Lean Six Sigma tools and sustainable performance measurments: A Review

Abstract

In today's highly competitive business world, firms are constantly trying to rethink their processes in order to attain customer satisfaction and thus the highest levels of profitability. However, the increasingly high requirements of customers, the government, and other stakeholders have led to new hurdles in achieving more sustainable operations that incorporate social and environmental issues into production processes, while also achieving high levels of profitability. Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a method that has been proven to be effective for companies in order to attain sustainable performance goals. However, few studies have been devoted to reviewing the literature in order to identify the most commonly used LSS tools in the context of sustainability, as well as the different measures used to assess the economic, social and environmental outcomes that result from the use of the LSS approach. Thus, the objective of this paper is to conduct an in-depth literature review to present and synthesize the main results of previous studies on the impact of LSS tools on companies' sustainable performance pillars. The main finding of this literature review was that there are four categories of studies that have presented the relationship between the LSS approach and the concept of sustainability. Furthermore, the most used LSS tools in the context of sustainability have been identified, among which VSM, Cause and effect diagram, Pareto analysis, 5S, DoE, DMAIC and 5 why analysis. In addition, some of the least used LSS tools in the literature are TQM, Process Sigma Calculation, Consumption analysis, Cost- benefit analysis, SOPs and JIT. We also concluded that among the three dimensions of sustainable performance, the number of social performance measurements used is the highest.