TY - JOUR
T1 - A Global Study Into the Reasons for Lean Six Sigma Project Failures
T2 - Key Findings and Directions for Further Research
AU - Antony, Jiju
AU - Lizarelli, Fabiane Leticia
AU - MacHado Fernandes, Marcelo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 1988-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2022/10/1
Y1 - 2022/10/1
N2 - A low success rate of improvement projects is one of the causes of the discontinuity of lean six sigma (LSS) initiatives in companies. It is essential to identify and evaluate the reasons why LSS improvement projects fail in order to enable LSS, Lean, and six sigma sustainability. This article presents the findings from a global survey conducted with 201 LSS experts around the world in both the service and manufacturing sectors. The results of this article point out the significant failure rates for LSS projects and alert that projects had higher termination rates in the measure and analyze phases [define, measure, analyze, improve, and control (DMAIC)]. Failures occur primarily at the corporate level. The main causes of project failures identified were the lack of commitment by top management, resistance to change, inadequate rewards and recognition mechanisms, inconsistent monitoring and control of the projects, and poor communication. This article shows that there are some minor differences in terms of ranking of these factors between the manufacturing and service sectors, but there is a significant difference in terms of continent and belt level (master black belts, black belts, and green belts).
AB - A low success rate of improvement projects is one of the causes of the discontinuity of lean six sigma (LSS) initiatives in companies. It is essential to identify and evaluate the reasons why LSS improvement projects fail in order to enable LSS, Lean, and six sigma sustainability. This article presents the findings from a global survey conducted with 201 LSS experts around the world in both the service and manufacturing sectors. The results of this article point out the significant failure rates for LSS projects and alert that projects had higher termination rates in the measure and analyze phases [define, measure, analyze, improve, and control (DMAIC)]. Failures occur primarily at the corporate level. The main causes of project failures identified were the lack of commitment by top management, resistance to change, inadequate rewards and recognition mechanisms, inconsistent monitoring and control of the projects, and poor communication. This article shows that there are some minor differences in terms of ranking of these factors between the manufacturing and service sectors, but there is a significant difference in terms of continent and belt level (master black belts, black belts, and green belts).
KW - Continuous improvement (CI)
KW - lean six sigma (LSS)
KW - project failures
KW - six sigma (SS)
KW - survey
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85090953022&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TEM.2020.3009935
DO - 10.1109/TEM.2020.3009935
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85090953022
SN - 0018-9391
VL - 69
SP - 2399
EP - 2414
JO - IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
JF - IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
IS - 5
ER -
