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Six sigma programs are raging through corporations worldwide, with some corporations citing savings in the $US billions resulting from six sigma implementation. Six sigma has both proponents and detractors with some arguing that nothing new is involved and others identifying it as revolutionary. The view espoused herein argues for six sigma as a methodology within the larger framework of total quality management – a blend of old and new in the sense that the tools of six sigma are often familiar ones, but are applied with an eye that is more strategically focused than historic use of those tools ordinarily indicates.

New product development (NPD) is necessary for business sustenance and customer satisfaction. Six Sigma and Design for Lean Six Sigma (DLSS) efficiently employ the repetitive stages for NPD, leading to quality performance and profitability. This study aims to map the quality performance through NPD attributes through the Lean methodology.

The data on NPD were collected from 267 respondents from manufacturing companies to map the relationship between Six Sigma and DLSS for NPD. Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to confirm model fit, while structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the empirical data for framework testing. The study included nine variables and fourteen hypotheses identified from the literature.

The statistical results of this study show that NPD attributes such as innovation, marketing, organization, customer, product and technology positively influence the Lean Six Sigma structured improvement process (LSSSIP) and DLSS. Moreover, integrating these attributes in Lean planning enhance quality performance. This empirical investigation's findings indicate that ten of the 14 hypotheses were supported, giving the study a strong foundation.

The data collection was limited to northern India; therefore, the results may not be generalizable to other areas of the world.

NPD involves handling technical issues and factors such as cost, operational bottlenecks, economic changes, competitors' strategy and company policy. This study helps understand the various NPD parameters and their relationship to Lean, which enables an effective NPD implementation strategy.

The current philosophy of NPD calls for a concurrent engineering approach; therefore, the entire organization must be part of this process. This study uses the holistic framework by optimizing NPD with Lean Six Sigma (LSS) principles. The study is unique in that, to date, research does not integrate NPD attributes with the objectives of LSS to develop an efficient NPD implementation strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between four organizational cultural types defined by the Competing Values Framework and three Lean Six Sigma implementation components – management involvement, use of Lean Six Sigma methods and Lean Six Sigma infrastructure.

The study involved surveying 446 human resource and quality managers from 223 hospitals located in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island using the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument.

In total, 104 completed responses were received and analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance. Follow-up analysis of variances showed management support was significant, F(3, 100)=4.89, p < 0.01, η2=1.28; infrastructure was not significant, F(3, 100)=1.55, p=0.21, η2=0.05; and using Lean Six Sigma methods was also not significant, F(3, 100)=1.34, p=0.26, η2=0.04. Post hoc analysis identified group and development cultures having significant interactions with management support.

The relationship between organizational culture and Lean Six Sigma in hospitals provides information on how specific cultural characteristics impact the Lean Six Sigma initiative key components. This information assists hospital staff who are considering implementing quality initiatives by providing an understanding of what cultural values correspond to effective Lean Six Sigma implementation.

Managers understanding the quality initiative cultural underpinnings, are attentive to the culture-shared values and norm’s influence can utilize strategies to better implement Lean Six Sigma.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the moderating role of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) practices in explaining the relationship between quality management practices (QMPs) and quality performance.

Partial least square-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to empirically examine the moderating effect of LSS practices on QMPs and quality performance in Malaysian medical device manufacturing companies.

Findings revealed that both QMPs and LSS practices have a significant and positive effect on quality performance. Furthermore, LSS practices served as a substitute for moderating the positive relationship between QMPs and quality performance in such a way that the relationship becomes weaker as LSS practices increase.

LSS is acknowledged as the most well-known hybrid methodology; however, due to its relative newness, it has not been studied in great detail. Unlike previous studies, this paper argued that Lean and Six Sigma practices are distinct from its predecessor TQM practices; moreover, both Lean and Six Sigma practices do not need to substitute QM/TQM practices instead of complimenting the QMPs. In addition, this study adds to the growing body of QM literature by empirically examine the effect of LSS practices in moderating the relationship between QMPs and quality performance.

This paper aims to unearth the essential components of Six Sigma for successful deployment and sustainment of service quality in four different organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). More specifically, the paper is intended to determine the motivation to apply Six Sigma, Voice of Customer, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Critical-to-Quality (CTQ), readiness factors, Critical Success Factors, sustainment measures, tools and techniques used, challenges/barriers and performance impact on the company.

An exploratory research methodology with multiple case study analyses was adopted to determine the answers to the research objectives. Four case studies from different service processes of four companies were analyzed. The case studies were collated from these companies via a case study protocol with pre-defined criteria.

The analysis shows that service operation improvement projects are primarily dependent on the voice of the internal customer, with return on investment in savings as the KPI of the process. Most organizations prefer cycle time and errors as the CTQs in the Six Sigma projects. Even novice users can effectively apply the Six Sigma methodology with external experts’ assistance, mentoring and interventions. Across the case studies, it is observed that the projects were successfully deployed due to the support of top management leadership, effective communication and cross-functional teams. Employee resistance to change is the common barrier observed during the case study analysis. Eventually, in all the four case studies, Six Sigma is executed with standard tools and techniques within the define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC) approach.

The present study’s findings cannot be generalized due to the limited number of case study analyses in different ecosystems in the UAE. The authors would like to analyse and report more case studies in service quality improvement through the Six Sigma methodology to comprehend and develop a generic roadmap for the deployment of Six Sigma in the UAE service industry.

The study’s findings provide insights into commonalities and differences between the essential factors of Six Sigma deployment and sustainability in UAE companies.

The study results might help the policymakers and key decision makers in UAE and other countries understand the effectiveness of Six Sigma in service quality improvement with its essential factors for deployment.

This paper sets out to analyse the use of the Six Sigma methodology to improve quality in healthcare. It looks at how Six Sigma grew out of the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM).

Six Sigma is a quality improvement methodology that has been widely adopted by companies since the early 1990s and has grown exponentially in the healthcare industry during the past five years. Some of the main tenets of Six Sigma have emerged from the principles of TQM, including the notion that the entire organization must support the quality effort; that there should be a vigorous education effort; and that a quality improvement process should emphasize root cause analysis.

In spite of its early success, TQM “crashed and burned” for several reasons including the fact that financial benefits were difficult to assign to TQM efforts, root cause was not always determined resulting in recurring errors, there was no common metric to measure the level of quality attained, and quality efforts were sometimes aimed at processes or operations that were not critical to the customer. Six Sigma filled the vacuums created by these TQM failures in several ways. Under the Six Sigma methodology, quality improvement projects are carefully defined so that they can be successfully completed within a relatively short time frame. Financials are applied to each completed project so that management knows how much the project saves the institution.

On each project, intense study is used to determine root cause analysis; and in the end, a metric known as “sigma level” can be assigned to signify the level of quality. Six Sigma has a “critical to quality” dimension that keeps the quality effort focused on improving only those things that really matter to the customer.

The academic literature and research lines exploring the effect of quality improvement methods on environmental performance still remain in early stages. The purpose of this paper is therefore to investigate, through a systematic review of the existing academic literature, the environmental (green) impact of using quality and operations improvement methods such as Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma. This includes the impact on energy saving and the usage of natural resources.

This study follows a systematic literature review approach through which it analyses research papers published in top 16 operations and quality management journals. No specific time frame was established, but a set of keywords were used to short-list the articles. A sample of 70 articles was finally short-listed and analysed to provide a discussion on environmental concerns related to Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma.

The comprehensive review of short-listed articles indicates that both Lean and Six Sigma can be considered effective methods to support the conservation of resources, combat global warming and saving energy. Various scholars provide evidence of this, and as such, organisations should not only consider these methods to manage quality and improve operational performance but also meet environmental regulations. A set of research questions that demands further investigation has also been proposed based on the findings of this research.

This study is limited to a sample of 70 articles collected from top 16 operations and quality management journals. The search of journals is also limited to a set of key words (“Lean”, “Green”, “Six Sigma”, “environment”, “sustainable” and “sustainability”) used to short-list the sample size.

The study shows that organisations can consider the adoption of Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma to meet environmental regulations, save costs and also meet quality management standards. This will contribute in helping organisations to formulate more effective and inclusive strategies which do not only consider the quality and operational dimensions but also the environmental dimension.

Literature exploring the environmental/green impact of quality management methods commonly used in industry is limited. There is also a lack of studies aiming to investigate the green impact of Lean and Six Sigma in top operations and quality management journals. The study focusing on investigating the green impact of Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma methods altogether is also a research first of its kind.

The authors analyze the principles and results of lean production and compare the lean production philosophy with the six sigma quality process and the principles of total quality management (TQM). At the end of the paper, it is discussed how to build the necessary company culture for having success with these principles/management philosophies.

Literature search and comparative analysis complemented with a Danish case on wastage in a core process.

It is shown that the lean production philosophy and the six sigma steps are essentially the same and both have developed from the same root – the Japanese TQM practices. The improvement process from six sigma, the DMAIC process, can be regarded as a short version of the Quality Story, which was developed in Japan in the 1960s as a standard for QC‐circle presentations. We conclude that the roadmaps of lean production and six sigma quality are examples of new alternative TQM roadmaps. We also conclude that especially with lean production and six sigma quality there seems to be too much focus on training people intools and techniques and at the same time too little focus on understanding the human factor, i.e. how to build the right company culture.

The detailed and historical analysis of six sigma quality, lean production and TQM combined with a focus on the human factor and the needed corporate culture.

To provide a sound discussion on the Six Sigma methodology and see how it fits in with other quality initiatives.

A conceptual paper that takes at in‐depth look at the origins, pros and cons of Six Sigma and how it relates to some of the other quality initiatives in industry.

The immediate goal of Six Sigma is defect reduction. Reduced defects lead to yield improvement; higher yields improve customer satisfaction. Six Sigma defect reduction is intended to lead to cost reduction. It has a process focus and aims to highlight process improvement opportunities through systematic measurement. Six Sigma implementation can have negative consequences if applied in the wrong project. Six Sigma is a toolset, not a management system and is best used in conjunction with other more comprehensive quality standards such as the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence or the European Quality Award.

This is a conceptual study and hence there are no hypotheses tested as in an empirical study. It does provide a good foundation for future research.

A very useful source of information and impartial advice for practitioners and researchers planning to practice the Six Sigma methodology and/or understand its pros and cons.

This paper fulfils an identified information/resources need for Six Sigma methodology. It is based on utilizing an extensive set of statistical and advanced mathematical tools, and a well‐defined methodology that produces significant results quickly. The success of this methodology within an organization has significant momentum that can only lead to fundamental organizational cultural transformation.

This paper aims to show that the extent to which convergence/divergence of a company's quality policies and practices towards/away from those of Six Sigma benchmark policies and practices mirror and anticipate the divergence of its sigma metric (SMs) from quantitative Six Sigma benchmarks. Further, the paper proposes to evaluate the robustness of the quality processes of these three companies and to compare them to that of the Six Sigma benchmark by subjecting these processes to the twin performance shocks of the benchmark Six Sigma 1.5σ allowance for process drift and a 25 percent tightening of customer requirements.

Using a novel methodology more appropriate to the critical quality characteristics of typical service industry companies, the paper computes a set of SMs for each company that is richer and broader than the metrics found in standard Six Sigma tables. This new methodology is based on the empirically observed defect rates that are currently being generated by a service process. Further, based on the available empirical data, the paper compared these metrics to the Six Sigma benchmarks.

First, the paper shows that it is possible to compute a broad array of Six Sigma metrics for service businesses based on defect rate data. Second, the results confirm the central proposition of the research to the effect that the divergence/convergence of the qualitative characteristics of a company's quality system from benchmark Six Sigma policies and practices mirror and anticipate the convergence/divergence of the company's quality metrics from the Six Sigma benchmark. Third, the research produced the unanticipated result that the quantitative quality performance of high‐performing service businesses on the Six Sigma metrics are much lower than anticipated and below what is normally achieved by their manufacturing counterparts. The results were also used to do an evaluation of the Taguchi robustness of service processes.

First, the paper demonstrates that traditional Six Sigma computational methodology for generating Six Sigma metrics that is prevalent in manufacturing applies equally to service businesses. Second, the parallel convergence of the qualitative characteristics of a company's quality system towards Six Sigma practices and its quantitative metrics towards the Six Sigma benchmark means that primacy must be given to quality practices as the drivers of quality improvement. Third, the fact that high‐performing service businesses achieve Six Sigma measures that are so low compared to their manufacturing counterparts seems to point either to some key measurement challenges in deploying Six Sigma in service industries or to the need to further change Six Sigma methodology to make it more applicable to these businesses.