Guest editorial

Citation

Antony, J. (2012), "Guest editorial", International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 29 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijqrm.2012.04029aaa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Volume 29, Issue 1

About the Guest Editor Professor Jiju Antony, Director of the Centre for Research in Six Sigma and Process Improvement (CRISSPE) and Director of Knowledge Exchange within Strathclyde Institute for Operations Management in his ten year research career, has published more than 200 refereed journals and conference papers and six textbooks in the area of reliability engineering, design of experiments, Taguchi methods, Lean Six Sigma, total quality management and statistical process control. He successfully launched the first International Journal of Lean Six Sigma in April 2010. Professor Antony has been invited several times as a keynote speaker to national conferences on Six Sigma in China, South Africa, The Netherlands, India, Greece, New Zealand, South Africa and Poland. He has also chaired the First, Second and Third International Conferences on Six Sigma and First and Second International Workshops on Design for Six Sigma. The recent work of Professor Antony includes collaborations with organisations such as Thales Optronics Ltd, Scottish Power, Rolls-Royce, Tata Motors, Bosch, Nokia, GE Domestic Appliances, Scottish Widows, 3M, Land Rover, GE Power Systems, NHS Ayr and Aaran, Kwit Fit Financial Services, Clydesdale Bank, etc. in the development of Six Sigma, Lean and Continuous Improvement programmes within these organisations. He is on the Editorial Board of over eight international journals and a regular reviewer of five leading international journals in quality, operations and production management. He has been recently elected to the International Academy of Quality, the first in Scotland and third in the UK to be elected to the Academy. He is a fellow of the Chartered Quality Institute, UK, a fellow of the Institute of Operations Management, UK, a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.

Enterprises in this first decade of the twenty-first century are perceived to be needed to excel on two fronts: strong in operational/service excellence and simultaneously in organic growth. Lean Six Sigma, an integrated approach of Lean and Six Sigma methodologies, has been proven to be a powerful process improvement strategy to meet these goals. In today’s high technology, quality and cost driven, competition-oriented business world, Lean and Six Sigma methodologies play an eminent role in enhancing business profitability, customer satisfaction, process capability and productivity. Although the original goal of Lean Six Sigma was to focus on manufacturing process, today the sales, marketing, purchasing, customer order, banking, software, insurance, financial and health care processing functions have also embarked on Lean Six Sigma initiative for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of core and supportive processes. Research has clearly indicated that the applications of these two powerful process improvement methodologies will continue to grow exponentially in various sectors such as healthcare, finance and even small- and medium-sized enterprises.

This special issue is aimed at meeting the challenges posed and overcoming the current gaps. In this special issue the authors have contributed to a number of articles that would further advance the knowledge base on this specific topic. The papers included in this special issue address prominent concepts, tools and techniques in the context of Lean and Six Sigma methodology, namely:

• •

  Manville et al. evaluate Lean Six Sigma within a case study from a middle managers perspective. This paper highlights the significance of developing learning capabilities in the middle management team along with a learning culture. The paper also assesses the critical success factors (CSFs) of Lean Six Sigma from a middle management perspective.

• •

  Assarlind et al. provide a theoretical foundation for combining Lean and Six Sigma and also provide valuable insights to managers who wish to embark on Lean and Six Sigma initiatives. Their findings suggest that it is appropriate to use Lean and Six Sigma in parallel but this should be done through clever cross-fertilization, such as taking variations in project complexity into consideration.

• •

  Antony et al. illustrate an application of Six Sigma methodology for improving the accuracy and timeliness of communication and information management (CIM) system within an “infrastructure support service” company in the UK. The results of the study indicated that a systematic and conscious effort to influence and control the flow of information will lead to efficient processes and improve effectiveness of CIM system within the case study company.

• •

  Hilton and Sohal develop a conceptual model for the successful deployment of Lean Six Sigma. The authors in this paper have examined the relationship between the successful deployment of Lean Six Sigma and a number of key explanatory variables such as competence of the deployment facilitator, competence of the project leader and so on.

• •

  Malik and Blumenfeld analyze the impact of Lean Six Sigma and a firm’s quality management capabilities in developing its organizational learning capability, especially in the business process outsourcing of a developing country. The case studies indicated that Lean Six Sigma is part of a deliberate fact-based cost leadership and quality differentiation strategy employed by firms to realize operational gains and service excellence.

• •

  Agus and Hajinoor present the use of Lean practice and its impact on Malaysian manufacturing companies from both supply chain and production managers’ perceptions. The study has also demonstrated that there is a strong correlation between Lean Production System, product quality and business performance.

• •

  Psychogios et al. explore the application of Lean Six Sigma in the context of service sector and two case studies from the Greek telecommunication industry have been selected. This study analytically explores the CSFs of Lean Six Sigma implementation.

This editorial concludes with my special thanks to the editor of the International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management for enabling me to initiate such a call for papers and to the authors and reviewers for enriching this body of knowledge. I would like to thank the numerous reviewers for their hard work, valuable contributions and co-operation. A big thank you goes to Professor Amrik Sohal for helping me with the proposal at the early stages of this special issue. I would also take this opportunity to thank all the paper contributors without whom this special issue would not have been possible.

Jiju AntonyGuest Editor