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Status of lean
Status of Lean Six Sigma six sigma
implementation in Indian
industries: a cross-sectional
national survey
Anand S. Patel and Kaushik M. Patel Received 19 May 2022
Revised 16 July 2022
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, 25 August 2022
Ahmedabad, India Accepted 24 November 2022

Abstract
Purpose – Evidence indicates that the Indian economy has grown enormously in recent years. and Lean Six
Sigma (LSS) has evolved globally as a structured business improvement strategy with diverse applicability in
the last fifteen years. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the status of LSS implementation in Indian
industries using a survey research technique.
Design/methodology/approach – A survey questionnaire was devised from the literature, containing
25 questions to assess respondents’ awareness of the LSS methodology and gain insights on aspects
associated with LSS adoption in Indian industries. The survey questionnaire was validated and was
conducted using randomly sampled respondents from the Confederation of Indian Industries membership
database. The collected data were statistically analyzed using IBM SPSS and MS Excel.
Findings – The findings attest that adopting LSS is not so encouraging and extremely poor in small- and
medium-scale Indian industries. ISO 9001 emerged as a prominent quality improvement program. It is learnt
that consultants play a pivotal role in bringing awareness and skills building while implementing LSS.
Results endorse top management commitment and involvement, and resistance to change as leading success
factors and challenges, respectively. Further, it is revealed that respondents were highly satisfied after the
adoption of LSS.
Research limitations/implications – The findings of this study were derived from 183 responses and
should be generalized cautiously.
Originality/value – This paper provides valuable insights on the present status covering the issues
related to L:SS implementation in India. These results can motivate the managers of Indian industries for wide
adoption of the LSS methodology. In addition, the findings of the paper may assist the researchers providing
direction to carry out further research in LSS in the Indian context.
Keywords Lean six sigma, India, Survey, Success factors, Failure factors
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Emerging/innovative technology has impacted different facets of society globally in the
recent past and is evolving even faster. The diverse applications of emerging/innovative
technology have brought tremendous changes in the operations of businesses as today’s
customers expect value-added quality products at a lower cost. Therefore, in recent times,
businesses have experienced rapid technological changes, value-enhanced products at
lower cost, stiff global competition, shorter product lifecycles and customers with high
International Journal of Lean Six
Sigma
The authors acknowledge and are grateful to the Institute of Technology, Nirma University, © Emerald Publishing Limited
2040-4166
Ahmedabad for providing financial support to procure the Online CII membership database. DOI 10.1108/IJLSS-05-2022-0107
IJLSS expectations. In the post-globalization era since 1991, Indian businesses have been
compelled to accept the challenges like focusing on quality in products and processes,
enhancing product performance standards and innovating the products and processes with
the adoption of new technologies (Jasti and Kodali, 2014). As one of the fastest growing
economies of recent times, the Indian economy has made impressive growth in various
areas, including service sectors, during two decades of the 21st century (Das, 2006; Sharma
et al., 2018). While India is to become a developed nation in the coming time, it is reported
that the Indian small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) are required to contribute more
and more to the economic growth of the country and to play a crucial role in innovating
the products and processes incorporating the sustainability (Mannan et al., 2016). Hence,
quality, innovation and sustainability have emerged as the prime vital factors to remain
competitive globally in the manufacturing and service sectors. Therefore, the adoption of
innovative technologies and strategies is the need for the hour in various spectrums of
business activities.
Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methodology has gained popularity worldwide as a powerful
technique for quality improvement (Raval et al., 2018). It has proved to be one of the
alternatives to businesses globally in the past 20 years. LSS methodology is a blend of a
couple of improvement approaches – lean philosophy and six sigma methodology (Chen and
Lyu, 2009). According to an article by Mahato et al., the evolution of LSS is considered a
significant development in the quality and technology domain (Mahato et al., 2017). Based
on a drastic increase in the number of research publications on LSS in the past 10 years, LSS
sparked significant interest, as a research domain, amongst practitioners, academicians and
researchers (Patel and Patel, 2021a; Sunder M and Antony, 2018). While addressing the
issues related to quality and productivity, Indian businesses urgently need to adopt the LSS
methodology (Lande et al., 2016; Vinodh et al., 2010). Therefore, through the present study,
the authors attempt to learn the LSS implementation in Indian industries by examining the
issues related to its implementation.
Based on the above, the broad objective of the present study is to assess the present
scenario of the LSS implementation in Indian industries using the survey research
technique. Further, a few of the aspects examined through the present study includes
acceptance of quality improvements programs, reasons for LSS implementation, awareness
of LSS, success factors and challenges faced during LSS implementation and benefits
realized from LSS implementation in the Indian context. The authors believe that the
research findings, along with managerial implications, as an outcome of the present study,
will help the Indian academia, researchers, techno-managerial professionals and others
worldwide.
The research paper is arranged as follows: Section 1 highlights the introductory remarks,
followed by the literature study in Section 2. Section 3 of the research paper describes the
research approach followed in the present study. Section 4 of the research paper
incorporates the analysis and result of the present study. The discussion, along with the
managerial implications, is discussed in Section 5. Section 6 summarizes the outcomes and
the limitations of the study as concluding remarks.

2. Literature study
2.1 Lean philosophy
Japan reported severe devastation to its infrastructures post Second World War and was
confronted with shortage of skilled labor, materials, manufacturing and finances. Toyota
Motor Company was one such industry facing stiff global competition because of resource
constraints (Reichhart and Holweg, 2007). Eiji Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno reviewed Ford’s
mass production concept and found it difficult to implement in Japan because of the Status of lean
constraints. However, based on the understanding of Ford’s mass production concept, six sigma
Taiichi Ohno, Eiji Toyoda along with Shigeo Shingo evolved their production system
focused on processing and performance improvements through the elimination of waste,
known as Toyota Production System (TPS) (Shah et al., 2008; Vinodh and Joy, 2012). The
jidoka and just-in-time are the two pillars of the TPS house (Sugimori et al., 1977). Taiichi
Ohno described the elimination of non-value-added wastes (Japanese words as Muda –
waste, Mura – unevenness and Muri – overburden) as a prime concern for any business
with overproduction, waiting, transportation, inventory, movement, over-processing and
defective parts were identified as wastes (Ohno, 1988). This production system developed at
Toyota Motor Company received initial global attention during the oil crisis in the early
1970s (Godinho Filho et al., 2016). Further, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
researchers explored different manufacturing approaches in automobile companies,
including the TPS under the International Motor Vehicle Program (Bhasin and Burcher,
2006). In his article “Triumph of the Lean Production,” the word “lean production” was first
introduced by John Krafcik (Krafcik, 1988). Later, in the book titled “The Machine that
Changed World” on TPS by Womack et al. in the 1990s, TPS popularly became “Lean
Production” or “Lean Manufacturing” (Womack et al., 1990). According to Womack and
Jones, “lean thinking is lean because it provides a way to do more and more with less
and less – less human effort, less equipment, less time and less space – while coming closer
and closer to providing customers with exactly what they want”. Further, elaborated the
specify the value, identify the value stream, flow, pull, and perfection as the fundamental
lean principles (Womack and Jones, 1996). Researchers termed the “lean” as a set of
principles (Womack et al., 1990), a philosophy (Bhasin and Burcher, 2006), a model
(Drohomeretski et al., 2014) and as a bundle of tools and practices (Shah et al., 2008).

2.2 Six sigma methodology

A US-based electronics product manufacturer, Motorola, launched Six Sigma in a quest to
find solutions to low-quality products focusing on minimizing the process variation in the
1980s. A specific interrelationship was observed in product failure rate after sales and non-
detection of product defects at the time of inspection during manufacturing, according to Bill
Smith (Reliability Engineer) (Heavey and Murphy, 2012; Narottam et al., 2019). Bill Smith,
Mikel Harry and others devised a four-stage problem-solving methodology: measure,
analyze, improve, and control under the six sigma program (Brady and Allen, 2006).
Motorola reported a gain of US 2.2 billion dollars because of the six sigma program and was
awarded the maiden Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) in 1988.
Statistically, Six Sigma (Sigma is denoted as a geek letter “r”) stands for 3.4 defects per
million opportunities, corresponding to a success rate of 99.9997% with an assumption of
the 1.5-time shift in process average (Ben Romdhane et al., 2017). Few other companies,
including General Electric, while implementing the six sigma program, added a Define (D)
stage in choosing the right project in the beginning (Hoerl, 2001), which made the
methodology define, measure, analyze, improve and control. Six Sigma is termed as a
quality philosophy and methodology (Nourelfath et al., 2016), a problem-solving
methodology (Antony et al., 2016), a well-structured methodology (Lee and Wei, 2010) and a
management tool (Narottam et al., 2019). Since its inception, the Six Sigma methodology has
been pinpointed in the form of three generations, i.e. first, second and third generations,
respectively, focused on reduction in variation in manufacturing, enhancement of business
performance through cost reduction, and improved product and value creation for the
organization along with its stakeholders (Antony, 2007).
IJLSS 2.3 Lean six sigma methodology
Lean and Six Sigma evolved independently in disparate business conditions to enhance
the processes and product quality, as highlighted in the previous section. In 30 years, both
approaches grew significantly from their independent origins with applications in
diversified sectors, broadly in manufacturing and service sectors (Antony et al., 2017).
In addition, few research studies established that the aims of both the approaches differ,
i.e. Lean aims mainly to eliminate the waste from the processes, whereas Six Sigma aims to
minimize the variation in the product and/or processes, and the combined implementation
lead to synergetic impact on performance improvements (Corbett, 2011; Park, 2003). The
literature revealed that George Group, a consulting organization in the USA in 1986, was the
first to practice jointly Lean and Six Sigma approaches, which now is popular as the LSS
methodology (Chakravorty and Shah, 2012; Salah et al., 2010; Thomas et al., 2009; Vinodh
et al., 2014). Further, integration of both approaches is required as Lean lacks statistical
concepts in process control, whereas Six Sigma lacks removal of all types of wastes in
isolation (George, 2002). Therefore, as a hybrid approach, LSS integrates process
improvement speed from Lean, reduces quality variation from Six Sigma and emerges as a
management strategy for continuous improvement (Sheridan, 2000). LSS is a methodology
that maximizes shareholder’s value by achieving a faster rate of improvement in customer
satisfaction, cost, quality process speed and invested capital (George, 2002). Another
viewpoint stated as “Lean Six Sigma methodology is a powerful action plan for dramatically
improving quality, increasing speed and reducing waste” (Chelangat, 2016). The study on
recently published review articles in the reputed peer-reviewed journals on LSS endorses
encouraging the popularity of LSS methodology in different sectors based on a drastic
increase in research articles on LSS in the second decade of the current century (Gupta et al.,
2020; Patel and Patel, 2021a; Raja Sreedharan and Raju, 2016; Raval et al., 2018; Shokri,
2017). Looking at the research articles in the literature, researchers denominated LSS
diversely as latest generation of improvement approach (Snee, 2010), business improvement
methodology (Laureani and Antony, 2012), system (Maleyeff et al., 2012), holistic strategy
for business improvement (Albliwi et al., 2015), a tool for operational excellence (Raja
Sreedharan and Raju, 2016), management strategy (Lande et al., 2016), systematic data-
driven methodology (Ben Ruben et al., 2017), quality improvement technique (Yadav and
Desai, 2017), quality excellence methodology (Sunder M and Antony, 2018), process
improvement methodology (Molla et al., 2018), process performance and improvement
model (Wang et al., 2019), qualitative management initiative (Sony et al., 2019) and
continuous improvement methodology (Chen and Lyu, 2009; Null et al., 2019; Patel and
Patel, 2021b). Several case studies were published in the literature on application of LSS
methodology in varied sectors like automotive component manufacturing (Antony, Gupta,
et al., 2018b; Gijo et al., 2018; Kumar et al., 2006; Ben Ruben et al., 2017; Swarnakar and
Vinodh, 2016; Vinodh et al., 2011), electrical appliance manufacturing (Chen et al., 2010),
casting (Gijo et al., 2014), textile industry (Adikorley et al., 2017; Karthi et al., 2013), food
processing (Dora and Gellynck, 2015; Powell et al., 2017), health-care-related services (Bhat
et al., 2014; Chiarini, 2012; El-Banna, 2013; Furterer, 2018; Gijo and Antony, 2014; Honda
et al., 2018; Shirey et al., 2018; Sunder M et al., 2020; Trakulsunti et al., 2020), pharmaceutical
industry (Ismail et al., 2014), maintenance function in aerospace engine (Hill et al., 2017),
banking and financial services (Delgado et al., 2010; Madhani, 2018; Sunder M and Antony,
2015; Sunder M, 2016), higher educational services (Antony, Ghadge, et al., 2018a;
Haerizadeh and Sunder M, 2019; Nallusamy and Rao, 2018; O’Reilly et al., 2019; Sunder M
and Mahalingam, 2018; Thomas et al., 2017), business process outsourcing (Ray and John,
2011), engineering support service (Ratnayake and Chaudry, 2017), logistics services
(Gutierrez-Gutierrez et al., 2016), software and information technology (IT) support services Status of lean
(Gijo et al., 2019), oil and gas exploration services (Deithorn and Kovach, 2018), insurance six sigma
claim processing (Sarkar et al., 2013) and many more.
The applicability of the LSS methodology has changed from its original focus on
improving the quality of the products and the productivity of the processes to developing
new approaches with the integration of other strategies. Literature reports a sizable amount
of research work carried out on the integration of LSS with different strategies. Few of the
research articles have discussed integrated frameworks of LSS with a quality management
system (QMS) (Karthi et al., 2011), environmental considerations (Powell et al., 2017; Ben
Ruben et al., 2017, 2018), sustainability aspects (Cherrafi et al., 2016; Erdil et al., 2018; Flor
Vallejo et al., 2020; Kowang et al., 2016; Ben Ruben et al., 2020), green initiative (Cherrafi
et al., 2017; Kaswan and Rathi, 2020, 2021; Kumar et al., 2015, 2016; Mishra, 2022; Sony and
Naik, 2019; Sreedharan V et al., 2018; Yadav et al., 2021), agile manufacturing and scrum
(Mundra and Mishra, 2021; Vijayakumaran et al., 2014), TRIZ (a Russian acronym meaning
“Theory of Inventive Problem Solving”) (Wang and Chen, 2010) and enterprise resource
planning (Nauhria et al., 2009). Looking at the above, it is evident that LSS is one of the
innovative and widespread manifestations of continuous improvement programs and has
emerged as a research domain.
In addition, posteconomic reforms in 1991, India’s economy has significantly
transformed in the past 30 years and reported a splendid growth rate with one of the fastest
growing economies in the world in the previous 10 years. The stiff rise in the service sectors
is one of the influential factors in the growth rate (Siddiqui, 2018). Similarly, the crucial
factor in India’s journey toward growth is awareness and adoption of innovative
technologies and management strategies in process improvements, manufacturing quality
products and product development by the Indian industries. The policies and schemes of
current Indian Government with a specific focus on micro, small and medium enterprises
(MSMEs) for financial assistance, technology assistance and upgradation, infrastructure
development, skill development and training, enhancing competitiveness, etc. had an impact
on the Indian economy (MSME Annual Report 2020– 21, 2021). Other initiatives like “Start-
up India,” “Make-in India,” “Stand-up,” “Atmanirbhar Bharat,” etc. are expected to enhance
the growth further in the future. Although the competitiveness of Indian industries has
enhanced, according to Maiti (2018), Indian industries are poor in the adoption of quality
improvement tools and strategies. Therefore, a research study is designed to understand
LSS implementation in Indian industries, as LSS is widely accepted as a strategy for
operational excellence. The research approach for the study is discussed in Section 3.

3. Research approach
The focus of the study is to assess the present scenario of the LSS implementation in Indian
industries. To attain the broad objective of the study, the study is curtailed into the research
questions as follows.

RQ1. What are the quality improvement programs adopted in Indian industries?
RQ2. What is the status of LSS implementation in Indian industries?
RQ3. What are the motivating factors in LSS implementation?
RQ4. What is the source of awareness about the LSS methodology?
RQ5. What are the tools and techniques of the LSS methodology used during the
implementation?
IJLSS
RQ6. What are the necessary critical success factors responsible for implementing LSS?
RQ7. What are the challenges faced during the LSS implementation?
RQ8. What are the benefits realized due to implementing the LSS methodology?
RQ9. What were the reasons for the non-adoption of the LSS methodology?

3.1 Development of survey questionnaire

One of the ways to categorize the research approaches is as quantitative and qualitative
approaches. The quantitative approach aims to analyze the collected data from a population,
whereas the qualitative approach focuses on interpreting the respondent’s viewpoint,
behavior and opinion in a subjective manner. To determine the answers to the research
questions of the present study, a Web-based survey approach was used as a research
approach. A Web-based survey approach allows researchers to capture primary data from a
large sample at almost negligible cost compared with other research approaches. A survey
questionnaire was designed to find answers to the research questions incorporating the LSS
implementation issues based on the literature. The survey questionnaire was deduced from
a few of the research articles that existed in the literature (Albliwi et al., 2017; Alsmadi et al.,
2012; Antony et al., 2005; Antony and Desai, 2009; Antony and Fergusson, 2004). There are
two parts to the survey questionnaire. The first part of the survey questionnaire focused on
collecting the basic information about the respondent, like respondent designation,
education, experience organization/industry size and sector, quality assurance department
and history of other improvement strategies. The second part of the survey questionnaire
focused on gaining insights on LSS implementation. The contents of the survey
questionnaire were piloted for readability, clarity and relevance to the research objectives.
The survey questionnaire was sent to ten experts (four academicians, four industry
professionals and two consultants) with more than 20 years of experience in different
capacities in Lean and Six Sigma, in India. Additionally, the inputs were collected from an
English language expert. Accordingly, the survey questionnaire was revised and fine-tuned,
incorporating the experts’ feedback and comments.

3.2 Survey protocol and data collection

The authors used a Web-based survey approach to gather primary empirical data from
industry professionals in India. A Web-based survey approach provides an excellent
opportunity to promptly gather extensive information from the respondents (Easterby-
Smith et al., 2012; Sony et al., 2021). The industry respondents were screened from the
Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) directory of members for 2021. The stratified
systematic random sampling followed, and 1,049 industry respondents (11% of industry
database of CII directory of members) were screened from different industries in India
(small, medium and large/manufacturing and service sectors). Some of the criteria
considered while screening the industry database are the location of the industry, phone
number, valid website and email address of the professionals (Albliwi et al., 2017; Ghosh,
2013). The targeted industry respondents include top to middle management level
management executives. An introductory email invitations were sent to the industry
respondents illustrating the prime objectives of the study, including the Web-based survey
questionnaire link (through Google Form). In addition, the industry respondents were
reassured about the confidentiality of the data collected through the same email invitation.
Of the 1,049 email invitations sent, 102 email messages could not be delivered and bounced Status of lean
back for reasons like the email account did not exist (respondent might have left the six sigma
industry), the recipient server did not accept a request to connect, the recipient rejected email
and an incorrect email address or the destination domain. Hence, the total number of
delivered email invitations was 947. To maximize the response rate, two reminder emails
were sent after five weeks to the nonrespondents. Before the data analysis, the responses
were examined for missing values and outliers. All the responses were collected through a
google form, which was found to be complete in all aspects. However, two duplicate
responses were excluded from the collected responses because it was from the same
respondents. Therefore, the total valid responses screened for analysis were 183 responses
collected during the six-month period. This yielded a response rate of 19.32%. According to
a few research studies, a response rate of 20% is considered reasonably good and is widely
accepted to be sufficient (Antony et al., 2008; Easterby-Smith et al., 2012; Lee, 2008; Sony
et al., 2021). Therefore, further analysis of the collected data has been accomplished using
the IBM Statistical Package for the Social Science (popularly known as SPSS) version 24 and
MS Excel. The stepwise research approach adopted in the present study is depicted in
Figure 1.

3.3 Profile of the industry respondents

This part presents the profile of the industry respondents who participated in the survey on
LSS implementation in India. A total of 183 industry respondents participated in the survey.
Table 1 summarizes the respondents’ demographic details like education, designation and
experience. Looking at Table 1, approximately 43% of respondents hold positions at the top
management level, i.e. director, chairman, president and chief executive officer, whereas
approximately 51% of respondents hold middle-level positions, i.e. general manager, quality
manager and executives. The remaining 6% of respondents hold positions as deputy
general manager, industrial engineering manager and technical assistant in the other
category. The educational background of more than 93% of the respondents is at
the undergraduate level or above. In addition, 76.5% of respondents who responded to the
present study had working experience ranging from 13 years to more than 20 years.
Henceforth looking at the above, it is evident that respondents are well educated, informed
and acquainted with quality management, and their perceptions are reliable and creditable.

Figure 1.
Stepwise research
approach adopted in
the present study
IJLSS Demographic parameter Frequency %

Respondent’s designation
Chairman 12 6.6
President 11 6.0
Director 46 25.1
Chief executive officer 11 6.0
General manager 45 24.6
Quality manager 26 14.2
Executive 22 12.0
Other 10 5.5
Respondent’s education
Diploma 12 6.6
Undergraduate 94 51.4
Postgraduate 71 38.8
PhD 6 3.3
Respondent’s experience
1–4 years 7 3.8
5–8 years 16 8.7
Table 1. 9–12 years 20 10.9
Demographic profile 13–16 years 20 10.9
of industry 17–20 years 23 12.6
respondents More than 20 years 97 53.0

Moreover, the survey respondents are from diverse industry backgrounds like machinery
manufacturing (65 respondents), chemical processing (17 respondents), auto and ancillary
(13 respondents), rubber and plastic products, software and IT services (11 respondents
each), food product and processing (8 respondents), pharmaceuticals (7 respondents),
electronic and electrical products, foundry (6 respondents each) and few more as shown in
Figure 2. The other respondents were from the organizations like construction, education

Figure 2.
Industry background
from which
respondents
participated in the
survey
and consulting, furniture, jewelry, research and development, service industry, steel Status of lean
manufacturing, railway manufacturing, oil and gas production, aviation and medical device six sigma
manufacturing based on responses collected. In response to one of the survey questions
about the availability of independent quality assurance or related departments, 87% of
industries have separate quality-related departments. In contrast, the others do not have
separate quality-related departments (see Figure 3).

4. Analysis and result

This part of the research paper discusses the authors’ attempt to elucidate the implementation
of LSS in India by finding answers based on the analysis of survey questions. Further, the
survey questions were analyzed using IBM SPSS software and MS Excel, which are as follows.

4.1 What are the quality improvement programs adopted in Indian industries?
Different quality improvement programs have been reported in the literature, including the
Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle, company-wide quality control, TPS, Six Sigma, Lean
Manufacturing, Kaizen, Benchmarking, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Total Quality
Management, Business Process Reengineering, Agile Manufacturing, Theory of Constraints
and TRIZ. So, to study the implementation of improvement programs, a related question was
asked in the survey questionnaire. Based on the analysis, ISO 9001 (Quality Management
System) certification and PDCA cycle are the most commonly adopted improvement programs,
with 128 and 106, as shown in Figure 4. These are followed by Kaizen, Lean Manufacturing,
Six Sigma, Benchmarking, TPM and Business Process Reengineering. The other programs are
Agile Manufacturing, 8 D methodology, Business excellence model and ISO 27001.
The result clearly depicts the popularity of ISO 9001 (QMS) certification as a quality
improvement program in India. This finding aligns with the results reported in the literature for
similar studies conducted in France and Saudi Arabia (Albliwi et al., 2017; Alhuraish et al., 2016).

4.2 What is the status of lean six sigma implementation in Indian industries?
Lean and Six Sigma has evolved in manufacturing organization and is widely implemented
in various sectors of the organization, including service section, with different sizes,
i.e. large-, medium- and small-scale organizations. Therefore, respondents were asked to

Figure 3.
Information on
quality assurance or
quality-related
department
IJLSS state the type of organization based on size through one of the survey items. The analysis
revealed that 66 responding organizations had implemented the LSS methodology out of the
total 183 responses received, as shown in Figure 5. While analyzing the responses further, it
was found that 32 large-scale, 23 medium-scale and 11 small-scale organizations had
implemented LSS from a total of 57 responses from large-scale, 67 responses from medium-
scale and 59 responses from small-scale organizations, respectively (See Figure 6). In
addition, the analysis revealed that the 34 SMEs had implemented LSS, with approximately
55% of them being machine and auto ancillary manufacturing.

4.3 What are the motivating factors in lean six sigma implementation?
The adoption of new initiatives in any business is always based on motives, which are
also termed as motivating factors. Accordingly, to understand the motivating factors in
LSS implementation, the respondents were solicited to identify the motivating factors
considered for implementing LSS. Based on the responses, it is found that many
organizations implemented LSS mainly to enhance customer satisfaction. Further, it is
evident from the analysis that the other motivating factors of importance are to enhance
operational excellence, benchmark the world-class organization and reduce the cost of the
implementation of LSS. The other motivating factors identified are solving the chronic

Figure 4.
Adoption of quality
improvement
programs

Figure 5.
Status of Lean
Six Sigma
implementation
 Status of lean
six sigma

Figure 6.
Lean Six Sigma
implementation in
different sizes of
industries

problems, to redesign/innovate the products/services and the competitive market, as shown

in Figure 7. Also the two leading motivating factors for SMEs are aimed to improve
customer satisfaction and enhance the operational excellence.

4.4 What is the source of awareness about the lean six sigma methodology?
To understand, who provided the initial directives and information on the LSS
methodology in an early stage of implementation, the respondents were asked to
identify the sources of awareness in the survey questionnaire. Looking at Figure 8, the
consultants emerge with 39% responses, 26 of 66 responses, as a leading source who
provided necessary guidance and awareness on implementing the LSS methodology,
followed by the collaborator with 18% responses, 12 of 66 responses. The customer
feedback, scheme of government and supply chain are the other sources with
approximately 8%, 8% and 6% responses, respectively. The other categories include
self-learning, market trend, research and magazine as sources of awareness.

4.5 What are the tools and techniques of the lean six sigma methodology used during the
implementation?
Based on the literature review, 26 tools and techniques of the LSS methodology had been
identified and included as one of the elements in the survey. The respondents were asked to

Figure 7.
Motivating factors for
Lean Six Sigma
implementation
IJLSS

Figure 8.
Sources of awareness
about the Lean Six
Sigma methodology

grade the tools and techniques depending on the degree of usefulness on a three-point scale,
1 = low usefulness, 2 = medium usefulness and 3 = high usefulness. Further, no missing
value was found in the responses collected, and descriptive statistics analysis, i.e. mean and
standard deviation (SD), were performed. Subsequently, the tools and techniques ordered
based on the mean value are presented in Table 2.

Tools and techniques Mean SD

5S 2.67 0.56
Kaizen 2.58 0.82
Process mapping 2.55 0.71
Brainstorming 2.47 0.88
Plan Do Check Act 2.42 0.73
7QC tools 2.39 0.72
Why-why analysis 2.33 1.11
Failure mode effect analysis 2.27 0.94
Poka-Yoke 2.21 0.94
Process capability 2.15 0.97
Quality costing analysis 2.11 1.04
Project charter 2.06 1.04
SIPOC 2.05 1.04
Value stream mapping 2.02 1.22
Quality function deployment 1.97 0.98
Kanban 1.82 1.07
Measurement system analysis 1.82 1.01
Matrix analysis 1.79 1.02
Balanced scorecard 1.73 0.92
Regression analysis 1.65 1.03
Design of experiment 1.53 1.00
Table 2.
Single minute exchange of die 1.44 1.17
Descriptive statistics: Affinity diagrams 1.42 0.91
tools and techniques Force field analysis 1.39 1.04
of Lean Six Sigma Hypothesis testing 1.38 1.08
methodology Taguchi methods 0.85 0.90
According to the responses, the widely used tools and techniques are 5S, Kaizen, Process Status of lean
mapping, Brainstorming, PDCA, 7 Quality Control (QC) tools, Why-why analysis, Failure six sigma
Mode Effect Analysis, Poka-Yoke, Process capability, Quality costing analysis, Project
charter, Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs and Customers (SIPOC) and Value stream
mapping with a mean value above 2.00. Few of the other tools and techniques like
Regression analysis, Design of Experiment, Single minute exchange of die, Affinity
diagrams, Force field analysis, Hypothesis testing and Taguchi methods are among the last
few, with a mean value of less than 1.70.

4.6 What are the necessary critical success factors responsible for implementing lean six sigma?
The factors, which are the critical sets of activities that must be performed correctly to
achieve the desired performance with constant attention, are termed critical success factors
(CSFs) (Rockart, 1979). A thorough understanding of these factors is extremely important
for successful implementation. Therefore, one of the elements in the survey focused on
seeking insights on factors responsible for successful LSS implementation in India. Eleven
CSFs had been identified from the literature, and the respondents were requested to grade
the said factors based on their importance during implementation on a five-point Likert
scale, 1 = not importance, 2 = slight importance, 3 = importance, 4 = very importance and
5 = crucial. Figure 9 reflects the ranked position of CSFs based on the mean value as
calculated. The analysis indicates that top management commitment and involvement,
employee training, understanding and effective use of tools and techniques, creating an
effective cultural change and project management skills are the top five success factors
responsible for implementing LSS in Indian industries. The other success factors in
descending order are project prioritization and selection, linking LSS to business strategy,

Figure 9.
Critical success
factors of Lean Six
Sigma
implementation
IJLSS organizational infrastructure, linking LSS to customers, linking LSS to suppliers and linking
incentive schemes with LSS. The leading four CSFs for LSS implementation reported in the
context of Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and East Africa found in the literature are extremely
similar to the result reported in the present study.

4.7 What are the challenges faced during the lean six sigma implementation?
The respondents were requested to express the challenges faced during the LSS
implementation through one of the survey questions. Through analysis, as shown in
Figure 10, it is learned that most respondents experienced resistance to change as one of the
main challenges faced during the implementation (41 counts). According to more than two-
thirds of respondents, the other five challenges are the lack of resources, time-consuming
activity, lack of teamwork, lack of communication and lack of management commitment.
The remaining challenges reported include lack of leadership, lack of tangible results,
employees’ fear of job cutting, poor training and poor project selection.

4.8 What are the benefits realized due to implementing the lean six sigma methodology?
The respondents were requested to rate the benefits realized through LSS depending on the
application in their organization. Further, the respondents need to rate the benefits on a
scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being not beneficial to 5 being extremely beneficial. The mean
value of each benefit was calculated and summarized in Table 3. According to survey

Figure 10.
Challenges faced
during the Lean
Six Sigma
implementation

Sr. no. Benefits realized through Lean Six Sigma Mean

1 Reduction of delivery time 4.02

2 Increase in productivity 3.94
3 Reduction of cycle time 3.83
4 Reduction of defect rate 3.79
5 Improved attitude of employees toward quality-related issues 3.77
Table 3. 6 Reduction of operational cost 3.71
Benefits realized 7 Reduction of process variability 3.61
through Lean Six 8 Reduction of customer complaints 3.59
Sigma 9 Reduction in checking/inspection 3.23
results, the reduction in delivery time, increase in productivity, reduction in cycle time Status of lean
and reduction in defect rate are the leading benefits realized by the Indian industries six sigma
through the implementation of LSS in their respective organizations. The identified
leading benefits are close to the previous study conducted on Saudi Arabia in year 2015 by
Albliwi et al., whereas reducing the cost was reported as the main benefit in the study
conducted in East Africa (Douglas et al., 2015).
Finally, the respondents were asked to state their satisfaction level through LSS
implementation from the extremely satisfied level to very unsatisfied, as shown in Figure 11.
It could be seen from Figure 11 that the majority of the respondents were either satisfied or
extremely satisfied with the LSS implementation.

4.9 What were the reasons for the nonadoption of the lean six sigma methodology?
To understand the reasons for the nonadoption of LSS methodology by the Indian
industries, the respondents were asked to highlight the reasons through the last question at
the end of the first part of the survey questionnaire. The survey result is illustrated in
Table 4. In total, 23% of the respondents expressed their satisfaction with adopting other
quality improvement programs as the first reason. The second reason that came up is the
lack of awareness, as responded by 19% of the respondents, whereas 17% stated that
present functioning seems to be OK and acceptable as the third reason. The remaining
reasons for nonadoption are no specific reason (16% respondents), not suitable for their
organization (11% respondents) and lack of assistance and support (9% respondents).

5. Discussion and managerial implication

This research study results exhibited a few distinct facets of LSS implementation in Indian
industries based on primary data collected through a survey that requires immediate

Figure 11.
Satisfaction level
reported through
Lean Six Sigma
implementation

Sr. no. Reasons for nonadoption of Lean Six Sigma Response rate (%)

1 Other quality improvement programs adopted 23

2 Lack of awareness 19
3 Functioning/Operations/working at present seems to be OK 17
4 Not specific reason 16 Table 4.
5 Not suitable for the organization 11 Reasons for
6 Lack of assistance and support 9 non-adoption of Lean
7 Others 5 Six Sigma
IJLSS attention. The results were also compared with the few other similar studies for other
nations from the literature. The survey findings highlighted that most responding
organizations (87%) had independent quality assurance or related departments, and ISO
9001 (QMS) certification is the top-ranked preferred quality improvement program in Indian
Industries. In addition, it is found that around 35% of responding organizations had
deployed either Lean or Six Sigma or LSS, which is not encouraging. Customer satisfaction,
operational excellence and benchmarking with global competitors were found as primary
motivating factors for LSS implementation in India. This discussion clearly suggests an
enhanced quality consciousness among the Indian industries, which is due to the changes
taking place in the Indian ecosystem and global competition post liberalization,
privatization and globalization policy.
The result of the present research study revealed adoption of LSS as a quality
improvement program is better in large-scale industries in comparison to SMEs in the
Indian context. Similarly, two-third of the SMEs are either unaware or unwilling to adopt
such quality improvement programs. Additionally, numerous SMEs have become part of
the supply chain of large-scale industries in recent times. Moreover, many research studies
reported the diverse applicability of LSS methodology, including in SMEs (Deithorn and
Kovach, 2018; Laureani and Antony, 2010; Li et al., 2019; Ben Ruben et al., 2017; Trehan
et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2016). The respondents of the present survey expressed great
satisfaction based on the outcome of the implementation of LSS. Therefore, this finding
suggests the wide scope of adoption of LSS by Indian industries and SMEs in particular,
which aids in their competitiveness globally.
Looking further at the survey result of this study, top management commitment,
employee training and knowledge of tools and techniques, creating an effective cultural
change and team working are key success factors to achieve success while implementing the
LSS. This factor appears to be identical to other research studies found in the literature
(Albliwi et al., 2017; Assarlind et al., 2013; Laureani and Antony, 2018; Shokri et al., 2016;
Thomas et al., 2014). In addition, the majority of the respondents highlighted the important
role played by consultants in bringing awareness, providing training and achieving success
during implementation. Therefore, further research on issues related to LSS implementation
in India is strongly recommended.
The findings of the present research study suggest a few of the implications. This study
suggests the urgent need for Indian industries to adopt LSS to achieve operational excellence.
The focus needs to be on developing awareness about quality improvement programs with
the help of consultants. Though some of the recent initiatives of Indian Governments like
Make in India, Digital India, Start-up India, Mudra Yojana, MSME Sustainable certification,
etc. policies related to quality improvement programs such as LSS in India can be the need
for the moment. The top management must play an active role in implementing any
improvement programs at all stages. The training of employees is a critical and essential
element, which helps not only in acquiring knowledge but also leads to the team working.
Many studies, including the present one, clearly demand the need for change management
strategies during such quality improvements as resistance to change is the leading hurdle.

6. Concluding remarks
This research study aimed to assess the status of LSS implementation in Indian industries.
LSS has evolved as a structured business improvement strategy that demonstrated striking
success in different functions in various industry sectors worldwide. Therefore, through a
survey research technique, primary data were collected from industry practitioners in India.
The result shows that LSS implementation in Indian industries is in the infancy stage.
Further, special focus is required for Indian SMEs because they play a vital role and has Status of lean
broader growth opportunities in the Indian economy. Based on the survey result, LSS tools six sigma
and techniques are classified as primary level (5S, 7QC Tools, Brainstorming, PDCA,
Kaizen, Process mapping, why-why analysis, Poka-Yoke, Process capability and SIPOC)
and advanced level (Quality function deployment, Failure Mode Effect Analysis,
Measurement system analysis, Regression analysis, Design of Experiments and
Hypothesis testing) depending on its applicability. Employee training and teamworking
proved as important and essential ingredients in the success of LSS implementation. This
study has found that consultants are the primary source of awareness and guide in the LSS
implementation in Indian industries. Hence, consultants provide noteworthy feedback
about LSS implementation and play a decisive role in building a standardized framework for
LSS in Indian contexts.
Despite having a reasonably satisfactory response rate, the authors acknowledge
some natural limitations of the present study. First, because of the time constraint, a
moderate sample size was selected for the study. Second, the study’s findings have derived
from a limited number of industry respondents collected from a single database source
in India. Because there were no personal interactions with the respondents, the possibility
of misinterpretation in a few survey questions cannot be ignored entirely. Therefore,
generalizing the results presented in the study requires to be made with caution. The
authors believe that the survey findings will provide further directives to the researchers
and professionals in India.

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About the authors

Anand S. Patel is working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of
Mechanical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad,
India, and pursing PhD in the area of Lean Six Sigma. He has about 21 years of
teaching experience at polytechnic and graduate levels. He has published 8 papers in
journals/book chapters and presented 18 papers at international and national
conferences. He is the recipient of ISTE - CVM Award for Best Polytechnic Teacher
in Gujarat State – 2012 and achieved recognition as a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt
and a ZED (Zero Defect Zero Effect) Master Trainer (under Financial Support to
MSMEs in ZED Certification Scheme). His research interest includes quality management and
sustainable manufacturing.
Dr Kaushik M. Patel is working as a Professor at the Mechanical Engineering
Department since 2011. He has about 27 years of teaching experience at
undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He has guided five PhD candidates and is
presently guiding four PhD candidates for their research work. He has guided more
than 50 projects at postgraduate level. He has published more than 80 papers in
journals and conferences at international and national level. He has been working as
a reviewer of international journals such as JMPT, IJAMT, Materials and Design,
and Rapid Prototyping Journal. His research interest includes analysis of
manufacturing processes, sustainable manufacturing, composite materials and quality management.
Kaushik M. Patel is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: kaushik.patel@nirmauni.ac.in

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