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The lack of suitable indicators tailored to manufacturing industries’ needs, particularly to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), has been the major challenge to measure and manage industrial sustainability performance. This paper aims to empirically analyze and select the useful and applicable indicators to measure sustainability performance in the context of SMEs.

A systematic review was carried out to identify potential sustainability indicators from the literature. A questionnaire was designed based on the identified indicators and then pretested with the selected industrial experts, scholars, and researchers to further refine the indicators before data collection from the Italian footwear SMEs. Fuzzy Delphi method with consistency aggregation method was applied to analyze and select the final indicators.

The study’s findings show that the selected indicators emphasized measuring progress toward achieving industrial sustainability goals in terms of increasing financial benefits, reducing costs, improving market competitiveness, improving the effectiveness of resources utilization, and promoting the well-being of employees, customers and the community. In doing so, Italian footwear SMEs can contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by promoting health and well-being, promoting sustainable economic growth, providing productive employment and decent work, and ensuring responsible consumption and production.

The results of this study have significant social implications in terms of promoting the well-being of employees, customers, and the community.

By providing empirically supported indicators tailored to measure and manage sustainability performance in the context of SMEs, this paper contributes to the existing knowledge in the field of industrial sustainability performance measurement. Furthermore, it links the selected indicators to their respective SDGs to provide policy implications.

This paper aims to identify and empirically analyze useful and applicable metrics for measuring and managing the sustainability performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

To achieve the objective of the paper, potential metrics were adopted from previous research related to industrial sustainability and an empirical analysis was carried to assess the applicability of the metrics by collecting empirical data from Italian footwear SMEs using a structured questionnaire. The SMEs were selected using a convenience sampling method.

The results of the within-case analysis and the cross-case analysis indicate that the majority of the metrics were found to be useful and applicable to each of the SMEs and across the SMEs, respectively. These metrics emphasized measuring industrial sustainability performance related to financial benefits, costs and market competitiveness for the economic sustainability dimension; resources for the environmental sustainability dimension; and customers, employees and the community for the social sustainability dimension.

Apart from the within-case analysis and cross-case analysis, it was not possible to conduct statistical analysis since a small number of SMEs were accessible to collect empirical data.

The findings of the paper have considerable academic, managerial and policy implications and will provide a theoretical basis for future research on measuring and managing industrial sustainability performance. By providing a set of empirically supported metrics based on the triple bottom line approach (i.e. economic, environmental and social metrics), this paper contributes to the existing knowledge in the field of industrial sustainability performance measurement.

The lean philosophy has demonstrated its effectiveness to improve firms' operational performance. However, the impact of lean practices on financial performance is still unclear due to the poor understanding of the link between operational and financial measures and the conflictive results obtained by previous research. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a systematic literature review to understand whether lean companies have improved their financial performance. Moreover, this article aims to uncover research gaps in the literature and examine which time spans of research have been considered to analyse both the degree of lean implementation and the measurement of financial outcomes.

A systematic literature review has been conducted to identify peer-reviewed articles that analyse the effect of the lean production paradigm on the financial performance measures of manufacturing companies. Then, the identified articles were processed using a combination of descriptive and content analyses methods to draw new conclusions, uncover gaps and find novel paths for research.

Various authors indicate that lean initiatives lead to an enhancement of financial performance measures. JIT and TQM lean practice bundles are suggested as the best enablers of financial performance in terms of sales and profit. In contrast, according to some scholars, lean does not necessarily improve companies' financial results if it is not properly implemented.

Several studies have focused on analysing the effects of lean on performance. However, only a small part of the literature has addressed the study of the effects of lean practices on financial performance metrics. The originality of this study lies in the investigation of the connections between lean practices and financial performance measures found in the literature. The outcome is the identification of various possible positive impacts of some lean practices on financial metrics.

Proposes a conceptual interpretative framework as a reading key to management differences in the two principal manufacturing contexts – intermittent manufacturing and repetitive manufacturing – within the three basic operations management subsystems: planning, inventory control and shopfloor control.

Proposes a classification of different production categories and their respective productive systems and defines various classes of plants which carry out repetitive manufacturing. Also examines the applicative possibilities of repetitive production in regard to production volumes required and grades of flexibility necessary. Among the intermittent production systems described are those which present strong analogies with repetitive manufacturing systems; in particular that of the Zanussi‐Electrolux plant in Susegana, Italy. Finally, describes the fundamental elements which differentiate repetitive production from intermittent production.

A large amount of research deals with the identification of management practices related to new product development (NPD) success. To this purpose, assessment tools capable of helping enterprises to set up improvement processes are of extreme importance. The aim of this paper is to build a product development assessment model based upon a normative‐contingent approach.

First, a literature review of the main approaches and models used in NPD assessment was carried out. Second, the tool was tested in five firms. The case studies allowed the authors to test the tool in its prototypal phase in order to assess both its limits and potential and also to highlight possible improvements.

The assessment tool developed yields a clear understanding of the current state of product development process in an organization in order to facilitate a shared understanding of the weakness and deficiencies, to enable effective process management, to develop implementation plan to support change initiatives and to support process improvement using metrics.

The product development assessment model is based upon a normative‐contingent approach meaning that the prescriptive requirements are defined according to the logic of coherence: requirements vary in relation to contextual conditions. In particular, there are two important context factors which are considered to have a significant influence on NPD process: the complexity of the product‐market interface and the enterprise's NPD strategic orientations.

Although important concepts and steps for strategic planning have been identified, there are few practical, systematic and powerful methodologies and tools to support an integrated and well‐managed process. This paper aims at describing in details how the quality function deployment (QFD) methodology can be applied in order to define the strategic priorities of a firm, to establish clear customer needs/expectations and to draw up a range of product and service characteristics in order to enhance customer satisfaction and thus competitive advantage.

From a methodological point of view, an exploratory case study has been taken with multiple level of analysis and multiple data collection methods. The case study refers to a small manufacturing firm operating in Italy which designs and sells geothermal heat pump systems.

The proposed methodology provides an excellent mechanism for integrating the important concepts and linking major steps of strategic planning and offers a rigorous methodology for identifying business priorities and developing order winning criteria.

In the last two decades many studies have appeared in the literature regarding the use of QFD procedure in supporting different types of planning. The main problem with these studies is that few explain the details of the process and even fewer present in‐depth case studies to demonstrate the process. Given the intrinsic characteristics of the case study, it is the authors' opinion that the analysis can give relevant indications about the feasibility and general applicability of the proposed methodology.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate a methodology which can be used: to establish clear customer needs/expectations, draw up a range of services in order to enhance customer satisfaction and to measure the real value of the services offered.

The proposed methodology is based on the quality function deployment (QFD) procedure but it is much more simple to implement.

The paper provides detailed information about how the proposed methodology works through an in‐depth case study discussion.

The proposed methodology has been tested in a limited number of cases and has proved successful. It remains to analyse its more wide applicability.

Firms seeking to meet customer expectations and requirements with personalized, flexible and increasingly comprehensive solutions have to convert their product strategies into product and service strategies. The proposed methodology is a valuable tool to support this approach.

The paper seeks to investigate empirically the criticalities of a production system constrained by distribution, in order to propose a model capable of integrating production and distribution planning for a simultaneous improvement in terms of efficiency and efficacy.

Starting from an overview of previous works about integrated analysis of a production‐distribution system, an exploratory case study in the Italian industry of modular kitchens has been used, with multiple levels of analysis and multiple data collection methods.

Three solutions for a better integration of production‐distribution systems are proposed; the solutions are characterized by increasing levels of benefits and complexity. The article focuses on the implementation of the less complex scenario, called “overlapping of selling areas”, proposing a series of algorithms used for the implementation of a software prototype.

The case study has been chosen because it is representative of the assemble to delivery logic, where production is pulled and constrained by distribution, but it may not necessarily reflect all the firm's experiences in the furniture market.

The software prototype, developed on the basis of the proposed algorithms, allows a firm with production planning severely constrained by the distribution process to achieve better performance in terms of level of accomplishment in the delivery date promised and reduction of the lead time of delivery.

This paper proposes effective solutions for customer order‐driven‐production constrained by the distribution process, also offering practical help for managing and automatically assigning orders to transport carriers and for informing customers of the product's delivery date.

Many scholars have highlighted, from both the theoretical and the empirical perspective, the importance of customer satisfaction for firms’ competitiveness. Most contributions, however, do not analyse the links between customer satisfaction and the related organizational processes. Adopting a process‐based point of view, develops an integrative and holistic approach and proposes a framework for the analysis of the organizational processes required for the achievement of customer satisfaction. These processes are subdivided into three main categories: planning, design and monitoring. The first concerns the establishment of the medium, long‐term company strategic objectives for customer satisfaction, the second regards the design of the firm’s operating system, and the third relates to the outline of the control system. Proposes an integrated view of customer satisfaction that overcomes the limits of an approach mainly based on monitoring activities.