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The literature on warehouse performance assessments is mainly focussed on the efficiency and effectiveness of an action or activity due to customer demand and tailored fulfilment, with less attention being given to the performance measurement of each function of the warehouse and its overall productivity. Therefore, this study was aimed at revising the key warehouse performance metrics to a set of productivity measurement indicators that can be adopted internationally for benchmarking productivity performance.

A literature review and semi-structured survey questionnaire were used for this study. The importance of warehouse productivity performance was reviewed to revamp the measurement indicators. Through the use of a directed content analysis and descriptive analysis, an extensive study was carried out to analyze existing warehouse productivity indicators.

The findings of this study provide comprehensive references for practitioners and academicians for improving the classification of productivity measurements from existing key performance metrics for warehousing. Also, this paper highlights the warehouse resources related to the respective warehouse operation activities.

The study was limited to productivity performance indicators adapted from Staudt et al. (2015). Furthermore, the samples for this study comprised Malaysian academicians and practitioners in the related field. The findings can be adapted on a global scale as this study implemented general warehouse operation processes.

Consequently, the contributions of this study are that it provides relevant benchmarks for key productivity performance indicators in the warehousing sector that has worldwide applicability and the developed model provides a conceptual platform from which further theoretical and empirical developments can be carried out.

This paper aims to report the results of a study on the implementation of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in a developing country. The purpose of this paper is to determine the barriers, critical success factors (CSFs) and implementation strategy of LSS.

A qualitative approach was taken, in which a multiple-case study designed to gather data on the LSS implementation process was used.

The literature and interviews show that any organization can customize these methodologies according to their needs. This also indicates that there are no stringent rules to follow, and that the process of adoption and implementation is quite flexible. The findings from the multiple-case study identify that the CSFs for implementing LSS are management support and commitment, communication, culture change, education and training and a recognition and reward system. The salient features which serve as barriers are lack of top management commitment, lack of knowledge, lack of training, and internal resistance.

The findings have implications for consultants and practitioners with regard to the implementation of LSS within organizations and to focus on the selection LSS tools for implementation.

This paper reports on the implementation of LSS in Malaysia can be valuable to consultants, practitioners and researchers of LSS in developing countries.

This paper presents a new model developed for make‐to‐order (MTO) companies to aid in determining appropriate content for performance improvement programmes. The model has been developed using literature evidence and case‐study data from six MTO small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). As well as being important aspects of the new model, some of the conclusions from the case‐study evidence are important insights into best practice in MTO companies in their own right. In particular, the evidence suggests that the highly‐specialised MTO environment means that multi‐skilling is less important than it is in less skilled industries. It is also suggested that the need for simple, movable equipment is less important because these companies often need specialised machinery and maintain a flexibility of process through a traditional functional layout.