Integrating Lean and Six Sigma for a holistic process performance improvement

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) has been recognized as an improvement vehicle to enhance customer satisfaction and improve bottom line results for both existing and new business processes. Not surprisingly, there are a number of integrative approaches for Lean and Six Sigma previously applied in industry. Albeit different, the majority of the previous LSS models appear to have a common pattern. Rather than pursuing a holistic and systemic approach, Six Sigma has been adopted as a platform in which Lean tools have been added on top of it in an ad hoc manner. This potentially can lead to sub-optimization and fragmentation of the problem solving method being used, preventing companies to reap the full benefits of LSS. In this paper, we present a more holistic approach to integrating Lean and Six Sigma. The intent of this structured framework is to guide practitioners how to integrate their process improvement initiatives at a project level. Study limitations and areas for future research are also discussed.