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This paper seeks to focus on the TQM journey of MilkFed, a major milk‐producing cooperative in the state of Punjab in Northern India. It aims to demonstrate how TQM principles have been used to create an organisation‐wide environment of continuous improvement in a cooperative sector organisation that spread into tradition and ways of doing business in spite of facing numerous challenges.

MilkFed hired Punjab Technical University's School of TQM and Entrepreneurship (PGSTE) to create an organisation‐wide system of continuous improvement. PGSTE consultants prepared a road‐map for TQM implementation. In the first phase, 14 teams comprising 76 senior/middle level executives (one team from each of Milkfed's 14 plants/units) were trained in the structured application of TQM principles and the project‐by‐project improvement through a series of workshops. Each team implemented an improvement project, which was facilitated by the consultants.

MilkFed has saved USD 0.89 million per annum which amounted to more than 25 per cent of its net profit. There is a tremendous scope for multiplying the gains through horizontal deployment of learning across various plants and units. Intangible benefits included transformation in attitude of employees, creation of team culture, breakdown of departmental silos and tremendous improvement in labour‐management relations.

The paper demonstrates that the project‐by‐project approach used in conjunction with the basic 7 QC tools is an excellent approach for building a culture of continuous improvement. It has many important lessons for organisations, which are starting their quality improvement journey.

Today’s business world changes due to public demands, technology and global competition. Customers are considering environmental values into their supplier(s) selection and are increasingly buying products with identifiable environmental attributes. Therefore, to have a competitive leverage, companies should implement both ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 concurrently. In addition to the comparative analysis of both ISO 9000 and ISO 14000, zero defects (ZD) and clean (green) production concepts are clarified in this paper. The analogy of the fundamental thoughts behind them are highlighted. A practical strategy for implementing quality and environmental management scheme that copes with 21st century considerations is explored, emphasizing on three main elements i.e. methodology, competitiveness, and change effect.

The purpose of this paper is to assess Lean Six Sigma to identify important advances over the last ten to 15 years and discuss emerging trends that suggest how the methodology needs to evolve. The goal is to aid those who want to use the method to improve performance as well as assist those developing improvement methodologies.

The use and development of Lean Six Sigma is reviewed including the origins of the method, the what, why and benefits of the method, how the approach is different, the integration of Lean and Six Sigma, implementation mistakes made, lessons learned and developments needed in the future.

It is found that organizations have many different improvement needs that require the objectives and methods contained in the lean and Six Sigma methodologies. It is also found that deployment and sustaining improvements are major issues that can be overcome by building a sustaining infrastructure and making improvement a business process. Critical issues include using Lean Six Sigma to generate cash in difficult economic times, development of data‐based process management systems and the use of working on improvement as a leadership development tool.

These findings suggest that improvement is most effective when approached in an holistic manner addressing improvement in all parts of the organization using a holistic improvement methodology such as Lean Six Sigma. Improvement must address the flow of information and materials thorough processes as well as the enhancement of value‐adding process steps that create the product for the customer. This leads naturally to making improvement a business process that is planned for, operated and reviewed as any other important business process is.

The roadmaps, guiding principles, and deployment pitfalls identified will be of value to those initiating and operating improvement processes in their organizations enabling them to rapidly create useful and sustainable improvements. The discussion of needed enhancements will be of value to those who are working to improve the effectiveness of the approach.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss areas where there could be gaps between traditional quality management concepts and the reality, and point out the modern‐day paradigm shifts as thoughts and ideals of the past gradually give way to realistic assessments and concrete tools of the present.

The past practice of “Quality by will power” or “Quality by change in mindset” is contrasted with the down‐to‐earth approach typified in the Six Sigma framework. It is explained that excellence cannot be achieved simply because there is a management desire to see it happen.

Some customers have been disillusioned by slogans and public‐relations pronouncements; in fact, even some quality managers seem not to be aware of the conceptual pitfalls they have set from themselves. Fundamentally, only realistic tools based on statistical thinking can bring about real and sustainable quality improvement.

It is maintained that quality improvement efforts, especially in the service sectors, would become a delusion if the age‐old concept of “bottom up” or behavioral transformation becomes the mainstay of quality management. The sense of inadequacy as reflected by the title of this paper could not be resolved unless a fresh look is taken at what is really effective, as detailed in the paper.

It used to be politically correct to insist that quality is everybody's responsibility, and that improvements must take place in every sphere – “company‐wide continuous improvement”, as if the realm of Quality is a democracy and improvements are meant to take place simultaneously everywhere. This paper highlights the background of the hierarchical nature of quality improvement personnel and the value of prioritization efforts.

The intent of this work is to state the implied assumptions that define the setting for using a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) business strategy to conduct successful improvement projects.

The execution of define, measure, analyze, improve, and control (DMAIC) phases utilizes philosophies, principles, concepts, success factors, and so forth for successful project completion. These traditional concepts form implied setting assumptions for conducting a successful project.

To establish the desired setting, it is necessary to state organizational performance modeling assumptions required for the use of many tools. Since Lean Six Sigma requires a unique organizational support structure, these assumptions must be added for completeness. Using the 15 collective assumptions is shown to provide benefits in four areas: training clarity, project assessment, leadership support, and theory foundation.

Any list of assumptions is likely incomplete since project application settings are varied and some tools may have unique requirements.

The most useful of the four benefits for practitioners is establishing a familiar framework for communicating with leadership. Management is trained to evaluate assumptions for any new business strategy such as an LSS process improvement initiative. A thoughtful leader will expect to evaluate LSS assumptions for a proposed project. Stating these implied assumptions will meet those expectations.

Most of the stated assumptions exist in some implied form in the Lean Six Sigma literature. However, the familiar term “assumption” is not typically used in presenting Lean Six Sigma methodology. Using this traditional framework is shown to produce multiple benefits for learners and users.

This paper presents a methodology to nominate and select improvement projects that are perceived as adding value to customers (both internal and external). The structure of the methodology can be explained in three “stages”. First, the methodology suggests a new way of categorizing improvement opportunities, i.e. reactive‐proactive, to “upgrade” the little Q ‐ big Q categorisation. Then, it develops a roadmap that links performance indicators and improvement projects for both reactive and proactive improvements. Finally, it suggests an algorithm to select the improvement project, where the assessment of to what extent the nominated improvement projects add value to customers relies on the comparison between Overall Perceived Benefits (OPB) and Overall Perceived Efforts (OPE). The improvement project perceived as having the largest impact on adding value to customers receives the highest priority.

The purpose of the paper is to review and compare six sigma and the lean organisation approaches to process improvement. The basis for combination and compatibility is evaluated and a holistic approach proposed.

The examination is based on the author's extensive practical consulting and training experience with diverse six sigma, lean and business process improvement programmes in numerous companies across Europe and worldwide, as well as theoretical development of his previous published work.

The paper contends that the current literature on the compatibility and combination of six sigma and lean is limited and disappointing when examined for a common model, theoretical compatibility or mutual content or method, but that they can be effectively combined into one system.

The study is experience‐based and not supported by a specific‐quantitative investigation.

Companies pursuing six sigma and lean implementation programmes need to carefully examine how the proposed initiatives relate to each other and other initiatives before fully committing, or at least to review the programme, to enable sensible programme design and management.

This paper focuses on six sigma and lean programmes in practice, rather than the theoretical basis or motivationally based argument.

Total quality management is a new management philosophy that is concerned with sustained ongoing improvement to organisational processes and the outcomes of those processes. It challenges the status quo and insists that everything an enterprise does and how it does it, can be done better – to the greater satisfaction of customers. The history of TQM is outlined and the distinguishing features and fundamental principles behind this paradigm shift in management culture are introduced. The major dimensions and basic approaches to quality are defined and the nature of processes and process variation explained. The article concludes with a description of integrated process management – the TQM model for the future.

Traditional approaches to the implementation of TQM in an organization do not address the social aspects of intervention and change. This paper describes two action research cases of TQM implementation in higher education in the context of contingency theory and associated factors that emerged during the intervention and attempted transformation. The analysis suggested that factors such as goal alignment, motivation, role uncertainty, leadership and others are variables that can affect the success of the intervention. It is proposed that a contingency approach is appropriate in the development of a TQM implementation strategy.

The selection of right projects in a Six Sigma program is a major concern for early success and long‐term acceptance within any organization. One of the ever‐increasing challenges is to define and select right measure for improvement and appropriate problem definition. Many projects encounter the problem of no linkage with business objectives or customer needs, too large or high‐level project scope along with unclear problem and goal statement. Improperly, chosen metrics lead to sub‐optimal behavior and can lead people away from the organization's goal instead of joining them. This paper aims to propose a project selection methodology for different situations.

This research develops a model for project identification; ensuring well‐defined projects are selected having large impact on customer satisfaction or bottom line. The model is described for the situations: availability of performance data, balanced business score card implemented and no data is available.

A “top‐down approach” model is developed for project selection, since top management support for Six Sigma initiatives is absolutely critical to see tangible, significant results. The authors suggest establishing the linkage with data (either reactive or survey), otherwise through prioritization tool for project selection. Finally, factors influencing successful Six Sigma projects include management commitment; project selection and control skill, irrespective of whether this is a define, measure, analyze, improve and control or define, measure, analyze, design and validate/verify project.

This approach will help the organizations to select the specific project from multivariate organizational and customer needs. Three different methods for project selection are explained with examples and reasons for selection. Merits and demerits of each method are also highlighted.