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The study aims to investigate the gap between the current vision and knowledge of future early career operations leaders (OL) and common strategic total quality management (TQM) frameworks such as Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards and competing value framework.

A survey questionnaire was developed for different groups of participants as current higher education students to identify the gap and analyse the significance of these groups on the factors in TQM framework. The Kruskal–Wallis test as the non-parametric quantitative analysis technique was adopted for this study.

A new set of TQM factors with necessity of more knowledge and understanding of future generation was identified, followed by highlighting clear differences amongst different groups of this generation in terms of their demographic measures, perceived leadership style and organisational culture.

This research study contributed significantly to the existing study about common QM models and their integration with theories relevant to organisational culture and leadership. The data collection can be extended further in the higher education sector or beyond that.

A sustainable operations leadership practice needs managers and leaders with a sustainable knowledge development of quality management; and as a result of this study, the current vision of future young OL would not echo this.

This study has a systematic, non-parametric approach towards currently fragmented QM analysis, and is integrated with human resource and visionary elements of future young OL and universal QM models and theories.

The purpose of this paper is to extend previous studies to a hybrid analysis of three business improvement practices of Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma (LSS) within last two decades and identify the research gaps and focusses in more comprehensive and robust classification framework.

A secondary data collection and a literature review were conducted to collect information about peer-reviewed journal articles under six dimensions of a tested classification framework. The frequency and distribution analysis was conducted followed by Pearson’s χ² test to analyse any relationship between dimensions of framework in order to identify the gap.

Despite a relatively great deal of regular research outputs about Six Sigma, Lean and LSS, academic journal articles have been found mainly limited to a few industries, themes and countries. “General manufacturing”, “healthcare”, “automotive” and “electronic industries” as sectors; and “tools and techniques”, “benefits” and “success factors” as key themes have been mostly approached by LSS, Six Sigma and lean management articles. It was also found that there is still a great disparity amongst researchers and journals to publish about these three business improvement practices.

The research publications for LSS, Six Sigma and lean management should have wider approach towards various manufacturing and service sectors, countries and journal publications. A greater level of research/enterprise activities has been found in relation to LSS and Six Sigma articles compared to lean management articles.

This research aims to identify the gaps in research publications during last two decades about three major business improvement practices in one package and through more comprehensive robust classification framework and also through comparative analysis.

This study aims at investigating the impact of the perceived importance of critical cultural readiness factors (CRFs) is on perceived importance of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) technical critical success factors (CSFs) in UK manufacturing sector.

A survey questionnaire through a multiple embedded case study was conducted. The study involves surveying people in the manufacturing firms followed by non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis test to study the relationships.

It was found that the people's perception towards impact of CRFs on technical CSFs of LSS projects is different depending upon each CRF, demographic factors and technical CSFs. This means that particular CRFs need to be prioritised to address LSS technical CSFs.

The study fills the research gap in investigating the perception of people towards inter-relationship of cultural or soft CSFs of LSS and technical or hard CSFs of LSS in manufacturing firms. Nevertheless, the authors suggest further multi-case study analysis covering different manufacturing fields as future studies.

The study is crucial for managers financially to be ready to invest on a successful LSS project and it helps them to diagnose the cultural causes of failure in a more timely way and effectively.

This is a preliminary study focussing on analysing inter-relationship between perceived importance of soft readiness factors and perceived importance of implementing success factors as a missing jigsaw in the current literature.

ISO 18404:2015 standard defines the proficiencies to the attainment of distinct competency levels with either Lean Manufacturing or Six Sigma or separately combined strategy Lean Six Sigma (LSS). The purpose of this paper is to perform a detailed investigation of the applicability of current LSS competency standard in SMEs and examine the need for further improvement.

A qualitative-based semi-structured interview method was utilized globally by interviewing a group of LSS professionals with knowledge about the LSS implementation working in different leading organizations. All participants were asked to review the standard before the interview process to ensure that they are familiar with the standard.

The results reveal that the current ISO 18404:2015 standard does not fit SMEs to implement the LSS approach as it has several shortfalls that need to be fixed before its adoption or an urgent need to develop a more customized LSS standard for SMEs. The outcome further helps organizations understand theoretical knowledge about ISO 18404:2015, its role in operational excellence implementation, pros, cons, critical success factors and required changes for further improvement within the standard.

There were very limited baseline studies in the literature. A mixed method strategy that includes qualitative and quantitative data would yield better data so that more robust outcomes can be derived from the research.

To the best of authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical research on the applicability of ISO 18404:2015 for SMEs, which encapsulate opinions of LSS professionals working in several SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the gap between the current vision and knowledge of future early career operations managers (OM) and a common strategic total quality management (TQM) framework.

A survey questionnaire and a non-parametric test for different groups of participants were adopted to identify the gap and analyse the significance of these groups on the factors in the TQM framework.

A new set of TQM factors with the necessity of more knowledge and understanding of future generation were identified, followed by the identification of clear differences amongst different groups of this generation.

A sustainable OM practice needs managers and leaders with a sustainable knowledge development of quality management (QM); and as the result of this study, the current vision of future young OM would not echo this.

This study has a systematic, non-parametric approach towards currently fragmented QM analysis, and is integrated with human resource and visionary elements of future young OM and universal QM models and theories.

Historically, Lean Six Sigma (LSS) implementation has demonstrated a great deal of enhancement to process efficiency, profitability and customer satisfaction. The emerging market pressure for developing better quality, cheaper and greener products invokes a change of view in LSS economical effectiveness. The purpose of this study is to identify under which condition the final output of LSS projects with traditional strategic benefits are more environmentally friendly.

To investigate the choice of different types of LSS projects, the environmental impact under different conditions and the comparison of those conditions, the author developed an analytical mathematical model and analysed four different propositions.

The final price and production volume were recommended as mediating factors to leverage an LSS project to achieve a greener, customised and finance-oriented outputs.

This research contributes to existing LSS research and knowledge development via promoting the different perspectives of LSS and environmental sustainability integration.

This study further enables managers to identify the cut-off point in relation to the production volume and finished prices to leverage the expected financial outputs and environmental impact of the LSS project. This would potentially promote a green LSS project in both implementation and output, alongside its traditional values.

This study uses a modelling approach to identify the conditions under which the actual methodology of the LSS project could be green via less energy consumption with consideration of expected LSS values and outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new optimisation approach for product variance from the purchasing perspective.

The research is based on a case study of a collaboration with a global acting automotive Tier 1 supplier, who produces steering systems for cars and commercial vehicles. A total of 116 different variants of three components of a car automotive steering system were analysed and evaluated. The data were gathered from 13 sub-suppliers for three different types of a steering system.

Unnecessary time, money, quality and technology can be saved through a greater understanding of such product variances. The results of the case study lead to a general method to optimise existing product variance and present cost improvements and a new key performance indicator to manage product variance out of the purchasing department.

The research is based on a purchasing case study at a Tier 1 supplier of the automotive branch. The approach can be used for other company departments, e.g. logistics and for different industries than automotive.

A company can be successful and competitive when it meets the customer needs with a maximum on satisfaction without generating of waste. Unnecessary existing product variance is a kind of waste. The insights of this paper support the operative user and the strategic company management to reduce and improve unnecessary variance in different sections.

The structured analysis of product variance from the purchasing perspective and the key performance indicator “variance share” are new to company management. The research focuses on the management of existing variance out of the purchasing department which is a segment that has received limited academic attention in research to date.

This work presents a synthesis of current literature published from 2010 to provide an overall understanding of the sustainable implementation of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) projects in terms of project approaches rather than outcomes.

A comprehensive and validated ten-step model was applied to conduct a scoping review with the following three broad phases: “review planning”, “review execution” and “review reporting”.

The analysis shows that while a few geographically and methodologically broad research studies have been conducted on LSS and green manufacturing integration, no studies have examined organisational culture or conducted readiness assessments on the sustainable implementation of LSS projects in the manufacturing sector.

The present study contributes to existing knowledge by describing the current state of research on green LSS integration. The study also identifies a lack of research on the deployment of sustainable LSS projects for manufacturers. Further empirical analyses that include case studies must be conducted to assess the negative environmental impacts of LSS projects.

This study serves as an initial call for practitioners and research scholars to favour the sustainable deployment of LSS projects in manufacturing alongside the use of traditional approaches with a focus on costs, quality and delivery.

This study aims to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of incorporating predictive maintenance (PdM) into existing practices of spare part inventory management and pinpoint the barriers and identify economic values for such integration within the supply chain (SC).

A two-staged embedded multiple case study with multi-method data collection and a combined discrete/continuous simulation were conducted to diagnose obstacles and recommend a potential solution.

Several major organisational, infrastructure and cultural obstacles were revealed, and an optimum scenario for the integration of spare part inventory management with PdM was recommended.

The proposed solution can significantly decrease the inventory and SC costs as well as machinery downtimes through minimising unplanned maintenance and addressing shortage of spare parts.

This is the first study with the best of our knowledge that offers further insights for practitioners in the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) era looking into embarking on digital integration of PdM and spare part inventory management as an efficient and resilient SC practice for the automotive sector by providing empirical evidence.

This study aims to explore the potential application of blockchain technology in Lean Six Sigma (LSS) project through a proposed blockchain-LSS (BLSS) model. The proposed model can tackle real-time problems in information sharing, transparency and traceability in every stage of the LSS project.

The scoping review approach is used to develop the integrated model of the BLSS approach for operational excellence. The proposed model is validated through expert’s input, which is collected by a questionnaire survey method.

The prime function of the proposed BLSS model is the information sharing among the project team and real-time monitoring, transparency, traceability and immutability in the Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control phase. The proposed model also consists the information about the role of blockchain features at each phase of the LSS project. The project team and industry employees can trace the success of the project at every moment, resulting in trust buildup and the elimination of fake data. Moreover, there would be no disputes among various sections/shops of the plant and employees to share the real information.

This paper provides guidelines to practitioners and managers for integrating the LSS approach and blockchain. The blockchain helps managers and practitioners in better data traceability and transparency, monitoring of data as well as more sustainable LSS project management.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research attempt that developed an integrated model of blockchain and LSS approach to maintaining the immutable records of assets in projects and targeted Industry 4.0.