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This paper outlines how Design for Lean Six Sigma methods aided a medical device manufacturing company in developing a new strategic space management and approval process for its manufacturing site.

The project demonstrates the application of the Design for Lean Six Sigma and structured Define, Measure, Analyse, Design, and Verify methodology in designing and implementing a process that enables the case study manufacturing site to improve its space utilisation and free up space.

The project was validated in one manufacturing department, and the Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology resulted in creating 15% new space for that area, with opportunities identified to free up 44.7% of the total manufacturing floor space and realise over €2.2 million cost savings as well as start to manufacture new products launched.

The manuscript highlights for the first time how the Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology can be utilised for space utilisation and can be leveraged by other manufacturers. The current study's limitations are that it is a single-site case study application. Future longitudinal case studies on Design for Lean Six Sigma application in more manufacturing space utilisation projects would be useful. This study has implications for identifying best practices for Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology application in the device industry, thus improving the state of the art for introducing new manufacturing lines.

This is the first published work to utilise Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology for space utilisation in a medical device company. This review will provide medical devices and other manufacturing organisations with recommendations on utilising Design for Lean Six Sigma and design for improved space utilisation to reduce costs.

An unprecedented scale of human migration has lead humanitarians to view camps as long-term settlements rather than temporary holding facilities. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of and identify challenges with this proposed new approach to camp design.

Based on the camp design literature, the authors developed an interview guide and checklist for data collection. A multi-site case study and within- and cross-case analysis was then conducted.

The findings suggest that the proposed new approach is implemented only to a limited extent, and mostly in a stepwise manner. As camps mature, there is a shift toward the new approach, but most camps are established using the traditional top-down, temporary, and isolated approach.

The findings are based on four camps in four different countries and do not provide an exhaustive global coverage.

The insights the authors derived and the challenges identified from the empirical evidence can be used to better plan future camps.

The results can support improvements in camp design, thus alleviating suffering for both refugees and host communities, particularly in developing countries. In particular, the trade-off between a permanent solution and the temporary must be accounted for.

The study contributes to the literature by developing and proposing a conceptual framework to camp design. The cross-case analysis provides an initial understanding and categorization of challenges with implementing the new approach. It also suggests an evolutionary perspective of camp design.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is known for its extreme weather conditions during Summer. A major determinant of the sustainability of the design of a building is its fenestrations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the problem of designing and locating windows on building facades such that a number of relevant criteria to the MENA region are optimised, including solar heat gain, privacy, daylighting and cost of installation.

A multi-objective optimisation problem is proposed with the focus on capturing the requirements of residential dwellings in the MENA region. Since the problem contains conflicting objectives that need to be optimised, a lexicographic approach is adopted. In order to display the Pareto curve, a bi-objective analysis based on the ε-constraint method is utilised.

The conflicting nature of the proposed problem is indicated via the Pareto optimal solutions yielded. Depending on the preference of criteria adopted in lexicographic optimisation, the location of the windows on the building façade tends to change. The bi-objective analysis indicates the importance of balancing out the daylight factor against each of privacy, solar heat gain and installation cost criteria. Furthermore, an analysis conducted in three major cities in the MENA region highlights the discrepancy in design alternatives generated depending on the local climatic condition.

This work proposes a novel mathematical optimisation model which focuses on producing a sustainable design and layout for windows on the facades of residential dwellings located in the MENA region. The proposed model provides designers with guidance through an automated support tool that yields optimised window designs and layout to ensure the sustainability of their designed buildings.

Roughly half a million persons in the USA are homeless on any given night and over a third of those individuals have significant alcohol/other drug (AOD) problems. Many are chronically homeless and in need of assistance for a variety of problems. However, the literature on housing services for this population has paid limited attention to comparative analyses contrasting different approaches. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors examined the literature on housing models for homeless persons with AOD problems and critically analyzed how service settings and operations aligned with service goals.

The authors found two predominant housing models that reflect different service goals: sober living houses (SLHs) and housing first (HF). SLHs are communally based living arrangements that draw on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. They emphasize a living environment that promotes abstinence and peer support for recovery. HF is based on the premise that many homeless persons with substance abuse problems will reject abstinence as a goal. Therefore, the HF focus is providing subsidized or free housing and optional professional services for substance abuse, psychiatric disorders, and other problems.

If homeless service providers are to develop comprehensive systems for homeless persons with AOD problems, they need to consider important contrasts in housing models, including definitions of “recovery,” roles of peer support, facility management, roles for professional service, and the architectural designs that support the mission of each type of housing.

This paper is the first to consider distinct consumer choices within homeless service systems and provide recommendations to improve each based upon architecture and community planning principles.

The study aims to explore the argument of implementing the lean method to part or whole of an operation by examining the moderating impact of varying levels of the extent of implementation of four different lean methods, along with their functionalities, in predicting productivity improvement (PI).

As the focus of understanding the efficacy of lean principles is shifting from process to industry level, this study tried to generalize the approach by gathering data from 132 large Indian auto component manufacturers. This involves an assessing/monitoring approach rather than measurement.

Results highlighted the interdependence or individuality of the extent of implementation of lean methods and their functionalities. Findings revealed a significant moderating effect in improving productivity to a greater extent of 50%.

Adopting an assessment approach to a measurement study provides a noteworthy contribution to bridging theory and practical consequences. The findings can be appropriately extrapolated to medium and small enterprises forming a critical connection in the entire automobile manufacturing ecosystem.

The study showed that even if a lean method is applied to a certain extent of operations the chances of PI are significant. This is important for decision makers as they confront problems of optimum resource allocation.

PI, reduced cost and generalization of results would enable the auto component industry to become more competitive.

The examination of the moderation effect of a lean principle implementation extent, along with that of its functionalities to predict the improvement in productivity from its existing level, is a major outcome of this study.

Public authorities are required to organise new facilities to respond to changed user demands in terms of a public-owned school. The number of pupils attending the case study school will increase in the following years, as will the number of children attending a day nursery located on the present campus. In addition, the users of the campus have complained of building-related symptoms. This study aims to understand the municipal decision-making process in organising the school’s facilities, in particular, the factors used for decreasing uncertainty around a project.

This study is a case study undertaken through an action research approach. The researchers participated in the project planning meetings concerning the future activities to take place in the building.

Over a 13-month period, multiple stakeholders participated in the project planning meetings providing a deeper understanding of the space demands posed, current challenges and opportunities offered by the existing building. In addition, the alternative solutions generated were evaluated. The problem identification and information gathering periods lasted over nine months, which was far longer than predicted. Thus, generating alternative solutions and evaluation of the solutions also delayed. As the entire process was delayed substantially, the final decision on organising the facilities was not made during this research.

This research may be of practical value for a property owner and a project team for decision-making concerning changed facility demands.

This paper provides information about how public authorities are making decisions on facility organisation during conditions of uncertainty.

The objective of this study is to investigate the barriers hindering the integration of lean manufacturing (LM) practices within the furniture industry of Bangladesh. The traditional operational paradigms in this sector have posed substantial challenges to the effective implementation of LM. In this study, the barriers of implementing LM in the furniture business are examined, aiming to provide a systematic understanding of the barriers that must be addressed for a successful transition.

The research reveals that “Fragmented Industry Structure,” “Resistance to Lean Practices” and “Inadequate Plant Layout and Maintenance”, emerged as the foremost barriers to LM implementation in the furniture industry. Additionally, “Insufficient Expert Management,” “Limited Technical Resources” and “Lack of Capital Investment” play significant roles.

The outcomes of this study provide valuable insights into the furniture industry, enabling the development of strategies for effective LM implementation. One notable challenge in lean implementation is the tendency to revert to established practices when confronted with barriers. Therefore, this transition necessitates informed guidance and leadership. In addition to addressing these internal challenges, the scope of lean implementation should be broadened.

This study represents one of the initial efforts to systematically identify and assess the barriers to LM implementation within the furniture industry of Bangladesh, contributing to the emerging body of knowledge in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the selection of decision-making approaches at manufacturing companies when implementing process innovations.

This study reviews the current understanding of decision structuredness for determining a decision-making approach and conducts a case study based on an interactive research approach at a global manufacturer.

The findings show the correspondence of intuitive, normative and combined intuitive and normative decision-making approaches in relation to varying degrees of equivocality and analyzability. Accordingly, the conditions for determining a decision-making choice when implementing process innovations are revealed.

This study contributes to increased understanding of the combined use of intuitive and normative decision making in production system design.

Empirical data are drawn from two projects in the heavy-vehicle industry. The study describes decisions, from start to finish, and the corresponding decision-making approaches when implementing process innovations. These findings are of value to staff responsible for the design of production systems.

Unlike prior conceptual studies, this study considers normative, intuitive and combined intuitive and normative decision making. In addition, this study extends the current understanding of decision structuredness and discloses the correspondence of decision-making approaches to varying degrees of equivocality and analyzability.

This study aims to address customer focus as an important component of total quality management (TQM) and explore the key drivers of member satisfaction in tennis clubs via a novel theory-based member satisfaction index (MSI) model with high explanatory and predictive power. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate the relationship between satisfaction and behavioral intentions (willingness to stay; WTS) with consideration of the mediating effect of identification with the club.

This study uses variance-based partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to estimate the MSI model, which was tested in a leading tennis club in Germany (n = 185).

The results reveal that club atmosphere, club facilities and the price/quality ratio of the membership fee are the most important drivers of member satisfaction in tennis clubs. Member satisfaction has a large influence on the WTS of tennis club members. Identification with the club, when included as a mediator in the model, increases the variance explained in WTS considerably.

The small sample limits the generalizability of findings, and further research is recommended.

The MSI model is a useful benchmark tool for club managers who want to quantify the satisfaction and WTS of their club members. In addition, because of the integrated formative measurement models, the PLS-SEM results show which indicators can be used to positively impact satisfaction with each of the service quality dimensions, overall member satisfaction and WTS. The most important of these results are discussed in an importance-performance map analysis.

The MSI model is a multi-attribute index model through which members' evaluations of various dimensions of service and value are derived through multivariable linear function with each dimension weighted according to its importance in one holistic model. The model shows the strong impact of satisfaction on WTS of sports club members and reveals that findings of previous research on the relationship between fan and spectator identification and loyalty are transferable to sports club members. The MSI represents a new contribution to the literature; it was applied here to tennis clubs but is also suitable for application to other sports clubs.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate branding and higher education literature to conceptualize, develop, and empirically examine a model of university social augmenters’ brand equity.

Drawing on an empirical survey of 401 undergraduate students enrolled in private universities in Egypt, this study model was tested using structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that university social augmenters’ reputation, coach-to-student interactions, and student-to-student interactions influence students’ satisfaction with social augmenters. The results also suggest that students satisfied with university social augmenters are more likely to exhibit outcomes of brand equity – namely, brand identification, willingness to recommend, and willingness to incur an additional premium cost.

The results offer managerial implications for university administrators in their quest to enrich students’ university experiences and build strong sub-brands within the university setting. University social augmenters are found to have strong brand equity manifestations and may hold the potential to differentiate university brands in an industry dominated by experience and credence.

This research contributes to the extant literature by filling two gaps in university branding literature. First, previous research has never unified separate streams of literature related to augmented services and brand equity. Second, limited conceptual and empirical research on university branding in general and university social augmentation in particular has been conducted in emerging markets, which has resulted in conceptual ambiguity for the key factors constructing students’ university social experiences.