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The purpose of this paper is to identify forces (in the form of converters and inhibitors) of Lean Six Sigma adoption by studying the gradual adoption of Lean Six Sigma in a medium-sized Swedish manufacturing company. The paper suggests how the converters and inhibitors interact toward increased maturity of the adoption and, in this case, stagnation thereof.

Thirteen interviews were recorded and analyzed to identify converters that were moving the process forward or backward, as well as inhibitors that caused it to linger.

It was discovered that activities that had initially moved the process forward were not sufficient to move it beyond its current point. However, an increased knowledge of Lean Six Sigma throughout the organization now prevents the process from moving in the opposite direction. In this medium-sized Swedish manufacturing company, Lean Six Sigma becomes a framework for thought and communication during Lean work.

The study benefited from considering forces pushing the process forward as well as backward. Thus, the authors suggest that future studies will benefit from focusing beyond critical success factors that may at times are static in nature. As a limitation, for discussions about the past, the memories of interviewees, generally, may have a tendency to be biased.

The paper contributes knowledge of Lean Six Sigma adoptions and how they may attain greater future success by reporting on difficulties and setbacks in the current gradual adoption process in a chosen company.

The purpose of this paper is to identify critical aspects of quality management (QM) adoption in a small company. QM is more widely applied in large companies than in small ones. Previous research has pointed to QM ideas as sound and valid for small companies, but that many such initiatives fail because of poor implementation. With scarcity of resources and expertise, it is critical to study how QM can be initiated in small companies with often sceptical owner-managers.

This paper is based on a single case study of a small company; data has been collected through two sets of interviews: one in late 2009 and one in mid-2012, as well as project reports and public financial data. This allows for a study of the adoption process over time.

This study points to four critical areas when initiating QM work in a small company: the importance of initiation, the importance of contextualisation, QM adoption as an iterative process, and the need for external support.

This paper highlights the importance of overcoming small business owners’ reluctance towards QM. Most research on QM initiatives in small companies has focused on the stages that follow an actual decision to begin a QM initiative. This paper shows that it is critical to carefully consider the stages leading to the decision. Further, it contributes with a case study on a small company, otherwise uncommon in QM research.

Intervention programmes can potentially aid medium-sized manufacturing companies (MMEs) in improvement work that they otherwise would not undertake. The purpose of this paper is to identify intervention programme functions that support MMEs in the adoption of operations improvements.

Empirical material on one programme, Production Leap, was mainly collected through 11 interviews and an internal-to-the-programme two-day workshop. This material was arranged to describe the programme’s design, and subsequently compared with a theoretical framework based on the literature on operations improvements and interventions.

The interventions were divided into phases focusing on management and employees, each of which is seen as key to planning and commitment. Collaborations with labour unions and trade organisations were found to be important for gaining trust among employees and companies.

Earlier research has identified critical factors for interventions in companies, which this paper groups into governance, involvement, and change agent approach. This paper demonstrates how a programme may or may not operationalise such factors, as well as identifies further factors.

Practitioners and policy makers may use these findings in the design of support for MMEs, including further improvement programmes.

Earlier studies on programmes have examined individual companies, while this paper analyses how a programme may be designed to aid MMEs in the adoption of systematic operations improvements.

As Lean and Six Sigma have become established as influential concepts in the process improvement area, observers, researchers and managers are awaiting the next step, which many feel could take the form of a combination of the two concepts, known as Lean Six Sigma. A considerable amount of literature has been produced regarding the possible benefits of combining Lean and Six Sigma, which has led to greater support for the idea. The purpose of this paper is to explore an application of Lean Six Sigma in practical improvement work.

The empirical study was conducted through interviews, meetings, document analysis and observations over a period of four months.

Based on this paper, it seems unfeasible to apply one standardised approach to improvements in one company. Continuous smaller improvements and larger improvement projects demand different formulas. It seems that using both Lean and Six Sigma in parallel is appropriate but this should be done through clever cross‐fertilisation.

This paper shows one possible way of working with one improvement concept in one company. It does not claim to present the only possible way of combining Lean and Six Sigma nor does it suggest universal applicability. Further research on other possible combinations would therefore be valuable.

This paper provides an outline of how to structure a combination of Lean and Six Sigma. It can provide valuable insights to managers who wish to structure their improvement processes.

This paper expands the theoretical foundation for combining Lean and Six Sigma by studying and analysing a practical application of the concept. Apart from the paper's value for managers, it can also help researchers understand the compatibility of Lean and Six Sigma.

Lean and Six Sigma observers, researchers and managers are awaiting the next step, which many feel could take the form of a combination of the two concepts, known as Lean Six Sigma. The purpose of this paper is to explore an application of Lean Six Sigma in practical improvement work, as a way of identifying factors of importance for improving future Lean Six Sigma applications.

The empirical study was conducted through interviews, meetings, document analysis and observations over a period of four months.

The findings of this study suggest it is unfeasible to apply one standardised approach to improvements in one company. Continuous smaller improvements and larger improvement projects demand different formulas. It is appropriate to use Lean and Six Sigma in parallel but this should be done through clever cross‐fertilisation, such as taking variations in project complexity into consideration.

This paper shows one way of working with an improvement initiative in one particular company. It does not propose that this is the only way to combine Lean and Six Sigma nor does it suggest universal applicability. Further research on other possible combinations would be valuable.

This paper provides an outline of how to structure a combination of Lean and Six Sigma. This could provide valuable insights to managers who wish to structure their improvement processes depending on the type of problem at hand.

This paper expands the theoretical foundation for combining Lean and Six Sigma by studying and analysing a practical application of the concept. As a result, it provides new factors of importance for successful Lean Six Sigma applications, such as having a clear structure that guides the company in terms of what components of Lean Six Sigma to apply and what competences to involve in various projects, depending on the scope and complexity.

The purpose of this study is to determine the current status of Sustainable Lean Six Sigma (SLSS) practices execution in the industries by identifying the research gaps and also methodologies that are applied by different researchers and practitioners.

To find the current status of SLSS practices all over world, the literature review of the articles available through SCOPUS data base is given in different categories such as a country-wise and year-wise publication of the articles, journal-wise publication of articles, case study implementation focus in industry and data analysis techniques used by the researchers.

The different methodologies applied by the researchers and practitioners have been explained and the gaps for further research are identified. The extensive review of articles of last 18 years revealed that there are various opportunities such as quantitative study, framework modeling on the SLSS, and implementation of developed models in different industries, etc. which are required to be explored.

In the present study, a review of 129 articles for the time span of January 2000 to February 2018 is considered. The SCOPUS database was used for selecting the articles for review. A total of 129 articles were considered for the literature review, and the case study implementation in different industries with the focused areas such as cost reduction, defect reduction, economic, environmental and social aspects was explained.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the motives for obtaining an ISO 9000-certified quality management system in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and whether such motives differ between large companies and SMEs.

This study employed a qualitative approach, using multiple case studies. The primary research consisted of interviews with top and middle managers in four organizations and was complemented with direct observation and documental analysis.

The research findings confirmed the existing literature. The most common motivations for certification came from external pressure such as customer demand and ability to participate in public tender. It therefore validates that the classification of motives adopted for large companies is also appropriate for SMEs. The research also brought to light one implication of ISO certification that has escaped mention in the literature, namely, the distinction between primary and secondary motives. That is, companies driven by externally-driven motives to pursue ISO 9000 certification appreciated other benefits once they realized the full potential of the standard, leading to additional motivations.

The study was restricted to a single region of Greece and a single sector, food and beverage industry. This study may provide key insight for managers to understand and appropriately evaluate motives for ISO 9000 certification and to save them from misinterpretation and hasty conclusions.

Because the data gathered were longitudinal, this study offered a deep understanding of the true motives for ISO 9000 certification.

The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on Lean Six Sigma (LSS) for services, construct a morphological analysis (MA) framework and identify research gaps to point to future research possibilities and priorities.

The MA framework is based on literature review of 175 papers published from 2003 to 2015, across 67 journals recognised by Scopus or ABS Academic Journal Quality Guide 2015. A three-phased methodology is used by the authors, with Phase1 featuring a five-stage systematic review protocol to identify relevant journal papers for review; Phase2 presenting a framework for classifying the reviewed papers in terms of their fundamental, methodological, chronological and sector-wise orientations; and Phase3 constructing an MA framework on the classified papers and identifying the research gaps.

The MA framework constructed based on six dimensions, namely, organizational context of applications, desired outcomes, implementation systems, LSS tools and techniques, integration with other management philosophies and evaluation methods, involving 40 focused themes, has revealed 355 distinct research gaps as opportunities for future research.

This paper confirms the existence of substantial scope and points to specific topics for further research in the area of LSS for services. The findings demonstrate the gaps in academic research on the subject. In addition, the study also helps organisational leaders and practitioners to look at LSS from a holistic perspective in the services context.

The MA framework of the existing literature on LSS for services presents a unique, systematic effort to identify research opportunities. In addition, a five-stage systematic review protocol is proposed in this paper. This could be valuable to researchers and practitioners in enabling them to systematically review the literature on research subjects of interest to them.