Guest editorial

Citation

Setijono, D. (2012), "Guest editorial", International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 3 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijlss.2012.43703daa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Volume 3, Issue 4

It was a great pleasure to meet colleagues and delegates during the 4th International Conference on Lean Six Sigma in Glasgow at the end of March 2012. Some of the presented papers have fulfilled the criteria of novelty (which is the main emphasis of this special issue), in terms of addressing the currently limited research topics in Lean Six Sigma literature, therefore were invited to be included in this special issue of International Journal of Lean Six Sigma. Context-wise, the majority of papers in this special issue took empirical settings outside mass process, the typical process type in which Lean and/or Six Sigma are widely applied. It seems that creating value, as the ideal goal of Lean and Six Sigma, is much more recognized outside the non-typical process type(s).

A. Laureani and J. Antony conducted a survey on the critical success factors of Lean Six Sigma and collected approximately a hundred replies from various companies. Their findings suggest the importance of organizational software and humanware for successful Lean Six Sigma implementation, hence further reinforce the majority of findings in Lean Six Sigma literature.

Addressing the scarcity of research on organizational change (development) within Lean Six Sigma literature, R. Pinedo-Cuenca, P. Gonzales-Olalla, and D. Setijono develop a framework linking Six Sigma’s critical success factors with the antecedents of successful organizational changes and then examine the framework through a case study in a British, make-to-order, chemical company. Their findings suggest considerable fit between those two as well as theory-practice consistency.

Without doubts, the construction sector will be able to gain benefits from the synergy between Lean and Six Sigma methodologies. A framework developed by R. Al-Aomar indicates that reducing wastes and creating value require well integrated design, supply, and assembly. In this paper, value comprises delivery speed, quality, cost effectiveness, and flexibility. To manage and monitor the performance of construction processes, several Lean Six Sigma key performance indicators were defined. These metrics reflect both typical Lean Six Sigma measures and performance metrics in Project Management. Major findings (based on the survey of construction companies in Abu Dhabi) presented in this paper suggest that Lean Six Sigma will significantly contribute in improving both the output/outcome and the flow of construction processes.

Paper by P.M. Gibbons, C. Kennedy, S.C. Burgess, and P. S. Godfrey covers a much wider scope of value, i.e. creation of stakeholder value (in this case, customer and government), hence addressing the sustainability issue. The purposes of current and future states of value improvement (VI) model, i.e. fulfillment of service level agreement (SLA), assets value maximization (AVM), and minimisation of total operational cost (MTOC), make the developed framework strategic (in the sense that it is connected to business and operational strategies). It appears that SLA, AVM, and MTOC are driven by availability and the quality of the provided service, which in this case is enabled by and analysed from the perspective of Maintenance. The VI framework contains and deploys seven (7) P’s of understanding problems (purpose,perspective, people, plant, product, performance, and process) along the plan, do, check, act (PDCA) stages and supplier, input, process, output, customer (SIPOC) model.

Finally, I thank Professor Jiju Antony for giving me the opportunity to guest edit this special issue for the journal he leads. It is highly appreciated.

Djoko SetijonoGuest Editor