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Quality Circles and Kaizen Events have resulted in productivity and quality improvements for organizations. There is limited empirical research comparing these two approaches. This research study was designed to understand the similarities and differences in the structure and outcomes of these two popular continuous improvement approaches in Korea and the USA. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A logic model was used to structure a comparative analysis of Quality Circles and Kaizen Events undertaken in six different organizations in Korea and the USA. A logic model framework consisting of four areas (resources, activities, outputs and outcomes) was used to assess the key components of these six improvement projects. Data for three different comparative case study project pairs were collected. Projects were matched on both manufacturer-level and project-level characteristics. Matched projects were similar in size and type of product produced.

Similarities between Quality Circles and Kaizen Events were identified in every component of the logic model. Both mechanisms were effective in driving improvements in performance and in motivating employees, even though significant differences in the project size, type, and industrial sector existed across the six different projects.

There was no evidence to support the conclusion that one continuous improvement approach is more or less effective than the other. Both approaches produced improvements in both technical and social system outcomes. Overall, it appears based on this study, that both Quality Circles and Kaizen Events can be successfully deployed in an organization's continuous improvement journey.

The purpose of the paper is to study the interconnections between visual management, performance management and continuous improvement programmes and to suggest a practical framework to establish an effective visual management programme in association with performance management and continuous improvement systems. For the sake of simplicity, this paper refers to such a programme as integrated visual management (IVM) throughout this paper.

The following research included proposals and discussion, which were based on a case study which took place at a quality assurance (QA) department in PACCAR Australia, a global premium truck manufacturer, as well as authors’ own findings and experience, in addition to a literature-based review on visual management, performance management and continuous improvement. A systematic approach was followed to establish an effective IVM system. This paper is composed of two sections. Some of the most important literatures on visual management, performance management and continuous improvement are reviewed in the first section. Then the findings, as well as some other author findings, on why visual management works are summarised. The second section is dedicated to the case study.

Visual management can provide a simple and yet effective solution to enhance information flow in organisations. However, for visual management to yield its full benefit, it needs be part of a bigger plan. It has to be linked to a performance management programme, which provides input into visual management, and a continuous improvement initiative, which receives inputs from visual management. This paper proposes a practical framework to establish an IVM programme and provides a detailed description of its phases. The paper also presents the results achieved, during our case study, and views on the integration benefits, as well as on how to successfully implement an IVM programme. A systematic approach to establish an effective IVM system was followed. It laid a solid foundation to facilitate an effective flow of information in QA in its respective areas. This programme not only improved an understanding of the processes and raised awareness about the performance and associated issues, it also boosted transparency, discipline, shared ownership, team involvement and scientific mindset. It assisted in achieving significant and concrete process improvements. It helped in establishing a productive continuous improvement programme. It was observed that while visual management, performance management and team or company continuous improvement programmes each served a benefit individually, when they were linked together, as a whole, their synergy allowed for more significant achievements.

The scope of this research is limited to use of visual management to manage performance and to lead continuous improvement initiatives. The research was performed in a manufacturing environment. Even though it is believed that the suggested framework for IVM and the findings are applicable to other business environments as well, further research in this direction is required. Also, the interconnection between visual management, continuous improvement and performance management based on a case study was investigated. More quantitative researches, on bigger scales, are required to better understand the mentioned interactions and to enhance our knowledge of these tools in a holistic manner.

The originality of the papers comes from its holistic approach to visual management, performance management and continuous improvement programmes and the suggested framework to establish an IVM programme.

Although prior research has found that employee participation is key to successfully implementing quality management initiatives (Baird et al., 2011; de Menezes, 2012; Lagrosen and Lagrosen, 2005), little research in operations management exists that investigates which management actions and behaviors lead to employee commitment to such initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap in the operations management literature by investigating which influence tactics are the most effective in soliciting employee commitment to continuous improvement tasks. The paper also examines how influence tactics affect the supervisor-subordinate relationship and the manager’s effectiveness in implementing continuous improvement initiatives.

A survey instrument was used to measure supervisor-subordinate relationship quality, usage of influence behaviors and participants’ task commitment to continuous improvement initiatives.

The results indicate that five of the 11 influence tactics identified in the prior literature, i.e., collaboration, consultation, ingratiation, inspirational appeals, and rational persuasion, are significant and strong predictors of employee commitment to continuous improvement initiatives. Further, analyses show that these influence tactics are significant drivers of the quality of the supervisor-subordinate relationship, which was found to partially mediate the relationship between influence tactics and the supervisor’s effectiveness in implementing continuous improvement projects.

Since the extant CI and Total Quality Management literature has looked at the plant or program level rather than the worker-level as in the research, the findings offer one explanation as to why earlier studies investigating the relationship between quality management programs and increased organizational performance reported mixed results.

Increasing managers’ awareness and usage of influence tactics may increase the success rate of continuous improvement projects as well the quality of the relationship with the manager’s subordinates.

While the extant literature has argued that management support and employee commitment are key components of a continuous improvement project implementation, little has been written about the specific management actions and behaviors that lead to success.

Remarkable improvements in results achieved during the past decade by some US manufacturing companies show the crucial role played in these companies by quality teams which we can call improvement support systems (ISS). The team infrastructure is modelled here in terms of a three‐stage sequential process with simple measures to evaluate the infrastructure elements. The approach is applied to study six Australian companies on their way to becoming continuous improvement systems. The findings expose different levels and patterns of team infrastructure. The enterprises differ in the context of their training models, the extent of autonomy of the teams as well as in the scope of the employees′ participation on teams. Considers the challenge for management finding the right extent to which monitoring and control should be applied to improvement teams as well as avoiding process stagnation. Suggests that the latter can be realized by extending active participation of employees, systematic generation of new improvement topics (eventually through splitting and continuation of old ones) as well as by continuous upgrading of training. A steady output flow of successfully finished projects can be considered evidence of an active (as opposed to a stagnant) improvement system.

Modern production facilities produce large amounts of data. The computational framework often referred to as big data analytics has greatly improved the capabilities of analyses of large data sets. Many manufacturing companies can now seize this opportunity to leverage their data to gain competitive advantages for continuous improvement. Six Sigma has been among the most popular approaches for continuous improvement. The data-driven nature of Six Sigma applied in a big data environment can provide competitive advantages. In the traditional Six Sigma implementation – define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) problem-solving strategy where a human team defines a project ahead of data collection. This paper aims to propose a new Six Sigma approach that uses massive data generated to identify opportunities for continuous improvement projects in a manufacturing environment in addition to human input in a measure, define, analyze, improve and control (MDAIC) format.

The proposed Six Sigma strategy called MDAIC starts with data collection and process monitoring in a manufacturing environment using system-wide monitoring that standardizes continuous, attribute and profile data into comparable metrics in terms of “traffic lights.” The classifications into green, yellow and red lights are based on pre-control charts depending on how far a measurement is from its target. The proposed method monitors both process parameters and product quality data throughout a hierarchical production system over time. An attribute control chart is used to monitor system performances. As the proposed method is capable of identifying changed variables with both spatial and temporal spaces, Six Sigma teams can easily pinpoint the areas in need to initiate Six Sigma projects.

Based on a simulation study, the proposed method is capable of identifying variables that exhibit the biggest deviations from the target in the Measure step of a Six Sigma project. This provides suggestions of the candidates for the improvement section of the proposed MDAIC methodology.

This paper proposes a new approach for the identifications of projects for continuous improvement in a manufacturing environment. The proposed framework aims to monitor the entire production system that integrates all types of production variables and the product quality characteristics.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and Lean are both widely used approaches to business process improvement. However, research is limited on their interactions when implemented in combination, leveraging the advantages of both. The purpose of this paper is to propose a generic framework for implementing ERP and Lean in combination to develop digitally supported business process improvement capability and improved competitiveness.

Principles and elements for the framework were derived from the extant literature and subsequently applied as input for solution incubation using design science research (DSR) in a five-year case study. Study results and learnings enabled solution refinement and the development of a generic framework for digital supported process improvement capabilities.

The paper presents a case study narrative and proposes a framework for digitally supported business process improvement capability based on Lean and enabled digitally by ERP. The framework delivers tangible productivity and quality improvements deployed, and an increase of continuous improvement capability.

This paper provides a novel generic framework and a set of guidelines for implementing Lean and ERP in SMEs and/or service companies to improve their business process excellence. The paper contributes to the scientific literature by providing insights on how SMEs and service operations can integrate Lean and ERP methods, digitalize and streamline processes in the organization and build continuous improvement capabilities.

The subjects considered in this research paper form the basic prerequisites for improving the effectiveness of organizational development. The author assumes that the effectiveness of any process depends on the size of the reserve of capacity of the resources used in the process (for details, see Appendix). The purpose of this paper is to determine the conditions for the effectiveness of improvement projects.

The author has constructed an algorithm (called ABC) to control the capacity of resources. With its help, the author defines the strategy for improvement in an organization. The basic principle of this strategy is continuous improvement, and tactics to control resources refers to the ABC algorithm.

The author shows that continuous improvement is a prerequisite for the effectiveness of this strategy. It is shown that the features of this strategy reflect sustainable development of the organization. Along with the algorithm ABC, it forms a basis for the sustainable development strategy. The author shows conditions for effectiveness and explains how the strategy shapes the sustainable development of the organization. The author also explains why commitment of top management is necessary, what it is, and how it can benefit the organization.

This effort is symbolized by the involvement of resources in projects conducted to improve organizational functions. The result of the capacity growth is increased ability to confront new challenges.

The author claims that the strategy for sustainable development is shaping the conditions for a gradual increase in the capacity of the resources used in the improvement process. The growth in resource capacity in the repeatedly run improvement projects can serve as a model of organizational learning. The learning process requires effort.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic overview of approaches to project portfolio selection in continuous improvement and to identify opportunities for future research.

This paper reviews the extant literature on the theory and application of project portfolio selection in continuous improvement.

Manufacturing organisations must routinely deliver efficiencies in order to compete, but their ability to realise sustainable competitive advantage from these improvements is hampered by the lack of objective approaches for targeting their improvement efforts. In this paper a normative framework for linking strategy to process improvement implementation is presented. The paper then examines the literature on portfolio and project selection in continuous improvement and presents a descriptive framework that represents the current state. Three gaps are highlighted: optimisation of the future state, portfolio generation, and the appropriate measurement to judge outcomes.

As a review, this work relies on the use of secondary sources. Some of these sources were published in publications that are not peer‐reviewed.

There are significant limitations to the approaches used by industry for project selection but the methods described in the literature do not offer an adequate solution to this problem. Practitioners must be aware of the benefits and shortcomings of the methods and recognise that they assist with choice not design.

This review fills a gap in the literature by providing researchers and practitioners with an overview of approaches, a better understanding of the shortcomings of current approaches and a normative model that highlights areas for further research.

Continuous improvement and learning are popular concepts in management literature and practice. Often they are situated in an environment where the work is of a repetitive nature. However, there are a lot of organisations where (part of) the primary processes are carried out by means of projects. An example is organisations involved in management of infrastructure. A survey into the state‐of‐the‐art of continuous improvement and learning in this sector was carried out at the end of 1997. The sector is part of the construction industry, which has some very distinctive characteristics that are not necessarily conducive to continuous improvement and learning. The survey results sketch a picture of organisations that have sufficient capabilities for carrying out and managing projects, but are not really oriented towards improvement and learning. They are struggling with these concepts, do not use available tools and techniques, and hence are depriving themselves of possibilities to improve their performance.