Abstract
Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is the most current quality management approach being applied recently in many industries to improve food quality and subsequently process excellence in the businesses. The objectives of this paper are to determine the barriers and resistance to change factors of implementing LSS approach in the food industry. This study was conducted as to determine the benefits of applying LSS and comparing the trend of quality management being used in the food industry. It is also based on the application of systematic review of 113 LSS articles, involving a structured approach of data collection and data extraction. The listed barriers and resistance to change factors shown are top management support, lack of quality improvement knowledge, poor training and insufficient skills amongst employees and lack of financial budget thus causing the limitation of LSS approach in the food industry. The result mapped the current quality management approaches implemented in the food industry. The academics and the food industry practitioners may have an insight from this paper by considering their critical success factors, barriers and resistance to change factors that could facilitate towards a successful LSS implementation.
Highlights
Continuous improvement had been used widely in all industries in conjunction to achieve business process excellence while reducing and eliminating waste, reduce variation and adding on value in process streamlines
The most top barrier is lack of support from top management. This is shown by limited implementation of quality management being used in the food industry (Nguyen, Wilcock, & Aung, 2004; Besseris, 2014; Čiarnienė & Vienažindienė, 2015; Psomas, 2016). This barrier may affect the implementation of quality management used in food industry as the top management need to convince themselves with the benefits that can be obtained (Nguyen, Wilcock, & Aung, 2004) by influencing the employee participation on practicing new quality management (Putkiranta, 2012)
The barriers, resistance to change and benefits gains listed above can be used as a reference for the future researcher before considering to implement lean six sigma application in the food industry
Summary
Continuous improvement had been used widely in all industries in conjunction to achieve business process excellence while reducing and eliminating waste, reduce variation and adding on value in process streamlines. Productivity improvement that focused on producing high quality end products and adding on value in the processes are the concept of lean thinking. Six sigma had been popularized by American electronic industry that aiming to save time, improve products quality and lower the production cost. Hung and Sung (2011) stated that the Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC) approach which is the six sigma improvement model had been used to reduce the process variation and high defects rate in food industry quality program. This perfect combination between lean and six sigma had been practicing since early 2000s (George, 2002). According to Dora and Gellynck (2015), the lean six sigma application helps in reducing the overfill and rework processes in food processing Small Medium Entreprises environment
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