmental quality. The results of this study showed that improving
corporate image and reputation was the most important benefit of integrating Lean
construction and sustainability, mainly using just-in-time, value analysis, daily huddle
meeting and visualisation tools. Other benefits were obtaining a competitive advantage,
improving process flow and meeting customer expectations. Ullah et al. (2017) provided
another case for implementing SS in the construction industry. SS was introduced to the
construction industry as a means for reducing cycle time, errors, defects and control
variations. It was found that the industry is facing some challenges concerning project
quality level and delivery, as industry practitioners tend to follow traditional methods and
avoid adopting techniques such as LSS. Amongst the reported benefits, it was found that
LSS can enhance organisational reputation and image in addition to its financial benefits.
A case study for the application of LSS to HR function and an investigation of its role in
improving HR-related activities was reported by Laureani and Antony (2010). HR refers to
the process of managing people in an organisation, starting with attracting talent and
ending with separation to achieve business objectives. That includes personnel
administration matters and all other interactions between an employee and the organisation
through the employee’s life cycle. The study was for the purpose of reducing voluntary
turnover in a large multinational service company. The application of LSS achieved a 10%
reduction in turnover, and a cost saving of US$1.3m annually, which proves the
IJLSS effectiveness of LSS in administrative processes. LSS can be also applied to reduce the costs
12,2 and time of new hires and administrative errors related to employee benefits, leaves, etc.
Indian industries, which are challenged by global competitiveness and operational
continuous improvements, need to sustain business in such conditions. A number of tools
are being used for this, however, results have shown their ineffectiveness in achieving the
expected improvement and it was found that SS is not fully explored and adopted by
346 organisations in the sector. Regarding this, Antony and Desai (2009) provided an overview
of the status of SS adoption in the Indian industry. SS helps leaders change the culture of
their organisations by providing them with the required tools and strategy. Based on the
survey results, the drivers for implementing SS were mainly enhancing operational
excellence, increasing customer satisfaction and sustaining competitive advantages.
Nabhani and Shokri (2009) showed that the application of SS in a food distribution
enterprise resulted in a 40% reduction in the number of causes of defects (from 34 to only 20
defects per week) and a 60% reduction in customer complaints about late delivery, which
was reflected in a financial benefit of GBP 30,000 for the company. Other internal intangible
impacts improved job satisfaction amongst shop floor employees due to the better flow of
goods, which made the execution of tasks easier. Some of the other goals for applying SS in
food distribution enterprises are reducing the delivery lead time and therefore providing
faster delivery, reducing the loading time, which will help in achieving higher level of
customer satisfaction, and maximizing value for shareholders.
Table 4 below summarises the impacts of LSS applications with respect to each sector
collected from the list of articles reviewed:

4. Discussion and conclusions

4.1 Discussion
A number of insightful findings can be derived from the descriptive analysis of the literature
reviewed on the requirements, challenges and impacts of LSS applications. The research on
LSS continues to be a very rich potential research subject that can provide both practitioners
and academics with many future application and research directions and inspire them to
further explore its various aspects. LSS as a combined tool is considered an emerging
research subject that enjoys considerable popularity in practise and research compared to a
time when SS and Lean were applied and observed separately. That can be clearly indicated
from the very wide range of sectors and countries that adopted the LSS concept and gained
its benefits. An analysis of the research findings with respect to the requirements,
challenges and impacts of LSS applications is provided in the subsections below, taking into
consideration the following observations:
 LSS applications have a wide range of requirements and success factors that can be
classified in various ways. In this research, the requirements of LSS applications
were classified following a content analysis approach where the weight and the
importance of each category was based on its frequency of citations in the articles
reviewed. For example, the role of organisational culture is indicated as an
important requirement for LSS applications, in line with a research finding by
Sreedharan and Raju (2016), who highlighted that the success of LSS is dependent
on organisational culture, Raval et al. (2018), who recommended further
investigating the role of culture in the success or failure of LSS and Sreedharan and
Raju (2016), who mentioned that it is necessary for organisations to create a learning
environment that supports LSS implementation. Despite a research finding by
Muraliraj et al. (2018) that LSS critical success requirements are considered as a
cohesive unit, the categorisation and prioritisation of the requirements of LSS

Sector Reference
Manufacturing sector Douglas et al. (2015a, 2015b)
and B.R. et al. (2015)
Assarlind et al. (2013)
Sharma et al. (2015)
Jabbour et al. (2014)
Goffnett et al. (2016)
Thomas et al. (2008)
Anderson and Kovach (2014)
Burch et al. (2014)
Chen and Lyu (2009)
Chen et al. (2010)
Gnanaraj et al. (2012)
Lean Six
Impacts of LSS applications
Sigma
Increasing productivity, sales and applications
profitability
Reducing net operating cost (costs of poor
quality and cost of manpower)
Reducing customer complaint
Better utilisation of staff 347
Increasing organisational ability to adopt
innovation
Improving design quality, information
quality, quality of conformance, quality of
material flow, quality of relationships and
firm’s competitive potential
Increasing productivity
Reducing lead time
Improving first pass correct output
Reducing lead time and inventories
Improving process layouts
Increasing organisational flexibility to
adapt to changes in demands
Dealing with technical processes and
organisational soft element related to its
human factor
Emphasising a technical problem-solving
approach
Achieving saving in experimental and
project costs
Developing a continuous improvement
organisational culture
Reducing weld repair rate
Reducing wind impact on the welding
process
Improving welders’ performance
Achieving saving of US$90,000
Eliminating rework
Improving proposal review process and
contract negotiation
Improving communication and alignment
between managers and staff
Improving process capability
Resolving touch panel quality defects
Enhancing the competitiveness of the
company
Reducing processing time
Improving product quality
Reducing inventory levels
Better utilisation of staff and dealing with
employee absence
Simplifying and easing the communication Table 4.
process between employees Summary of the
Achieving competitiveness
impacts of LSS
(continued) applications
IJLSS
Sector Reference
12,2
Vinodh et al. (2011)
Vinodh et al. (2014)
348
Wang and Chen (2012)
Lee and Wei (2010) and
Cournoyer et al. (2013)
HE sector Gupta et al. (2016)
Balzer et al. (2016)
Douglas et al. (2015a, 2015b)
Thomas et al. (2017)
Sunder and Mahalingam
(2018)
Antony et al. (2018)
Table 4.
Impacts of LSS applications
Improving process capability
Achieving cash savings
Introducing a cultural change
Reducing manufacturing lead time
Maintaining a strong customer-supplier
relation
Enhancing customer satisfaction
Enhancing organisational standards
Reducing product defects
Improving process parameters and flow
Smoothing the process flow
Eliminating wasteful variations
Achieving cost saving
Improving process capability
Efficient utilisation of the resources
Decreasing cycle time
Increasing customer satisfaction
Enhancing operators’ tactical knowledge
Reducing the delivery time of knowledge
Improving the quality of university
administrative processes
Reducing student waiting time at
counselling centres
Reducing time for processing prospective
students’ enquiries
Decreasing maintenance requests and
response time
Reducing administrative staff recruitment
process
Achieving financial improvements
Simplifying and accelerating course and
curriculum design
Improving student satisfaction and staff-
student ratio
Facilitating the change adoption process
Increasing leadership awareness of the vale
of Lean
Improving the performance of students and
faculty
Reducing student enquiries by 30%
Providing library staff with 30% time
saving
A total annual saving of INR 1,680,000
Improving satisfaction rates for both
students and employees
High levels of process transparency and
employee morale
Efficient utilisation of financial and non-
financial resources
(continued)

Sector Reference
Svensson et al. (2015)
Isa and Usmen (2015)
Beasley and Rosseel (2016)
Health-care sector Deblois and Lepanto (2016)
Curatolo et al. (2014)
Gupta et al. (2016)
Miguel and De-Carvalho (2014)
Alessandro et al. (2013) and
Bhat et al. (2014)
Timmons et al. (2014)
Gijo and Antony (2013)
Lighter (2014)
Lean Six
Impacts of LSS applications
Sigma
Changing institutional culture applications
Increasing student satisfaction rates
Establishing performance measures of
processes
Eliminating revisions and rework
Meeting project timeline and cost 349
Enhancing building design sustainability
and process flow
Improving the sigma score
Reducing the rate of catheter-related blood
stream infection
Reducing patient waiting time and length of
the stay
Improving human and equipment
management
Reducing medication and diagnosis errors
and incidents
Increasing satisfaction level of patients and
personnel
Reducing patient waiting time
Reducing medical errors
Improving overall efficiency and quality
Reducing patient waiting time in the
scanning departments
Reducing the mortality rate and length of
stay
Reducing medical errors and waiting lists
Improving the overall patient experience
Reducing blood exam cycle time
Reducing the ratio of follow-up to new case
patient visits
Reducing pharmaceutical error rate
Neat and organised storeroom
Improving provision of medical reports
Assessment and prevention of patient falls
Reducing the lead time of written
communication
Reducing the number of patient queries
Freeing up clinic staff time
Achieving the 4-h target
Achieving service innovation
Reducing patient waiting time
Increasing customer satisfaction
Improving employee morale
Eliminating the need for facility expansion
Improving the work environment
Reducing surgical instrument turnaround
time
Increasing revenues and service availability
Decreasing time for obtaining insurance
approvals
(continued)
Table 4.
IJLSS
Sector Reference
12,2
Public sector Antony et al. (2016)
350
Antony et al. (2017)
Barraza et al. (2009)
Cheng and Chang (2012)
Small and medium Antony et al. (2017)
enterprises
Thomas et al. (2014)
Thomas et al. (2008)
Kumar et al. (2009), Albliwi
et al. (2017) and Sutton (2015)
Kumar et al. (2006)
Financial sector Delgado et al. (2010)
Chakraborty and Leyer (2013)
Table 4.
Impacts of LSS applications
Increasing scheduling efficiency
Reducing medication errors
Achieving cashable savings
Better utilisation of employees’ skills
Achieving other organisational level
benefits
Emphasising creative thinking and
improving employee morale
Better utilisation of resources
Reducing the service request response time
Other intangible impacts
Reducing transfer and delay times
Effective resource usage and utilisation
Reducing rework
Generating financial savings
Driving incremental innovation
Strengthening SMEs’ relationships with
customers
Changing the organisational hierarchy with
fewer layers
Reducing pilot line rejection rate
Increasing the part per hour from the
production system
Reducing energy usage
Reducing the equipment down time
Developing a continuous improvement
organisational culture
Emphasising technical problem-solving
approach
Improving quality and increasing customer
satisfaction
Reducing cycle time and costs of poor
quality
Improving communication between
functional departments
Better organisational image and reputation
Establishing a culture for continuous
improvement
Improving the diecasting process of casting
density
Improving process capability and first yield
time
Achieving cash savings of around US
$140,000 annually
Introducing an organisational cultural
change
Increasing efficiency
Increasing productivity
Increasing organisational ability to cope
with the change
Improvement in organisational financial
performance
(continued)

Sector Reference
Gupta et al. (2016)
Ndaita et al. (2015)
Choi et al. (2012)
Wang and Chen (2010)
Sunder (2016) and Koning
et al. (2008)
Sunder and Antony (2015)
Supply chain and logistics Wiengarten et al. (2013)
sector
Moyano-Fuentes and
Sacrista¨n-Di¨az (2012)
Zhang et al. (2016)
Malik and Blumenfeld (2012)
Lean Six
Impacts of LSS applications
Sigma
Improvement in organisational cultural applications
Increasing employee satisfaction
Reducing the time of issuing the insurance
policy by 50%
Reducing labour cost and errors by 26%
and 40%, respectively 351
Reducing loss pay out and claims
processing cycle time
Reducing information requests per
insurance application
Eliminating inaccurate customer statement
Reducing lead time
Changing operational culture
Achieving cultural transformational
Improving process innovation
Improving organisational competitiveness
Reducing waiting time for opening an
account
Modifying business culture
Sustaining performance and profitability
Achieving cost saving and process
capability
Transforming processes and the mindset of
workers
Increasing customer satisfaction
Reducing cost
Standardizing procedures and instituting
processes
Helping the organisation to innovate
Achieving cash savings
Changing the organisational culture to be
quality-driven
Promoting organisational brand
Strong buyer-supplier partnership
Decreasing inventories and risk
Enhancing product quality
Stabilizing prices across supply chain
Externalisation in the phases of the product
life cycle
Enhancing teamwork and employee morale
Helping staff acquire and develop new
skills
Cost saving
Reducing cycle time
Improving delivery and productivity
Facilitating learning process and
capabilities
Higher levels of employee engagement
Enhancing operational gains
Developing other intangible assets
(continued) Table 4.
IJLSS
Sector Reference Impacts of LSS applications
12,2
Telecom, corporate Andersson et al. (2014) Improving process flexibility, robustness
communication, and call and agility
centre sectors Barnes and Walker (2010) Enhancing the communication process
(quality and content)
Saving resources
352 Protecting organisational image and brand
Piercy and Rich (2009a, 2009b) Empowering workers to act independently
Changing organisational design to be cross
skilling
Physical changes to the workplace
Reducing average number of calls per day
Reducing average number of letters and
emails per day
Reducing percentage of failure demand
Reducing average time to complete
customer request
Reducing the number of steps to total cycle
Reducing average number of policy holders
at work in process
Improving customer satisfaction
Reducing overall operational costs
Laureani et al. (2010) Reducing the percentage of unresolved enquires
Better understanding of the process
Enhancing employee commitment
Promoting a culture of continuous improvement
Piercy and Rich (2009a, 2009b) Enabling staff to better understand
customer requirements
Redesigning processes to be of less cost
Reducing the time for processing customer
claim requests
Enhancing the overall service quality level
Gupta et al. (2016) Reducing the time to complete a customer
enquiry
Increasing the first call resolution ratio
Enabling capacity expansions without
additional facilities
Increasing productivity and operational
performance
Better understanding of demand
Establishing a culture of continuous
improvement
Reducing variability and defects
Improving quality and efficiency
Multi sectors Antony et al. (2019) Reducing the number of rejected referrals
Better utilisation of managers’ time
High employee attendance rates
Improving current performance
Enhancing report quality
Reducing report preparation waiting time
Efficient allocation of staff
Establishing a standardized and clear
process implementation
Table 4. (continued)

Sector Reference
Wickramasinghe and
Wickramasinghe (2016)
Ogunbiyi et al. (2014)
Ullah et al. (2017)
Laureani et al. (2010)
Antony and Desai (2009)
Nabhani and Shokri (2009)
Banawi and Bilec (2014)
Drohomeretski et al. (2014)
Karthi et al. (2013)
Krueger et al. (2014)
Shah et al. (2008)
Thomas et al. (2016)
Lean Six
Impacts of LSS applications Sigma
Eliminating organisational overpayment
applications
risk
Breaking barriers between functional
departments
Increasing employee engagement and 353
morale
Deriving incremental innovation process
Improving job performance
Reducing costs
Reducing accident rates and waste
Boosting efficiency and quality
Achieving cost saving in utilities
consumption
Improving environmental quality
Improving corporate image and competitive
advantage
Improving process flow
Meeting customer expectation
Enhancing organisational reputation and
image
Enhancing financial benefits
Reducing voluntary turnover
Achieving cost saving
Reducing the time and cost of new hires
Reducing training cost
Reducing administrative defects
Changing organisational culture
Enhancing operational excellence
Increasing customer satisfaction
Sustaining competitive advantages
Reducing the number of causes of defects
Reducing customer complaints about late
delivery
Other internal intangible impacts
Reducing waste (in material and time) of
construction process
Improving efficiency
Enhancing quality and reliability
Improving the speed of processes
Reducing annual cost
Better and easier understanding of
processes and targets
Achieving customer satisfaction
Enhancing employee morale
Improving performance in terms of quality
and cost
Reducing build time
Achieving cost savings
Improving and changing the business
culture
(continued) Table 4.
IJLSS
Sector Reference Impacts of LSS applications
12,2
Rauch et al. (2016) Achieving cost saving
Increasing customer satisfaction
Optimising warehouses
Tidying up and standardization
Optimising facility management and
354 administrative processes
Cima et al. (2011) Enhancing the efficiency of operating
rooms
Improving financial performance
Mostafaa et al. (2015) Eliminating non-value-added maintenance
activities
Youssouf et al. (2014) and Eliminating waste
Tenera and Pinto (2014) Increasing productivity
Table 4. Improving project management processes

applications provided in this research, as recommended by Raval et al. (2018),

Sreedharan and Raju (2016) and Yadav and Desai (2016), indicate that they can be
dealt with each separately. Efforts should be made to look into the interrelation
between LSS applications requirements and then conclude if they can be considered
as a cohesive unit. Unlike previous research studies that either focussed on specific
industries, prior implementation readiness factors or critical failure factors (Lande
et al., 2016; Abu Bakar et al., 2015; Albliwi et al., 2014), this research is not based on
any of the aforementioned limitations and inclusion criteria. Instead, it discusses the
success requirements of LSS applications in various sectors regardless of whether
they are prior, during or post implementation. This will actually ensure the
generalisation of the findings as recommended by Singh and Rathi (2018) so that a
more general list of the CSFs of LSS applications in various sectors can be provided.
 Similar to the implementation of any change initiative, LSS applications are
challenged by a number of obstacles and barriers categorised using an approach
similar to that used for requirements as explained above. Previous studies that
discussed this aspect of LSS such as Singh and Rathi (2018) failed to provide a
generalisable finding as their research was limited to certain industries. The
categorisation provided of the challenges of LSS applications is as described in the
future research recommendations by Singh and Rathi (2018), Raval et al. (2018) and
Sreedharan and Raju (2016).
 As for the impacts of LSS applications, the findings revealed a very interesting
finding that LSS has indeed impacts other than the financial and market-related
benefits that it was originally developed for and that it also impacts organisational
and individual behaviours. This finding is in line with Raval et al. (2018), who
mentioned that LSS has hidden and typical kinds of benefits and Muraliraj et al.
(2018), who highlighted in his study on LSS trends that it can promote
organisational innovation and that there is a need to justify the sustainability of this
kind of benefits. Similarly, Sreedharan and Raju (2016) mentioned that LSS can be
integrated with other philosophies (e.g. innovation).

4.1.1 Requirements of Lean Six Sigma applications. There were many requirements and
success factors for LSS applications that can be categorised as follows:
  Management commitment: the support provided by management, their Lean Six
involvement, engagement and belief in LSS. Sigma
 Organisational culture: an infrastructure that facilities the implementation process. applications
 Resource availability: mainly financial resources and time allocation.
 Training: the aspects of knowledge management, information sharing, technical
knowledge of the tools and necessary soft skills.
 Change management: organisational willingness and capability to introduce, apply
355
and manage a change.
 Strategy: to link the LSS project objectives to the organisational strategy and
customers.
 Communication: to ensure a consistent awareness level of the status of the LSS
projects across the organisation through effective communication plans.
 Teamwork: employee involvement, their behaviours and attitudes, as well as the
level of collaboration between departments.
 Project management: the selection criteria of projects and the way they are
managed.

As illustrated in Figure 8, the most cited LSS requirements were management commitment,
training and organisational culture. Next, teamwork and change management, which are
regarded as requirements for successful LSS journey. Communication and project
management were factors that were relatively less important compared to strategy.
Resource availability was the least important factor amongst the ones identified in the
research. The implementation of LSS is thus facilitated by a number of organisational and
human-related contextual factors that should be assessed prior to implementation so that
necessary improvement actions are taken to ensure smooth execution of LSS activities.
4.1.2 Challenges of Lean Six Sigma applications. Challenges of LSS applications can be
categorised as follows:
 Lack of management support: lack of management’s buy-in of the concept of LSS,
which results in very low level of commitment towards it.

Resource availability
4%
Project management
6%
Communication
7%
Management
commitment
22%

Strategy
8%

Change management
9%
Training
18%
Figure 8.
Teamwork Categories of the
10%
Organisational culture
requirements of LSS
16% applications
IJLSS  Lack of awareness: poor understanding of LSS methodology and tools, which is also
12,2 associated with lack of training on necessary hard and soft skills.
 Lack of change management and resistance to change: not having a clear LSS
deployment plan and neglecting the role of culture and change management in the
implementation process.
 Lack of tools: unavailability of resources such as human, technical and financial.
356  Intangibility and unsustainability of the results: benefits from the value of LSS
adoption are not directly perceived by all employees.
 Lack of communication: poor communication of the objectives, status and other
updates of LSS project, resulting in no alignment of employees’ efforts across the
organisation.

The weightage of each category of LSS applications challenges based on the frequency of citation
is illustrated in Figure 9. Lack of awareness and lack of change management and resistance to
change were the two most frequently cited challenges, which can be overcome by training and
change management, which were amongst the most cited requirements for successful LSS
projects. Lack of management support was also amongst the most common challenges, which
clearly reflects the important role of management in LSS implementation. Lack of tools was
found to be a barrier to LSS implementation, especially in SMEs. The intangibility and
sometimes the unsustainability of LSS results was also identified as a challenge that would
require a proper communication plan to increase the awareness of LSS outcomes.
4.1.3 Impacts of Lean Six Sigma applications. The observed impacts of LSS applications
can be categorised as follows:
 Industrial impacts: industry-specific processes and their associated key performance
indicators (KPIs) (e.g. student waiting time in counselling centres in the HE sector,

Lack of
communication
5%

Intangibility and
unsustainability of
the results
10% Lack of awareness
27%

Lack of tools
16%

Lack of change
Lack of management management and
resistance to change
Figure 9. support
25%
Categories of the 17%
challenges of LSS
applications
 energy usage in the manufacturing sector, radiology throughput in the health-care Lean Six
sector, etc.). Sigma
 Organisational impacts: the way the organisation operates and functions, as well as applications
its structure, culture, image, learning, competitiveness, innovation level, reward
system and change adaptability (e.g. changing organisational hierarchy, providing
knowledge for facilitating change, promoting continuous improvement culture, etc.).
 Individual impacts: the utilisation of individuals and the way they interact and deal 357
with each other, and their overall satisfaction, motivation, empowerment knowledge
and morale levels (e.g. better utilisation of staff, improving human management,
staff empowerment, etc.).
 General impacts: the general and common impacts based on LSS definition,
experienced by most organisations who adopt LSS (e.g. increasing sales, reducing
costs, increasing customer satisfaction, etc.).

Figure 10 illustrates the weightage of each LSS application impact category based on the
frequency of citations in the published studies. It is noted that organisational impacts were
the second in terms of popularity after the general LSS impacts that were the most frequent
impacts, followed by industrial and individual impacts. It is interesting to note that
organisational impacts are mostly intangible in nature and that individual impacts received
considerable research attention. These observations are valuable and confirm the existence
and importance of the intangible impacts of LSS, as most of the organisational and
individual impacts are of an intangible nature.
Table 5 below provides a summary of the research findings highlighting the
requirements, challenges and impacts of LSS applications ranked in terms of their
importance, based on the frequency of citations, from the most to the least important.

4.2 Conclusions and future research

Lean and SS are often considered to complement each other and combining them will result
in a powerful tool that can be used for eliminating variation and waste. Hence, organisations
can maximize shareholder value and improve customer satisfaction in terms of product cost

Individual impacts
17%

General impacts
35%

Industrial impacts
24%

Figure 10.
Organisational impacts Categories of the
24% impacts of LSS
applications
 LSS applications Findings
IJLSS
12,2 Requirements Management commitment (22%) The support provided by management,
their involvement, engagement and belief in
LSS
Training (18%) The aspects of knowledge management,
information sharing, technical knowledge of
the tools and necessary soft skills
358 Organisational culture (16%) An infrastructure that facilities the
implementation process
Change management (9%) Organisational willingness and capability
to introduce, apply and manage a change
Teamwork (10%) Employee involvement, their behaviours
and attitudes, as well as the level of
collaboration between departments
Strategy (8%) To link the LSS project objectives to the
organisational strategy and customers
Communication (7%) To ensure a consistent awareness level of
the status of the LSS projects across the
organisation through effective
communication plans
Project management (6%) The selection criteria of projects and the
way they are managed
Resource availability (4%) Mainly financial resources and time
allocation
Challenges Lack of awareness (27%) Poor understanding of LSS methodology
and tools, which is also associated with lack
of training on necessary hard and soft skills
Lack of change management and Not having a clear LSS deployment plan
resistance to change (25%) and neglecting the role of culture and
change management in the implementation
process
Lack of management support Lack of management’s buy-in of the concept
(17%) of LSS which results in very low level of
commitment towards it
Lack of tools (16%) Unavailability of resources such as human,
technical and financial
Intangibility and unsustainability Benefits from the value of LSS adoption are
of the results (10%) not directly perceived by all employees
Lack of communication (5%) Poor communication of the objectives,
status and other updates of LSS, resulting
in no alignment of employees’ efforts across
the organisation
Impacts General impacts (35%) The general and common impacts based on
LSS definition, experienced by most
organisations who adopt LSS (e.g.
increasing sales, reducing costs, increasing
customer satisfaction, etc.)
Organisational impacts (24%) The way the organisation operates and
functions, as well as its structure, culture,
image, learning, competitiveness,
Table 5.
innovation level, reward system and change
Summary of the
research findings (continued)

LSS applications
Industrial impacts (24%)
Individual impacts (17%)
Lean Six
Findings
Sigma
adaptability (e.g. changing organisational applications
hierarchy, providing knowledge for
facilitating change, promoting continuous
improvement culture, etc.)
Industry-specific processes and their
associated KPIs (e.g. student waiting time 359
in counselling centres in the HE sector,
energy usage in the manufacturing sector,
radiology throughput in the health-care
sector, etc.)
The utilisation of individuals and the way they
interact and deal with each other and their
overall satisfaction, motivation, empowerment
knowledge and morale levels (e.g. better
utilisation of staff, improving human
management, staff empowerment, etc.) Table 5.

and perceived quality. A distinction between the two approaches could be in the scope of
application, as Lean deals with the entire organisational value chain, whereas SS is focussed
on specific projects and processes within the organisation. This paper discussed three main
aspects of LSS applications – requirements, challenges and impacts – following a narrative
synthesis approach. A descriptive analysis of studies published between 2007 and 2017 was
provided that highlighted main research trends, followed by a comprehensive review of each
publication. A number of requirements, challenges and impacts of LSS applications were
collected and categorised.
The literature review shows that management commitment, training and organisational
culture were found to be the most important requirements for successful LSS projects. On
the other hand, lack of awareness, lack of change management and resistance to change and
lack of management support were common challenges to successful LSS projects. The
impacts of LSS applications were categorised to industrial impacts, organisational impacts,
individual impacts and general LSS impacts, and the review of previous studies provided
evidence and created an awareness for the importance of organisational impacts being
amongst the most cited impacts, and that LSS does have individual impacts as well.
This literature review provides a holistic overview of LSS application while focussing on
the soft aspects of its impacts that were not deeply discussed in previous studies. We believe
that this paper will contribute to both academia and practical fields, as the information
collected in this literature review will serve as a source of reference for LSS practitioners
who wish to become more exposed to LSS applications in various sectors and improve their
understanding about it and for academics who might be interested in carrying out further
research in this regard.
Based on the descriptive analysis and patterns of publications, it was observed that there
were few studies about LSS applications published in the Middle East, East Asia, North
Africa and Europe. In addition, the observations about the requirements, challenges and
impacts of LSS applications were based on single case studies that were also limited to
specific sectors in confined geographical areas. Furthermore, little attention was paid to
considering organisation size – large versus small, the level of complexity of the processes
being studied and the application of LSS as a combined tool. That limits the generalisation
of the observations to wider, more extensive and cross-sector populations.
IJLSS Hence, future research should be conducted in studying larger, cross-sectional and
12,2 geographically broader organisations adopting similar or different approaches of the studies
reviewed in this paper, as it will be an interesting step forward to check if the observations
about LSS applications collected in this study can be generalised to other sectors. On the
other hand, it might also be worth digging into and focussing on specific industries to better
understand LSS impacts on organisations and individuals. Furthermore, the LSS impacts
360 discussed were only the positive ones that benefit the organisation and it would be
interesting to consider the other point of view. A promising research area could be checking
LSS practitioner and expert feedback on the observations collected about LSS applications.
It is also noted that there is a need for carrying out further research about how
organisations can improve their preparedness for LSS implementation by providing them
with roadmap and framework that can assist them in meeting different LSS requirements so
that they can overcome the challenges of LSS implementation. It is also necessary to find
some ways to quantify the impacts of LSS, especially the organisational and individual
impacts that are of intangible nature and also make use of them in improving other
organisational aspects such as innovation.

References
Aboelmaged, M.G. (2011), “Reconstructing six sigma barriers in manufacturing and service
organizations: the effects of organizational parameters”, International Journal of Quality and
Reliability Management, Vol. 28 No. 5, pp. 519-541.
Abu Bakar, F.A., Subari, K. and Mohd Daril, M.A. (2015), “Critical success factors of lean six sigma
deployment: a current review”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 339-348.
Albliwi, S.A., Antony, J. and Lim, S.A.H. (2015), “A systematic review of lean six sigma for the
manufacturing industry”, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 665-691.
Albliwi, S., Antony, J., Abdul Halim Lim, S. and van der Wiele, T. (2014), “Critical failure factors of lean
six sigma: a systematic literature review”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability
Management, Vol. 31 No. 9, pp. 1012-1030.
Albliwi, S.A., Antony, J., Arshed, N. and Ghadge, A. (2017), “Implementation of lean six sigma in Saudi
Arabian organisations: findings from a survey”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability
Management, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 508-529.
Alessandro, L., Malcolm, B. and Jiju, A. (2013), “Applications of lean six sigma in an irish hospital”,
Leadership in Health Services, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 322-337.
Ali, N.K., Choong, C.W. and Jayaraman, K. (2016), “Critical success factors of lean six sigma practices
on business performance in Malaysia”, International Journal of Productivity and Quality
Management, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 456-473.
Anderson, N.C. and Kovach, J.V. (2014), “Reducing welding defects in turnaround projects: a lean six
sigma case study”, Quality Engineering, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 168-181.
Andersson, R., Hilletofth, P. and Manfredsson, P. (2014), “Lean six sigma strategy in telecom
manufacturing”, Industrial Management and Data Systems, Vol. 114 No. 6, pp. 904-921.
Antony, J. (2007), “What is the role of academic institutions for the future development of six sigma?”,
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 57 No. 1, pp. 107-110.
Antony, J. and Desai, D.A. (2009), “Assessing the status of six sigma implementation in the Indian
industry: results from an exploratory empirical study”, Management Research News, Vol. 32
No. 5, pp. 413-423.
Antony, J., Rodgers, B. and Cudney, E.A. (2017), “Lean six sigma for public sector organizations: is it a
myth or reality?”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol. 34 No. 9,
pp. 1402-1411.
Antony, J., Rodgers, B. and Cudney, E.A. (2019), “Lean six sigma in policing services: case examples, Lean Six
lessons learnt and direction for future reserach”, Total Quality Management and Business
Excellence, Vol. 30 No. 5-6, pp. 613-625. No Sigma
Antony, J., Rodgers, B. and Gijo, E. (2016), “Can lean six sigma make UK public sector organisations applications
more efficient and effective?”, International Journal of Productivity and Performance
Management, Vol. 65 No. 7, pp. 995-1002.
Antony, J., Snee, R. and Hoerl, R. (2017), “Lean six sigma: yesterday, today and tomorrow”,
International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol. 34 No. 7, pp. 1073-1093. 361
Antony, J., Ghadge, A., Ashby, S.A. and Cudney, E.A. (2018), “Lean six sigma journey in a UK higher
education institute: a case study”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management,
Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 510-526.
Antony, J., Krishan, N., Cullen, D. and Kumar, M. (2012), “Lean six sigma for higher education
institutions (HEIs): challenges, barriers, success factors, tools/techniques”, International Journal
of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 61 No. 8, pp. 940-948.
Assarlind, M., Gremyr, I. and BäCkman, K. (2013), “Multi-faceted views on a lean six sigma
application”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol. 30 No. 4,
pp. 387-402.
B.R, R.K., Sharma, M.K. and Agarwa, A. (2015), “An experimental investigation of lean management in
aviation: avoiding unforced errors for better supply chain”, Journal of Manufacturing
Technology Management, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 231-260.
Balzer, W.K., Francis, D.E. and Kr, T.C. (2016), “A review and perspective on lean in higher education”,
Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 442-462.
Banawi, A. and Bilec, M.M. (2014), “A framework to improve construction processes: integrating lean,
green and six sigma”, International Journal of Construction Management, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 45-55.
Barnes, C. and Walker, R. (2010), “Improving corporate communications: lean six sigma science has
broad reach”, Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 23-36.
Barraza, M.F.S., Smith, T. and Dahlgaard-Park, S.M. (2009), “Lean-Kaizen public service: an empirical
approach in Spanish local governments”, The TQM Journal, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 143-167.
Beasley, G. and Rosseel, T. (2016), “Leaning into sustainability at University of Alberta libraries”,
Library Management, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 136-148.
Bhasin, S. (2013), “Analysis of whether lean is viewed as an ideology by British organizations”, Journal
of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 536-554.
Bhat, S., Gijo, E. and Jnanesh, N. (2014), “Application of lean six sigma methodology in the registration
process of a hospital”, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management,
Vol. 63 No. 5, pp. 613-643.
Boyle, T.A., Rathje, M.S. and Stuart, I. (2011), “Learning to be lean: the influence of external information
sources in lean improvements”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 22
No. 5, pp. 587-603.
Burch, R., Strawderman, L. and Bullington, S. (2014), “Global corporation rollout of ruggedised
handheld devices: a lean six sigma case study”, Total Quality Management and Business
Excellence, Vol. 27 Nos 1/2, pp. 1-15.
Chakraborty, A. and Leyer, M. (2013), “Developing a six sigma framework: perspectives from financial
service companies”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol. 30 No. 3,
pp. 256-279.
Chen, M. and Lyu, J. (2009), “A lean Six-Sigma approach to touch panel quality improvement”,
Production Planning and Control, Vol. 20 No. 5, pp. 445-454.
Chen, J.C., Li, Y. and Shady, B.D. (2010), “From value stream mapping toward a lean/sigma continuous
improvement process: an industrial case study”, International Journal of Production Research,
Vol. 48 No. 4, pp. 1069-1086.
IJLSS Cheng, C. and Chang, P. (2012), “Implementation of the lean six sigma framework in non-profit
organisations: a case study”, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, Vol. 23 No. 3-4,
12,2 pp. 431-447. No
Choi, B., Kim, J., Leem, B., Lee, C. and Hong, H. (2012), “Empirical analysis of the relationship between six
sigma management activities and corporate competitiveness: focusing on Samsung group in
Korea”, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Vol. 32 No. 5, pp. 528-550.
Cima, R.R., Brown, M.J., Hebl, J.R., Moore, R., Rogers, J.C., Kollengode, A., Amstutz, G.J., Weisbrod, C.A.,
362 Narr, B.J. and Deschamps, C. (2011), “Use of lean and six sigma methodology to improve
operating room efficiency in a high-volume tertiary-care academic medical center”, Journal of the
American College of Surgeons, Vol. 213 No. 1, pp. 83-92.
Cournoyer, M.E., Nobile, A.O., Williams, G.M., Monsalve-Jones, R.A., Renner, C.M. and Geroge, G.L.
(2013), “Application of lean six sigma business practices to an air purifying respirator process”,
Journal of Chemical Health and Safety, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 34-39.
Curatolo, N., Lamouri, S. and Huet, J.C. (2014), “A critical analysis of lean approach structuring in
hospitals”, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 433-454.
Deblois, S. and Lepanto, L. (2016), “Lean and six sigma in acute care: a systematic review of reviews”,
International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 192-208.
Delgado, C., Ferreira, M. and Branco, M.C. (2010), “The implementation of lean six sigma in financial
services organizations”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 21 No. 4,
pp. 512-523.
Denyer, D. and Tranfield, D. (2006), “Using qualitative research synthesis to build an actionable
knowledge base”, Management Decision, Vol. 44 No. 2, pp. 213-227.
Douglas, J., Antony, J. and Douglas, A. (2015a), “Waste identification and elimination in HEIs: the role
of lean thinking”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol. 32 No. 9,
pp. 970-981.
Douglas, A., Douglas, J. and Ochieng, J. (2015b), “Lean six sigma implementation in East Africa:
findings from a pilot study”, The TQM Journal, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 772-780.
Douglas, J., Muturi, D., Douglas, A. and Ochieng, J. (2017), “The role of organisational climate in
readiness for change to lean six sigma”, The TQM Journal, Vol. 29 No. 5, pp. 666-676.
Drohomeretski, E., Costa, S.E., Lima, E.P. and Garbuio, P.A. (2014), “Lean, six sigma and lean six
sigma: an analysis based on operations strategy”, International Journal of Production Research,
Vol. 52 No. 3, pp. 804-824.
Gijo, E. and Antony, J. (2013), “Reducing patient waiting time in outpatient department using lean six
sigma methodology”, Quality and Reliability Engineering International, Vol. 30 No. 8.
Gnanaraj, M., Devadasan, S., Murugesh, R. and Sreenivasa, C. (2012), “Sensitisation of SMEs towards
the implementation of lean six sigma – an initialisation in a cylinder frames manufacturing
Indian SME”, Production Planning and Control, Vol. 23 No. 8, pp. 599-608.
Goffnett, S.P., Lepisto, L. and Hayes, R. (2016), “Using the socio-economic approach to management to
augment lean six sigma”, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management,
Vol. 65 No. 1, pp. 80-97.
Grima, P., Marco-Almagro, L. and Santiago, S. (2014), “Six sigma: hints from practice to overcome
difficulties”, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, Vol. 25 Nos 3/4, pp. 198-208.
Grove, A., Meredith, J., MacIntyre, M. and Angeli, J. (2010), “UK health visiting: challenges faced during
lean implementation”, Leadership in Health Services, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 204-218.
Gupta, S., Sharma, M. and M, V.S. (2016), “Lean services: a systematic review”, International Journal of
Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 65 No. 8, pp. 1025-1056.
Hu, G., Wang, L., Fetch, S. and Bidanda, B. (2008), “A multi-objective model for project portfolio
selection to implement lean and six sigma concepts”, International Journal of Production
Research, Vol. 46 No. 23, pp. 6611-6625.
Isa, M.F.M. and Usmen, M. (2015), “Improving university facilities services using lean six sigma: a case Lean Six
study”, Journal of Facilities Management, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 70-84.
Sigma
Jabbour, A.B.L.D., Junior, J.C.O. and Jabbour, C.J.C. (2014), “Extending lean manufacturing in supply
chains: a successful case in Brazil”, Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 21 No. 6,
applications
pp. 1070-1083.
Jesus, A.R., Antony, J., Lepikson, H.A. and Cavalcante, C.A. (2015), “Key observations from a survey
about six sigma implementation in Brazil”, International Journal of Productivity and
Performance Management, Vol. 64 No. 1, pp. 94-111. 363
Johnstone, C., Pairaudeau, G. and Pettersson, J.A. (2011), “Creativity, innovation and lean sigma: a
controversial combination?”, Drug Discovery Today, Vol. 16 Nos 1/2, pp. 50-57.
Karthi, S., Devadasan, S.R., Selvaraju, K., Sivaram, N.M. and Sreenivasa, C.G. (2013), “Implementation
of lean six sigma through ISO 9001:2008 based QMS: a case study in a textile mill”, Journal of the
Textile Institute, Vol. 104 No. 10, pp. 1-12.
Knapp, S. (2015), “Lean six sigma implementation and organizational culture”, International Journal of
Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 28 No. 8, pp. 855-863.
Koning, H., Does, R. and Bisgaard, S. (2008), “Lean six sigma in financial services”, International
Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 1-17.
Krueger, D.C., Parast, M.M. and Adams, S. (2014), “Six sigma implementation: a qualitative case study
using grounded theory”, Production Planning and Control: The Management of Operations,
Vol. 25 No. 10, pp. 873-889.
Kumar, M., Antony, J. and Douglas, A. (2009), “Does size matter for six sigma implementation?
Findings from the survey in UK SMEs”, The TQM Journal, Vol. 21 No. 6, pp. 623-635.
Kumar, M., Antony, J. and Tiwari, M.K. (2011), “Six sigma implementation framework for SMEs – a
roadmap to manage and sustain the change”, International Journal of Production Research,
Vol. 49 No. 18, pp. 5449-5467.
Kumar, M., Antony, J., Singh, R.K., Tiwari, M.K. and Perry, D. (2006), “Implementing the lean sigma
framework in an Indian SME: a case study”, Production Planning and Control: The Management
of Operations, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 407-423.
Kumar, M., Antony, J., Madu, C.N., Montgomery, D.C. and Park, S.H. (2008), “Common myths of six
sigma demystified”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol. 25 No. 8,
pp. 878-895.
Lande, M., Shrivastava, R. and Seth, D. (2016), “Critical success factors for lean six sigma in SMEs
(small and medium enterprises)”, The TQM Journal, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 613-635.
Laureani, A. and Antony, J. (2010), “Reducing employees’ turnover in transactional services: a lean six
sigma case study”, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 59
No. 7, pp. 688-700.
Laureani, A. and Antony, J. (2017), “Leadership characteristics for lean six sigma”, Total Quality
Management and Business Excellence, Vol. 28 Nos 3/4, pp. 405-426.
Laureani, A., Antony, J. and Douglas, A. (2010), “Lean six sigma in a call centre: a case
study”, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 59 No. 8,
pp. 757-768.
Lee, K. and Wei, C. (2010), “Reducing mold changing time by implementing lean six sigma”, Quality and
Reliability Engineering International, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 387-395.
Lighter, D.E. (2014), “The application of lean six sigma to provide high-quality, reliable pediatric care”,
International Journal of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 8-10.
McLean, R. and Antony, J. (2014), “Why continuous improvement initiatives fail in manufacturing
environments? A systematic review of the evidence”, International Journal of Productivity and
Performance Management, Vol. 63 No. 3, pp. 370-376.
IJLSS Maleyeff, J., Arnheiter, E.A. and Venkate, V. (2012), “The continuing evolution of lean six sigma”, The
TQM Journal, Vol. 24 No. 6, pp. 542-555.
12,2
Malik, A. and Blumenfeld, S. (2012), “Six sigma, quality management systems and the development of
organisational learning capability: evidence from four business process outsourcing organisations
in India”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 71-91.
Manville, G., Greatbanks, R. and Krishn, R. (2012), “Critical success factors for lean six sigma
364 programmes: a view from middle management”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability
Management, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 7-20.
Marodin, G.A. and Saurin, T.A. (2015), “Classification and relationships between risks that affect lean
production implementation: a study in Southern Brazil”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology
Management, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 57-79.
Mason, S., Nicolay, C. and Darzi, A. (2015), “The use of lean and six sigma methodologies in surgery: a
systematic review”, The Surgeon, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 91-100.
Mehrabi, J. (2012), “Application of Six-Sigma in educational quality management”, Procedia - Social and
Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 47, pp. 1358-1362.
Mehrjerdi, Y.Z. (2011), “Six-sigma: methodology, tools and its future”, Assembly Automation, Vol. 31
No. 1, pp. 79-88.
Miguel, P.A.C. and De-Carvalho, M.M. (2014), “Benchmarking six sigma implementation in services
companies operating in an emerging economy”, Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 21
No. 1, pp. 62-76.
Mostafaa, S., Dumrakb, J. and Soltan, H. (2015), “Lean maintenance roadmap”, Procedia Manufacturing,
Vol. 2, pp. 434-444.
Moyano-Fuentes, J. and Sacristán-Díaz, M. (2012), “Learning on lean: a review of thinking and
research”, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Vol. 32 No. 5,
pp. 551-582.
Muraliraj, J., Zailani, S., Kuppusamy, S. and Santha, C. (2018), “Annotated methodological review of
lean six sigma”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 2-49.
Nabhani, F. and Shokri, A. (2009), “Reducing the delivery lead time in a food distribution SME through
the implementation of six sigma methodology”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology
Management, Vol. 20 No. 7, pp. 957-974.
Nakhai, B. and Neves, J.S. (2009), “The challenges of six sigma in improving service quality”,
International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol. 26 No. 7, pp. 663-684.
Ndaita, P.M., Gachie, T. and Ki, C.W. (2015), “The implementation of lean six sigma concept at national
bank of Kenya-operation division”, The TQM Journal, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 683-690.
Ogunbiyi, O., Goulding, J.S. and Oladapo, A. (2014), “An empirical study of the impact of lean
construction techniques on sustainable construction in the UK”, Construction Innovation, Vol. 14
No. 1, pp. 88-107.
Pakdil, F. and Leonard, K.M. (2015), “The effect of organizational culture on implementing and sustaining
lean processes”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 725-743.
Pamfilie, R., Petcu, A.J. and Draghici, M. (2012), “The importance of leadership in driving a strategic
lean six sigma management”, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 58, pp. 187-196.
Perini, A. (2017), “Lean six sigma for small and medium sized enterprises: a practical guide”, Production
Planning and Control, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 350-350.
Piercy, N. and Rich, N. (2009a), “High quality and low cost: the lean service centre”, European Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 43 Nos 11/12, pp. 1477-1497.
Piercy, N. and Rich, N. (2009b), “Lean transformation in the pure service environment: the case of the
call service centre”, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Vol. 29
No. 1, pp. 54-76.
Prasanna, M. and Vinodh, S. (2013), “Lean six sigma in SMEs: an exploration through literature Lean Six
review”, Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 224-250.
Sigma
Psychogios, A.G. and Tsironis, L.K. (2012), “Towards an integrated framework for lean six sigma
application: lessons from the airline industry”, Total Quality Management and Business
applications
Excellence, Vol. 23 Nos 3/4, pp. 397-415.
Radnor, Z. (2010), “Transferring lean into government”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology
Management, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 411-428.
Rauch, E., Damian, A., Holzner, P. and Matt, D.T. (2016), “Lean hospitality – application of lean
365
management methods in the hotel sector”, Procedia Corp, Vol. 41, pp. 614-619.
Raval, S.J., Kant, R. and Shankar, R. (2018), “Revealing research trends and themes in lean six sigma:
from 2000 to 2016”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 9 No. 3.
Sabry, A. (2014), “Factors critical to the success of six-sigma quality program and their influence on
performance indicators in some of Lebanese hospitals”, Arab Economic and Business Journal,
Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 93-114.
Shah, R., Chandrasekaran, A. and Linderman, K. (2008), “In pursuit of implementation patterns: the
context of lean and six sigma”, International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 46 No. 23,
pp. 6679-6699.
Sharma, V., Dixit, A.R. and Qadri, M.A. (2015), “Impact of lean practices on performance measures in
context to Indian machine tool industry”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management,
Vol. 26 No. 8, pp. 1218-1242.
Singh, M. and Rathi, R. (2018), “A structured review of lean six sigma in various industrial sectors”,
International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 10 No. 2.
Sreedharan, V.R. and Raju, R. (2016), “A systematic literature review of lean six sigma in different
industries”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 7 No. 4.
Sreedharan, V.R., Sunder, M.V. and Raju, R. (2018), “Critical success factors of TQM, six sigma, lean
and lean six sigma”, Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 25 No. 9, pp. 3479-3504.
Sunder, V. (2016), “Rejects reduction in a retail bank using lean six sigma”, Production Planning and
Control, Vol. 27 No. 14, pp. 1131-1142.
Sunder, V. and Antony, J. (2015), “Six-sigma for improving top-box customer satisfaction score for a
banking call Centre”, Production Planning and Control, Vol. 26 No. 16, pp. 1291-1305.
Sunder, V. and Antony, J. (2018), “A conceptual lean six sigma framework for quality excellence in
higher education institutions”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management,
Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 857-874.
Sunder, V. and Mahalingam, S. (2018), “An empirical investigation of implementing lean six sigma in
higher education institutions”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management,
Vol. 35 No. 10, pp. 2157-2180.
Sunder, V., Ganesh, L. and Marathe, R.R. (2018), “A morphological analysis of research literature on
lean six sigma for services”, International Journal of Operations and Production Management,
Vol. 38 No. 1, pp. 149-182.
Suresh, S., Antony, J., Kumar, M. and Douglas, A. (2012), “Six Sigma and leadership: some observations
and agenda for future research”, The TQM Journal, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 231-247.
Sutton, C. (2015), “The human sigma approach to business improvement in tourism SMEs”, Journal of
Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 302-319.
Svensson, C., Antony, J., Ba-Essa, M., Bakhsh, M. and Albliwi, S. (2015), “A lean six sigma program in
higher education”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol. 32 No. 9,
pp. 951-969.
Tenera, A. and Pinto, L.C. (2014), “A lean six sigma (LSS) project management improvement model”,
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 119, pp. 912-920.
IJLSS Thomas, A., Barton, R. and Byard, P. (2008), “Developing a six sigma maintenance model”, Journal of
Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 262-271.
12,2
Thomas, A., Barton, R. and Chuke-Okaf, C. (2008), “Applying lean six sigma in a small engineering
company – a model for change”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 20
No. 1, pp. 113-129.
Thomas, A., Francis, M., Fisher, R. and Byard, P. (2016), “Implementing lean six sigma to overcome the
366 production challenges in an aerospace company”, Production Planning and Control, Vol. 27
Nos 7/8, pp. 591-603.
Thomas, A., Antony, J., Haven-Tang, C., Francis, M. and Fisher, R. (2017), “Implementing lean six
sigma into curriculum design and delivery – a case study in higher education”, International
Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 66 No. 5, pp. 577-597.
Thomas, A., Ringwald, K., Parfitt, S., Davies, L. and John, E. (2014), “An empirical analysis of lean six
sigma implementation in SMEs – a migratory perspective”, International Journal of Quality and
Reliability Management, Vol. 31 No. 8, pp. 888-905.
Timans, W., Ahaus, K., Sollingen, R., Kumar, M. and Antony, J. (2014), “Implementation of continuous
improvement based on lean six sigma in small- and medium-sized enterprises”, Total Quality
Management and Business Excellence, Vol. 27 Nos 3/4, pp. 1-16.
Timmons, S., Coffey, F. and Vezyridi, P. (2014), “Implementing lean methods in the emergency
department: the role of professions and professional status”, Journal of Health Organization and
Management, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 214-228.
Tsironis, L.K. and Psychogios, A.G. (2016), “Road towards lean six sigma in service industry: a
multi-factor integrated framework”, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 22 No. 4,
pp. 812-834.
Ullah, F., Thaheem, M.J., Siddiqui, S.Q. and Khurshid, M.B. (2017), “Influence of six sigma on project
success in construction industry of Pakistan”, The TQM Journal, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 276-309.
Vinodh, S., Gautham, S. and Ramiya, A. (2011), “Implementing lean sigma framework in an Indian
automotive valves manufacturing organisation: a case study”, Production Planning and Control:
The Management of Operations, Vol. 22 No. 7, pp. 708-722.
Vinodh, S., Kumar, S.V. and Vimal, K. (2014), “Implementing lean sigma in an Indian rotary switches
manufacturing organisation”, Production Planning and Control: The Management of
Operations, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 288-302.
Wang, F. and Chen, K. (2010), “Applying lean six sigma and TRIZ methodology in banking services”,
Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 301-315.
Wang, F. and Chen, K. (2012), “Application of lean six sigma to a panel equipment manufacturer”, Total
Quality Management and Business Excellence, Vol. 23 No. 3-4, pp. 417-429.
Wickramasinghe, G. and Wickramasinghe, V. (2016), “Effects of continuous improvement on shop-floor
employees’ job performance in lean production: the role of lean duration”, Research Journal of
Textile and Apparel, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 182-194.
Wiengarten, F., Fynes, B. and Onofrei, G. (2013), “Exploring synergetic effects between investments in
environmental and quality/lean practices in supply chains”, Supply Chain Management: An
International Journal, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 148-160.
Wiengarten, F., Gimenez, C., Fynes, B. and Ferdows, K. (2015), “Exploring the importance of cultural
collectivism on the efficacy of lean practices: taking an organisational and national perspective”,
International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 370-391.
Yadav, G. and Desai, T.N. (2016), “Lean six sigma: a categorized review of the literature”, International
Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 2-24.
Youssouf, A., Rachid, C. and Ion, V. (2014), “Contribution to the optimization of strategy of maintenance
by lean six sigma”, Physics Procedia, Vol. 55, pp. 512-518.
Zhang, Q., Irfan, M., Khattak, M.A.O., Zhu, X. and Hassan, M. (2012), “Lean six sigma: a literature Lean Six
review”, Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, Vol. 3 No. 10,
pp. 599-605. Sigma
Zhang, A., Luo, W., Shi, Y., Chia, S.T. and Sim, Z.H. (2016), “Lean and six sigma in logistics: a pilot applications
survey study in Singapore”, International Journal of Operations and Production Management,
Vol. 36 No. 11, pp. 1625-1643.

Further reading 367

Aboelmaged, M.G. (2010), “Six Sigma quality: a structured review and implications for future
research”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol. 27 No. 3,
pp. 268-317.
De, H., Does, R.J. and Bisgaard, S. (2008), “Lean six sigma in financial services”, International Journal of
Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 1-17.

Corresponding author
Mohammad Shamsuzzaman can be contacted at: mshamsuzzaman@sharjah.ac.ae

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further
reproduction prohibited without permission.