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Literature shows that the economics of early failures in maintenance and electric utilities have not been deeply analyzed. This study aims to focus on quantifying the economic impact that early failures in current transformers have on total maintenance costs. The empirical study is conducted in a regional transmission division of an electric utility located in Mexico.

The utility's database was accessed to collect 219 maintenance records. Clustering techniques were used to identify early failures from a bimodal distribution of failures. Confirmatory goodness-of-fit procedures followed the analysis, and finally, direct and opportunity costs were estimated by adapting the cost-of-quality (PAF) Model.

Around 11% of all maintenance activities are triggered by early failures, and they account for up to US$2.2m during the eight-year period under study, which represents 16% of total maintenance costs. Additionally, opportunity costs represent close to two-thirds of the total costs due to early failures. This was obtained after finding and validating a clear-cut border of 3.5 months between early failures and the rest.

Failures in energy grids and power transmission can have a large economic impact on the power industry and the society in general. Thus, the maintenance function in equipment such as current transformers is a crucial entry of the budget of any electric utility. This study is one of the very few that highlights the magnitude and importance of direct and opportunity costs derived from early failures.

The purpose of this study is to assess the state at which lean and six sigma (LSS) are used as a management system to improve the national health system national health system of Mexico.

Cross-sectional survey-research. The survey was administered at 30 different hospitals across six states in Mexico. These were selected using convenience sampling and participants (N = 258) were selected through random/snowball sampling procedures, including from top managers down to front-line staff.

Only 16 per cent of respondents reported participation in LSS projects. Still, these implementations are limited to using isolated tools, mainly 5s, failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) and Fishbone diagram, with the lack of training/knowledge and financial resources as the top disabling factors. Overall, LSS has not become systematic in daily management and operations.

The sampling procedure was by convenience; however, every attempt was made to ensure a lack of bias in the individual responses. If still there was a bias, it is conjectured that this would likely be in overestimating the penetration of LSS.

The penetration of LSS management practices into the Mexican health system is in its infancy, and the sustainability of current projects is jeopardized given the lack of systematic integration. Hence, LSS should be better spread and communicated across healthcare organizations in Mexico.

This is the first research work that evaluates the use of LSS management practices in a Latin American country, and the first journal paper that focuses on LSS in healthcare in Mexico.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the implementation of soft lean practices and organizational resilience development in the service sector.

A mixed-methods explanatory design that relied on two sequential and complementary phases was adopted. In the first phase, a quantitative analysis was performed based on data collected from practitioners from service organizations, allowing the identification of the significance of this relationship. In the second phase, the authors used semi-structured interviews with experts to qualitatively assess how this relationship occurs.

Findings indicated that soft lean practices are positively associated with organizational resilience, although the extent of their relationships varies depending on the resilience ability under analysis. Interviews with experts also provided specific details on how such relationships occur, adding insights to the numerical results.

This study provides a deeper understanding of the implications of lean management, specifically concerning the support of soft lean practices to develop organizational resilience. Additionally, the identification of this relationship (and how it occurs) allows service organizations to deploy human-related strategies to promote broader adoption of certain soft lean practices. As socio-cultural changes are usually time-consuming, anticipating these organizational resilience needs may result in competitive advantages in the face of disruptive events.

This study aims to develop a practical methodology to identify possible areas of improvements as well as exploring how to improve the health-care staff flow within a selected department in a hospital.

It focuses on showing how to properly study and analyze the health-care services and processes practiced at a selected department within a hospital. For this, several techniques like non-value-adding activities, time motion study, spaghetti diagram, layout analysis, etc. are used.

To test the proposed methodology, a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of a hospital in Oman was considered as a case study. The study revealed that this unit has several potential improvements capabilities. Further, this study also discussed possible areas of improvements of this case unit and suggested how such improvements can be implemented.

Several possible improvements are suggested and are discussed with the hospital authority, which can be clarified as the re-layout of the NICU rooms, reorganization of the store to improve the staff flow, increase the work efficiency, introduction of Help Us Support Healing policy, etc., which can enhance the entire operational system at the studied NICU.