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With increasing choice from a range of programs, improvement project selection within broader supply chain context and resource constraints has become a major research challenge. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the different criteria for selecting Six-Sigma (SS) projects based on previous studies. The study is supported by two grounded theories: resource-based view and institutional norms. The criteria include: first, business drivers for improvement and the common performance metrics deployed; second, the organization’s stakeholders needs; and third, process owner’s needs.

To determine the relative importance of influencing factors, opinions were collected from 30 experienced practitioners including SS champions/master black-belts, company directors, consultants, and process owners through a series of interviews in small, medium, and large organizations including multi-national organizations. The evaluation of criteria is based on analytical hierarchy process.

The results show that impact on customer, financial impacts, and impact on operational goals are the most significant factors in selecting SS improvement project.

This study is a first attempt to determine the relative weight among SS project selection criteria, which help the practitioner to allocate their limited resources in implementing SS project.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct effect of external pressure on environmental outcomes and manufacturing performance and examine the mediating effect of sustainable management practice.

This study draws upon institutional theory and resource-based view to understand how factors such as external pressure and sustainable management relate with environmental outcomes and manufacturing performance. The model specifies previously unexplored direct and mediating relationships between external pressure, sustainable management, environmental outcomes and manufacturing performance. The empirical analysis is based on data collected from the sixth edition of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey. The research hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling.

Results show that while there is a significant direct and mediating relationship between external pressure, adoption of formal sustainability programmes and environmental outcomes, such significant relationships do not exist with manufacturing performance.

The study shows that external pressure can influence adoption of sustainable practices but this does not necessarily lead to an improvement in manufacturing performance. As such managers need to identify the actual benefits of sustainability and weigh them up against costs of implementing such programmes.

The relationship between the adoption of sustainable practices and organisational performance is a complex one. In contrast to previous studies, this study found that while external pressure and sustainable management relate positively with environmental outcomes, no such relationship exists with manufacturing performance. This raises a number of question marks over naive implementation of sustainable strategies.

This paper explores the role of Internet of things (IoT) enabling factors in adopting digital supply chain.

Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was used to rank performance measures and prioritise the enabling factors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to validate and support key research findings from the AHP analysis.

The results show that level of customer demand is the most important indicator in adopting IoT while the level of product/process flexibility is the least important. System integration and IoT infrastructure are the top two enabling factors in increasing the level of process stability, supply chain connectivity, and product/process flexibility, respectively. Furthermore, the study suggests that the enabling factors for IoT adoption are directly connected with organisational resources/technological capabilities that support the resource-based view theory. This research identified interdependencies between IoT enabling factors and key performance measures for IoT adoption success in managing the digital supply chain.

Supply chain managers can use the empirical findings of this study to prioritise IoT adoption, based on the relative importance of enabling factors and performance measures. The research findings are focused on broader supply chain practices of large companies rather than a specific industry and SMEs. Hence, any industry-specific adoption factors and SMEs were not evident from this study.

This research study empirically established priorities of enabling factors for IoT adoption, along with inter-dependencies among enabling factors as a basis for developing guidelines for IoT adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a benchmarking project carried out by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) as part of a structured benchmarking initiative. The project was based on the TRADE benchmarking methodology and this paper examines the tools, activities and outcomes that relate to each stage of the adopted methodology.

This study is based on case study methodology. Data were collected from various sources including analysis of project reports written by DEWA’s benchmarking team reporting on their activities during the project. Data were also collected from four project presentations given at different stages of the project. In addition, the research team held three meetings with the DEWA benchmarking team at different stages of the benchmarking project.

The results show the key challenges and successes faced during each stage of the benchmarking project. It indicates the actions taken to overcome the challenges and the role played by internal and external stakeholders in facilitating the success of the benchmarking project.

The study presents information that would guide organisations that wish to carry out a benchmarking project – and particularly those implementing benchmarking for the first time. The study provides a summary of the key lessons learnt by DEWA’s benchmarking team as a guide for other organisations.

Academic research has not adequately examined and analysed the stage-by-stage elements of a benchmarking project from the perspective of the implementing organisation. This study addresses this gap by detailing and analysing the experiences of a benchmarking project by tracking the stage-by-stage activities of the benchmarking team.

This paper aims to investigate the mechanisms for managing coordinated benchmarking projects and the outcomes achieved from such coordination. While there have been many independent benchmarking studies comparing the practices and performance of public sector organisations, there has been little research on initiatives that involve coordinating multiple benchmarking projects within public sector organisations or report on the practices implemented and results from benchmarking projects. This research will be of interest to centralised authorities wishing to encourage and assist multiple organisations in undertaking benchmarking projects.

The study adopts a case study methodology. Data were collected on the coordinating mechanisms and the experiences of the individual organisations over a one-year period.

The findings show successful results (financial and non-financial) across all 13 benchmarking projects, thus indicating the success of a coordinated approach to managing multiple projects. The study concluded by recommending a six-stage process for coordinating multiple benchmarking projects.

This research gives new insights into the application and benefits from benchmarking because of the open access the research team had to the “Dubai We Learn” initiative. To the authors’ knowledge the research was unique in being able to report accurately on the outcome of 13 benchmarking projects with all projects using the TRADE benchmarking methodology.

The shift in focus from TQM to business excellence and recent changes to the EFQM Excellence Model has resulted in suggestions that quality has been marginalised. It has also been suggested that quality is making a comeback as a result of perceived shortcomings in business excellence. The paper explores the literature and asserts that business excellence and quality complement each other and should co‐exist. It also provides a view on why business excellence might be partly responsible for recent increased interest in quality while maintaining that quality never really “died” in the first place.

Due to the importance of efficiency and responsiveness measures rather than just efficiency measures, this research recognizes both measures when considering overall performance of warehouse operations. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to prioritize overall performance measures associated with warehouse operations in manufacturing, third-party logistics service provider and retail industry supply chains.

The study uses an integrated approach that involves the Q-sort method to group measures into four categories. Fuzzy analytical hierarchy process was then used to prioritize individual performance measures within each category and integer liner programming model was used to validate prioritized categories, using the judgment of multiple decision makers across three industries.

The result shows that the financial category is a dominating performance category in managing warehouse operations across all three industries selected. Within the financial category, cost of insurance accounted for 25 percent of total weight of the category, and is considered to be a powerful measure. The financial category is verified by multiple decision makers across three industries, as the most important performance category.

As part of adopting the proposed methodology in practice, it needs to be guided by overall methodology appropriate for industry-specific contexts.

Key novel aspects of this study are to categorize warehouse operations measures and analyze their perspectives in different industries, understand dominant categories of warehouse operations measures in the contemporary supply chain and finally to explore to what extent current practices lead to achieving efficiency and responsiveness in the selected industries.

Teamwork and customer focus are important aspects of total quality. The research described in the paper investigated change agents and activities that affect development of these areas. Effects of human motivation and work attitude factors on teamwork and customer focus were investigated using questionnaires and structured interviews involving more that 150 companies. Companies were differentiated into TQ‐practising and non‐TQ‐practising organisations. Preliminary findings indicated poor levels of teamwork and an inability to achieve a breakthrough in customer focus. An analysis of results led to the determination of the vital change agents enabling development in the two areas. A framework involving a description of change activities was developed to assist companies in the development of customer focus and teamwork.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the activities of the Asian Productivity Organisation (APO). The study identifies the various roles and activities of the APO and evaluates how well it performs in these roles. The study also investigates the impacts of the APO on the productivity initiatives of National Productivity Organisations (NPOs) in 16 Asian countries. These productivity initiatives are important in enhancing productivity performance and national competitiveness in the countries of interest.

The study collects data from stakeholders in the NPOs in 16 countries. A Likert-scale questionnaire was used to collect data from two types of respondents – NPO CEOs and NPO professional/technical staff. Data were analysed by comparing the responses across the participating countries.

The result shows that there was general satisfaction with the mission, vision and strategic direction of the APO. With respect to the operational performance of the organisation, the study showed that there were some differences in perception of the performance of the APO although the overall perception was positive.

The study provides insights into the top management of the APO with regards to deciding on the future direction of the organisation and, in particular, the ways in which it understands and supports the varied requirements of the different NPOs.

Organisations such as the APO dedicate significant resources into supporting NPOs, and by extension productivity-related commercial operations, in several countries. It is important to understand how these services are perceived and experienced in these countries, and a definitive study to examine this has not previously been carried out.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption of practices and investigating of commonalities/intensities between the factors for measuring organizational effectiveness (OE) across healthcare supply chains in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

System theory coupled with the Supplier-Input-Process-Output-Customer tool was applied to facilitate the linkage between different nodes of the healthcare chain. An exploratory approach was used to explore and measure the importance of various OE factors across various nodes of the healthcare supply chain. Data were collected using a two-stage questionnaire process addressed at personnel in the UAE’s healthcare sector.

The study identified that 62 OE factors in the health are supply chain. Of these, 15 are related to suppliers, 14 to the healthcare process, 12 to employees, 8 to patients and the community, 6 to government directives and 7 to branding. In total, 21 common factors were identified and clustered into groups based on commonalities and intensities.

The study identifies the most important factors for healthcare organizations to achieve OE for different dimensions of operations or performance. These factors will provide valuable insights for decision makers in the sector; it will provide valuable insights to healthcare professionals and academia to investigate more on these factors.

While there is an increasing research interest in healthcare supply chains, this is the first study to investigate OE across the entire chain while also evaluating the importance of and commonalities in OE-enabling factors.