Lean Six Sigma is an approach focused on improving quality, reducing variation and eliminating waste in an organization. The concept of combining the principles and tools of Lean Enterprise and Six Sigma has occurred in the literature over the last several years. The majority of Lean Six Sigma applications have been in private industry, focusing mostly on manufacturing applications. The literature has not provided a framework for implementing Lean Six Sigma programs applied to local government. This research provides a framework roadmap for implementing Lean Six Sigma in local government. The Service Improvement for Transaction-based Entities Lean Six Sigma Framework Roadmap (SITE MAP) identifies the activities, principles, tools, and important component factors to implement Lean Six Sigma. The framework provides a synergistic approach to integrating the concepts and tools of Lean Enterprise and Six Sigma using the DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) problem solving approach. A case study was used to validate the framework. Lean Six Sigma was successfully applied in a 7,000-citizen municipality to reduce the cycle time of the financial administrative processes in the Finance Department of the city government.

Successfully implementing continuous improvement and quality methodologies have been challenging over the past century. Challenges occur in managing change in the organization, which can be effectively addressed through relationship building in concert with strong leadership. Even with solid leadership, change management, and relationship building, initiatives have challenges quantifying and identifying when to intervene in order to keep them on track for success. Creating a quantitative model using a 3-parameter logit s-curve, Blythe S-curve, to illustrate the growth and decay of the handoff of projects to the process owner will allow leadership the knowledge and direction to keep the initiative moving in a positive direction. Leveraging the Hotelling T2 multivariate charts on the residuals derived from the Blythe S-curve will give definitive statistical evidence on when to intervene on projects in the earliest possible time frame. Leaders in organizations implementing and actively using change management, relationship building, the Blythe S-curve model, and Hotelling T2 multivariate charts to drive quality and continuous improvement methodologies in their organization will improve the likelihood of success.

Yes / This paper presents the development of a Knowledge-Based System (KBS) to support the implementation of Lean Six Sigma (L6σ) principles applied to enhance Quality Management (QM) performance within a Healthcare Environment. The process of KBS building has been started by acquiring knowledge from experts in field of L6σ and QM in healthcare. The acquired knowledge has been represented in a rule-based approach for capturing L6σ practices. These rules are produced in IF….THEN way where IF is the premise and THEN is the action. The produced rules have been integrated with Gauging Absence of Pre-requisites (GAP) technique to facilitate benchmarking of best practice in a healthcare environment. A comprehensive review of the structure of the system is given, detailing a typical output of the KBS. Implementation of L6σ principles to enhance QM performance in a Healthcare Environment requires a pre-assessment of the organisation’s competences. The KBS provides an enhanced strategic and operational decision making hierarchy for achieving a performance benchmark. This research presents a novel application of a hybrid KBS with GAP methodology to support the implementation of L6σ principles to enhance QM performance in a healthcare environment. / The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the time of publication in the Emerald journal.

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No / The complexity of sustainable building maintenance environment enforces organizations to develop a standardized maintenance quality management system that can be applied in all concerned departments. This Chapter presents a novel conceptual model of a hybrid Knowledge-Based Lean Six Sigma Sustainable Building Maintenance System (Lean6-SBM). The KB model seeks to apply the Lean Six Sigma philosophy to support implementation of an ideal building maintenance system. The conceptual KB model also integrates GAP technique to support benchmarking and decision making. The proposed conceptual model is presented to show the fundamental components of the Lean6-SBM. / This work was supported by the Ministry of Defense Engineering Services 403 (MoDES—Sultanate of Oman) and the University of Bradford (United Kingdom).

A continuous improvement project (CIP) is a structured improvement project using a team of people "typically representing different departments or units in the organization" working to improve a process or work area over a relatively short period of time, such as a few days or up to several months. A CIP may use different improvement methodologies and tools, and may thus be defined according to the improvement approach. For instance, an organization adopting Lean as an improvement approach is likely to have CIPs implementing Lean tools, such as 5S or value stream mapping. These projects may be referred to as Lean projects in general, although they may also represent accelerated improvement projects such as Kaizen events, Kaizen blitz, or rapid improvement projects. Alternatively, an organization utilizing Six Sigma as an improvement approach may have Six Sigma projects that use the Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) process and statistical tools. Some organizations adopt an integrated improvement approach, such as Lean Six Sigma, and therefore may have CIPs with an even broader set of tools from which to choose. Lastly, many organizations may have an improvement approach not characterized by any single set of improvement processes and tools, and thus, may be thought of generally as process improvement, or quality improvement, projects using a traditional methodology as plan-do-study/check-act (PDSA or PDCA). In this dissertation, all of these types of improvement projects are referred as CIPs. Since the 1980s, hospitals have been using CIPs to address some of the problems in hospitals, such as quality in healthcare delivery, internal process efficiency, communication and coordination, and the cost of services. Some hospitals have achieved significant improvements, such as reducing the turnaround time for clinical laboratory results by 60 percent and reducing instrumentation decontaminations and sterilization cycle time by 70 percent. However, as with many other companies, hospitals often experience difficulty achieving their desired level of improvements with CIPs. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) related to CIP success. In order to achieve this goal, five objectives were achieved: creating a methodology to assess the maturity or evolution of a research field (manuscript #1), identifying a comprehensive list of CSFs for CIPs (manuscript #2), assessing the maturity of the published literature on CIPs in hospitals (manuscript #3), identifying the most important factors related to CIPs in hospitals (manuscript #4) , and conducting an empirical investigation to define the CSFs for CIPs in hospital settings (manuscript #5 and #6). This investigation was conducted in three phases: research framing, variable reduction, and model development and testing. During these phases, the researcher used the following methodologies and data collection tools: systematic literature review, maturity framework (developed as part of this dissertation), expert study, retrospective survey questionnaire, exploratory factor analysis, partial-least squares structural equation modeling, and regression modeling. A maturity framework with nine dimensions was created (manuscript #1) and applied in order to identify a list of 53 factors related to CIP in general, involving any organization (manuscript #2). Additionally, the maturity framework was used to assess the literature available on CIPs in hospitals, considering only the authorship characteristic dimension (manuscript #3). Considering the frequency of new authors per year, the relative new integration of research groups, and the limited set of predominant authors, the research field, or area, of CIPs in hospitals is one with opportunities for improving maturity. Using the systematic literature review from manuscript #3, the list of 53 factors, and the list of predominant authors, a review of the literature was conducted, along with an expert study to more fully characterize the importance of various factors (manuscript #4). A conclusion from this particular work was that it is not possible to reduce the list of 53 factors based on these results, thus, a field study using the complete comprehensive list of factors was determined to have stronger practical implications. A field study was conducted to identify factors most related to CIP perceived success (manuscript #5) and CIP goal achievement (manuscript #6). The final results and practical implications of this dissertation consist in the identification of the following CSFs for CIP success in hospitals: Goal Characteristics, Organizational Processes, Improvement Processes, and Team Operation. These CSFs include several specific factors that, to the researcher's knowledge, have not been previously studied in empirical investigations: goal development process, organizational policies and procedures, CIP progress reporting, and CIP technical documentation. Practitioners involved with CIPs, such as CIP leaders, facilitators, stakeholders/customers, and continuous improvement managers/leaders, can utilize these results to increase the likelihood of success by considering these factors in planning and conducting CIPs. / Ph. D.

The software development for mobile devices such as mobile phones, smartphones and tablets requires knowledge not only of processes but also related to software and hardware technology platforms of these devices. Continuous improvement in the performance of these platforms and the increasing demand for a variety of applications require a high competitiveness and, therefore, high levels of productivity and quality. In this scenario, agile methodologies are used and fit well to frequently changing requirements and to time to market. Among these methodologies, Scrum is one of the most accepted and used, contributing to the improvement of project management, team productivity, product quality and increasing the probability of project success. On the other hand, there is an increasing adoption of quality management methodologies such as Lean Six Sigma in Information Technology and Communication (ICT) organizations due to their proven results in improving processes development and quality of services and products developed. Methodologies such as Scrum and Lean Six Sigma have different goals, however, they can contribute together in the development of software for mobile devices. In literature, there are studies that propose the integration of agile methodologies and software quality, however, they have gaps regarding the possibility of systematic reuse of this integration, as well as in evaluating the use of these integrated methodologies. Thus, this paper proposes an evolution of an existing approach, called SLeSS, that integrates Scrum to Lean Six Sigma and has been used in the software customization for mobile phones. The evolution of this approach is to add software development in addition to customization and improve integration mechanisms initially proposed with a focus on evaluation of the practices and principles of Scrum from the use of techniques of Lean Six Sigma. This new version is applied in seven actual projects that are related to software development and customization for mobile devices and their results are also discussed in this dissertation. / O desenvolvimento de software para dispositivos mÃveis como smartphones, celulares e tablets requer conhecimento dos processos e das tecnologias relacionadas Ãs plataformas de software e de hardware desses dispositivos. A melhoria contÃnua no desempenho dessas plataformas e a demanda crescente por uma variedade de aplicaÃÃes impÃem uma alta competitividade e, por conseguinte, exigem nÃveis elevados de produtividade e de qualidade dos projetos de desenvolvimento. Nesse cenÃrio, as metodologias Ãgeis sÃo utilizadas por se adequarem bem Ãs frequentes mudanÃas de requisitos e Ãs demandas de prazo desse nicho de mercado. Dentre essas metodologias, o Scrum à uma das mais aceitas e utilizadas, contribuindo na melhoria da gestÃo de projetos, na produtividade do time, na qualidade dos produtos e no aumento da probabilidade de sucesso dos projetos. Por outro lado, hà uma crescente adoÃÃo de metodologias de gestÃo da qualidade como o Lean Six Sigma por organizaÃÃes da Ãrea de Tecnologia da InformaÃÃo e ComunicaÃÃo (TIC) devido aos seus resultados comprovados na melhoria dos processos de desenvolvimento e da qualidade dos serviÃos e dos produtos desenvolvidos. Metodologias como o Scrum e o Lean Six Sigma possuem objetivos distintos, entretanto, elas podem contribuir juntas no desenvolvimento de software para dispositivos mÃveis. Na literatura existem trabalhos que propÃem a integraÃÃo de metodologias Ãgeis e de qualidade de software, entretanto, esses trabalhos possuem lacunas no que tange a possibilidade de reuso sistemÃtico das mesmas bem como a avaliaÃÃo do uso dessas metodologias integradas. Este trabalho propÃe entÃo uma evoluÃÃo de uma abordagem jà existente, denominada SLeSS, que integra o Scrum ao Lean Six Sigma e que foi utilizada na customizaÃÃo de software para celulares. Essa evoluÃÃo visa ampliar a abordagem tanto para o desenvolvimento de software alÃm da customizaÃÃo quanto para melhorar os mecanismos de integraÃÃo inicialmente propostos com um foco na avaliaÃÃo das prÃticas e princÃpios do Scrum a partir do uso de tÃcnicas do Lean Six Sigma. Para avaliar a nova versÃo, ela à aplicada em sete projetos reais de desenvolvimento e customizaÃÃo de software para dispositivos mÃveis e seus resultados sÃo tambÃm discutidos nesta dissertaÃÃo.

I dagens samhälle finns ett stort behov av processeffektiviserings-metoder för att hålla företaget konkurrenskraftigt gällande produktivitet och effektivitet. Samtidigt satsar företag idag mycket på ekologisk hållbarhet, vilket har öppnat dörren för nya så kallade Green Lean-metoder vars syfte är att förbättra både produktivitet och hållbarhet. I detta arbete behandlas metoderna 5S, Environmental Value Stream Mapping, Green Lean Six Sigma samt Green Kaizen. Syftet med arbetet var att redogöra för innebörden av respektive metod samt motivera hur dessa metoder bör appliceras och implementeras i praktiken. Först behandlades metoderna teoretiskt, därefter praktiskt med enkäter. I arbetet behandlar vi företaget Scania och undersöker hur de valt att applicera och använda de metoder, hållbara metoder, de idag använder. Resultatet visade att det finns flera olika drivkrafter till varför man väljer att implementera Green Lean-metoder samt flera olika aspekter som påverkar vilka metoder som bör väljas, som exempelvis kundkrav eller erfarenhet och kunskap inom företaget. Scania använder idag Green Performance Map och Energy Kaizen som Green Lean-metoder. Slutsatsen som drogs är att metoden som bör implementeras varierar beroende på vad företaget tillverkar, hur långt de kommit med andra processeffektiviserings-metoder såsom Lean Production och Six Sigma. Om det är en problemdriven lösning så är EVSM en stark metod medan 5S bör implementeras uppifrån ledningen. / In today's society, there is a significant need for process improvement methods to maintain a company's competitiveness regarding productivity and reasonable pricing. Additionally, companies are investing heavily in environmental sustainability, leading to the emergence of new "Green Lean" methods aimed at creating improvements in both productivity and sustainability. This study examines the methods of 5S, Environmental Value Stream Mapping, Green Lean Six Sigma, and Green Kaizen. The aim of the study is to explain the meaning of each method and to motivate how these methods should be applied and implemented in practice. The methods were first studied theoretically and then practically with surveys. Scania was chosen as a case study to examine how they have chosen to apply and use the methods they have. The results showed that there are several driving forces for why companies choose to implement Green Lean methods, and several aspects affect which methods should be chosen, such as customer requirements or experience and knowledge within the company. Scania currently uses Green Performance Map and Energy Kaizen as Green Lean methods. The conclusion drawn is that the method to be implemented varies depending on what the company produces, and how far they have progressed with other process improvement methods such as Lean Production and Six Sigma. If it is a problem-driven solution, EVSM is a robust method, while 5S should be implemented by top management.

A cana-de-açúcar e uma das principais atividades econômicas do Brasil, tanto em termos de balança comercial, como de geração de empregos. O álcool (etanol) obtido da cana-de-açúcar e um combustível menos poluente, pois, contem oxigênio na sua composição e utilizado nos veículos movidos a etanol, na composição da gasolina automotiva e nos veículos ex. A queima do etanol produz 25% menos monóxido de carbono e 35% menos oxido de nitrogênio que a gasolina. Desta forma, as nações preocupadas em diminuir seus nesses de poluição atmosférica têm considerado como uma importante solução viável, a adoção do etanol como combustível automotivo . O objetivo deste trabalho foi apresentar propostas para a melhoria da qualidade e produtividade do setor, focado no desempenho dos processos e produtos, atraves de métodos estatísticos. Foi utilizada a metodologia \"Lean Seis Sigma\" aplicada no processo produtivo do etanol, em uma usina de açúcar e de álcool, visando acelerar a velocidade do processo, através da redução do desperdício e da variabilidade. A aplicação da metodologia \"Lean Seis Sigma\" foi realizada com o uso do modelo DMAIC (Dene, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control). A ferramenta utilizada para descrever a relação entre as variáveis de saída (Y) e as variáveis de entrada (X) foi a regressão linear múltipla, fazendo uso dos métodos de seleção de variáveis. O mapeamento do processo produtivo do etanol possibilitou a identificação das etapas que agregam e não agregam valor ao processo. Os resultados mostraram uma redução significativa no \\Lead Time\" (tempo do processo) e a identificação das principais variáveis envolvidas no processo produtivo do etanol / The sugarcane is one of the most important economic businesses in Brazil, in both terms of trade balance and job opportunity. Alcohol (ethanol), obtained from sugarcane, is a fuel cleaner, because it contains oxygen in its composition and is used in vehicles powered by ethanol, on the composition of automotive gasoline and ex-fuel vehicles. Ethanol burning produces 25% less carbon monoxide and 35% less nitrogen oxide than gasoline. Thus, the nations that concern on reducing their levels of air pollution consider it as an important and available solution to be adopted as an automotive fuel. So, this trial aimed at making some proposals for improving quality and productivity of this sector, focused on the performance of processes and products, according to some statistical methods. The studied methodology was Lean Six Sigma, applied in the production process of ethanol, in a sugar and alcohol Plant in order to speed up its process by reducing waste and variability. The Lean Six Sigma methodology was carried out using the DMAIC model (Dene, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control). The multiple linear regression tool described the relationship among the output variables (Y) and the input variables (X), associated to the methods of variable selection. The mapping of ethanol production process enabled the identication of steps that add, and does not add value to the process. The results showed a signicant reduction in the Lead Time as well as to identify the main variables involved in the production process of ethanol.

Lack of strategies to sustain continuous improvement initiatives to serve the needs of consumers whilst restructuring to conform to regulations has resulted in the collapse of some financial service companies in Ghana. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies some leaders of financial service companies use to engage employees to sustain continuous improvement initiatives to improve organizational performance. The targeted population comprised 6 senior leaders of financial service companies in Ghana who have engaged employees to sustain organizational continuous improvement initiatives. The conceptual framework for this study was Goldratt's theory of constraint complemented by the transformational leadership theory. Data were collected using semistructured face-to-face interviews, analysis of company reports, and field notes. Based on methodological triangulation and thematic analysis, 3 themes emerged from the study: operational excellence, employee engagement and incentives, and leadership strategies. The implications of these findings for positive social change include the potential to reduce poverty and improve quality of life in Ghana. Business leaders whose organizations attain improved financial performance can direct their efforts to increasing their organization's corporate social responsibility in the communities where they do business by supporting local charities and other initiatives.