Continuous improvement is an important business strategy for many organizations, and in the last few years Lean Six Sigma has become one of the most popular and proven business process improvement methodologies.Lean and Six Sigma developed as independent business improvement initiatives, before converging in the past decade. The success of Lean Six Sigma deployment depends on a series of process/quality improvement projects undertaken in organisations: although a vast amount of literature has explored the topic of Lean Six Sigma, most of it has centred around the technical aspects, specific case studies or problems, leaving a gap in knowledge about the impact of leadership on successful implementation.The aim of this research is to assess the impact of organizational leadership on the deployment of Lean Six Sigma in organisations and thereby develop a dependency model to facilitate its successful implementation. A mixed-methods approach, using survey and semi-structured interviews, was adopted.This research identifies leadership as a critical success factor for Lean Six Sigma deployment in organizations, details what leadership traits are needed for a successful deployment, differentiating by industry sector, and presents a leadership dependency model.Building on the existing literature, this research extends and helps refine our understanding of Lean Six Sigma and leadership, identifying the traits a leader needs to display to increase the chances of successful deployment.
Date of Award | 22 Mar 2019 |
---|
Original language | English |
---|
Awarding Institution | - University Of Strathclyde
|
---|
Supervisor | Jonathan Corney (Supervisor) & Abigail Hird (Supervisor) |
---|