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The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a success story involving the extending of lean manufacturing practices between a focal firm and its supplier, both located in Brazil, thereby configuring a case of excellence.

An in-depth case study was conducted involving two companies: Company A, focal, leader in its segment, located in Brazil; and Company B, Company A's supplier, also located in Brazil.

Results indicate there are several mechanisms for extending lean manufacturing practices in the supply chain, such as workshops, training, and integrated teams. These mechanisms are shown and guidelines are also introduced for companies seeking to successfully extend lean manufacturing practices.

An original use of define, measure, analyze, improve, control for structuring the extending of lean manufacturing practices to suppliers and, consequently, the importance of the lean six-sigma relationship in this context. Furthermore, the guidelines introduced serve as a benchmark for other companies interested in the topic.

The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on the critical success factors (CSFs) of various continuous improvement (CI) like total quality management (TQM), Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma (LSS), and perform a content analysis (CA) leading to an agenda for future research.

CA is based on literature review of 41 papers published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. A four-stage methodology is used by the authors, with Stage 1 featuring relevant material collection; Stage 2 presenting a descriptive analysis; Stage 3 outlining the category selection; and Stage 4 featuring the material evaluation using clustering and Pareto analysis.

The CA revealed various research implications and directions for the future. The number of studies in the literature regarding CSF assessment is found to be far from substantial while compared to CI implementation. Assessment methodologies developed have been ranging from qualitative to quantitative models. Key gaps were identified and directions for CSF assessment are proposed which requires further validation.

Only articles that appeared in peer-reviewed journals were analyzed; conference papers, reports, manuals and white papers from practice were excluded. Another limitation of the paper would be the scope of CA limited to four CI constructs – TQM, Lean, Six Sigma and LSS. Research implications indicate that the future studies in this domain would be intensive toward analyzing the vital CSFs for enterprise organizational excellence and not merely process excellence.

This review study can serve as a resource for both researchers and practitioners to understand the importance of CSFs and positioning CSFs for the successful implementation of CI programs.

The CA on the existing literature on CSFs for CI presents a unique, systematic effort to identify an agenda for future research. This study is the apparently the first of its kind on CSF assessment.

The aim of this analysis is to review the Indian manufacturing organizations practicing Lean Six Sigma (LSS) tools/techniques with an objective of monitoring the performance of an organization and to develop recommendation for strategies to benchmark organizational operational efficiency.

This study offers insights of the LSS performance measurement aspects of the Indian manufacturing organizations based on Data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. The five inputs and two outputs are considered on the basis of literature review and discussed with the practitioners.

In this analysis, the relative efficiency score of 18 Indian manufacturing organizations has been determined in order to assist evaluation of the impact of monetary investment on the outputs. The present analysis not only investigates the optimum level of input variables but also lays down a significant observation that an organization having higher profit and inventory turnover ratio is not necessarily an efficient organization.

The results assist to determine the best practice units, potential source of inefficiency and deliver beneficial data for the consistent enhancement of the operational efficiency. The DEA results assist managers and decision makers to derive appropriate strategies to enhance their performance with reference to the efficient organization and to regard it as their role model.

This analysis renders a DEA based framework of LSS practicing Indian manufacturing organizations. The framework is unique in terms of its input-outputs variable selection and measurement procedure.

The purpose of this paper is to add to the quality management body of knowledge by solidifying the connection between operational and strategic aspects of lean transformation. Previous research has examined these issues in isolation, demonstrating mixed results in financial and operational efficiencies. The authors show that when operational and strategic changes are jointly considered the likelihood of success for lean transformation increases.

The authors provide a literature review of 109 peer-reviewed papers on lean manufacturing and qualitative analysis of 23 Baldrige award winners (2000-2014) that implemented lean to assess the importance of strategic actions in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage through lean transformation.

The authors find that lean transformation yields mixed results unless strategic actions are taken by senior management. These strategic actions include but are not limited to knowledge management, human resources, and business growth and can result in performance heterogeneity by improving the output/input ratio of the firm. This performance can then manifest as either doing the same level of business with fewer resources (a profit play) or doing more business with the same resources (a growth play). As specific examples, the authors analyzed Baldrige award winners for evidence of lean strategic action to drive performance gains. The authors suggest further model validation through directed interview and/or survey research.

This paper clarifies the need for jointly implementing lean tools with strategic actions. The findings provide more deliberate strategic actions for organizations wishing to increase the likelihood of success of lean transformation and ultimately improve quality.

This study aims to improve productivity and customer satisfaction through lean manufacturing for metals and engineering industries. Its aims also to understand the concept of lean manufacturing, various tools and techniques of lean, lean implementation benefits and barrier toward its implementation. Then, on the basis of the result, a conceptual frame work was developed to reduce the existing gaps.

Lean thinking is one of the methods that can bring productivity and customer’s demand improvement for manufacturing and service giving industries. To arrive at the lean thinking productivity improvement and customer satisfaction of the sector (MEIs), intensive literature review and secondary data investigation were conducted.

Articles and secondary data related to the case were reviewed and found the existing gaps. The gaps identified such as missing energy waste, space waste and material waste, waste of knowledge or talents. In addition to the 5 S of kaizen, this study added safety as the sixth on the existing Kaizen’s strategies. In lean practice, managers give priority to waste reduction and ignore the product quality aspect, which lead to dissatisfaction among customers. Fragmented implementation of lean manufacturing and the conflict between human resource waste and unemployment were reconciled in this study. A model that can improve productivity and increase customer satisfaction was developed. Solutions to alleviate the problems and speed up development were forwarded.

This study focused solely on the manufacturing industries of developing countries, specifically deals with basic metals and engineering industries. In addition to this, the research didn’t take a case study on a specific firm as it is a literature review.

The findings of this study emphasized that lean manufacturing is the key for wise resource utilization, which enables a firm for cost, lead time and waste reductions on one hand and productivity and flexibility improvements on the other. To the end, lean can bring sustainable development and bright images to firms, and wellbeing life to workers together with customer satisfaction.

The gaps that have not been identified by other researchers were clearly discussed, and on the basis of the gaps, a new conceptual model was developed. This is useful to basic metals and engineering industries in overcoming resource-limitation problems by eliminating wastes.

The purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to the benchmarking literature by examining the historical emergence and evolution of benchmarking using the management fashion perspective as a theoretical lens.

The research approach followed in this paper can be characterized as explorative and theoretical. Insights from different data sources have been combined to provide a rich description of the emergence and evolution of benchmarking.

This analysis casts new light on several aspects of benchmarking’s emergence and evolution pattern. The characteristics of the benchmarking idea give it potential as a fashionable management tool. The widespread popularity and longevity of benchmarking can to a large extent be explained by the efforts of various actors to turn benchmarking into an institution.

The paper is explorative and is limited by a reliance on secondary sources.

Although some researchers have noted that benchmarking could be viewed as a management fashion, management fashion theory has, only to a very limited extent, been used as a theoretical lens in the context of benchmarking. This research paper demonstrates that management fashion theory can provide valuable insights for research on benchmarking.

The purpose of this paper is to develop the balance score card (BSC) approach based Lean Six Sigma (LSS) performance measurement system and investigate the critical measures currently practiced by Indian manufacturing organizations.

This study offers insights of LSS performance measurement from manufacturing industry. Initially, the BSC-based framework is developed to recognize the adoption of LSS performance measures. Then, the framework is applied to nine Indian manufacturing organizations to assess the LSS performance measure practice.

The BSC-based framework of LSS performance evaluation for manufacturing industry is formulated. Then, adoption of these LSS performance measures is investigated with nine Indian manufacturing organizations. The result indicates significant variability in terms of practicing level of LSS measures. However, the majority of organizations are more sensitive to the customer perspectives.

This study reveals a background as to why the performance measurement is required for the success of LSS and for providing practical guidelines for designing performance metrics. The framework interrelates and captures various LSS perspectives and indicator measures, and furnishes a comprehensive outlook of the organization for strategic analysis. This study provides BSC-based template for performing the benchmarking study. This analysis may serve as a reference point for manufacturing organization to determine their system weaknesses, and assist them to concentrate on their most vital and suitable criteria and objectives. However, the analysis contributes to the knowledge on LSS performance measurement system and catches differences in theory and practice, paving the approach to newer research.

This study renders an industry-oriented LSS performance measurement practical approach and suggests the easily adopted vital performance measures for different manufacturing organizations.