Japanese manufacturing organisations have been investigated by various academic researches boing back to the book called “The Machine That Changed the World” by Womack (1990) that a raised awareness of the US manufacturers. Many academics studies have explored Toyota Production System (TPS) to understand the practices used by Toyota (Womack and Jones, 1994). Academic investigator, who considered and documented TPS in the 1980’s, called the total approach as “lean manufacturing”. The principles behind lean can be retrieved back to the work of pioneers such as (Deming, 1986; Taylor, 1911; Skinner, 1969), as it is based its practical ability to realise and achieve higher results from fewer resources available. As the Japanese firms designed, manufactured, and distributed products with less human effort, materials, time and capital investment and by maximizing the space in the shop floor (Womack et al., 1990).
Lean manufacturing can be seen as an innovation paradigm that consist of waste elimination in various ways so as to maintain the harmonic flow in the production of materials and information with the objective to attain perfection, as Ohno (1988), Shingo (1989), Womack et al., (1990). Furlan et al., (2011) argues the importance of Lean techniques, which they believe takes away the model improvements and require much more than mere techniques with clients and suppliers. Lean objective is focus on reduction of human effort, production space, inventory and delivery to meet the demands of the market by maintaining high quality standards products offered at the lower cost. The benefit of Lean can therefore be seen in the productivity of results obtained. Cameron al., (2006) also linked lean with efficient time management, cost and value insinuating that with proper implementation of lean, organisations may be able to maintain competitiveness and flexibility with any market.
Six Sigma is originated from Greek letter that represents standard deviation and it is used in the process to show the amount of variation that occurs within a process (McAdam and Lafferty, 2004). According to Harry and Schroeder (2000), Six Sigma is a business improvement methodology or strategy that involves the application of statistical methods for achieving great result and operational excellence. It was demonstrated by Park (2002) that Six Sigma is based on three principles: quality culture, statistical measurement and management strategy. Six Sigma is comprises the evaluation of a process on how well it is performing using statistical Methods as such DMAIC strategy that necessitate leadership from higher managers to produce quality innovation that would lead to satisfaction of the customers. It is also appreciated as a quality culture centred on the way organisations use it to do things correctly at the first attempt based on the information it offers and it also provides ways to solve various qualities issues. Statistical indication of Six Sigma is of very high reliability refer to the process performance and it goal is to make a process that is able to do things they are trying to do, eventually resulting with consistency of products and services of an organisation (Coronado and Antony, 2002), aimed at reducing defect to 0.34 parts per million or DPMO that stand for “defects per million opportunities” to help business reduce the cost which impact the bottom line by reducing cycle time (Behara et al., 1995).
Lean Six Sigma is a result of the combination of Lean and Six Sigma which as a robust system for realising and sustaining success by identifying the customer requirements, by reducing waste, by adding value to the service (product), and by managing and improving processes (Voehl et al., 2013). The fusion of Six Sigma with other techniques is believed to improve the systems in terms of quality improvement of products i.e. the integration of Six Sigma and TQM, Six Sigma and Lean and Lean Six Sigma propels efficient operations management of firm helping them to achieve greater competitive advantage (Su and Kano 2003). Arnheiter and Maleyeff (2005) argued that Lean Six Sigma can provide reliability of process performance and enormous increase in the level of quality of the products and thus provides the application of Lean practices with other techniques such as TPM, Kanban and others. The understanding of these various techniques is adamant so as to allow leadership adopt the right methodology that fits its operation. Longer term sustainability is therefore much easier achievable. The use of graphical analysis in the evaluation of the process consists of, box plots, Pareto charts, histograms and control charts to reveal measurable areas of wastes that needed to be eliminated and to achieve financial profits for the organisation from a Lean Six Sigma projects (Trusko et al., 2003). It is important to mention the set of it uniqueness infrastructure Japanese model that consist of champions, black belts and green belts to lead implementation of Lean Six Sigma project in the organisation. Lean Six Sigma green belts and black belts staff are trained to lead improvement projects and the champions are higher manager who supervises improvement projects of Lean Six Sigma (Benitez et al., 2007).
Six Sigma is an established powerful tool used for business improvement strategy that helps organisations achieve and sustain operational excellence by using statistical methods.
A study by Snee (2000) demonstrated that Six Sigma is a method used for business improvement strategy; its implementation is known for identifying the causes of errors, variation and defects in the production process so as to allow elimination by engaging in activities that are valued by clients. Six Sigma is associated to leadership as its success is also based on motivational factors. (Henderson and Evans 2000; Gutiérrez 2012) argue that six sigma implementation takes into account three things which include management strategy, statistical measurement and quality culture as it also agreed by Park (2002). The implementation of six sigma requires the implication of efficient leadership in order to obtain efficient productivity. This would help in measuring performance by using statistical methodology as a management strategy that is supervised by top leadership to create a quality innovation and customer satisfaction in a way that can be called a six sigma culture. As a culture that will be continuous, its success will deeply rely on leadership approach and how to motivate the team in order to adapt to new management methods and adopt it as part of their way of doing things within the organisation. This could then be demonstrated through the quantitative process performance analysis using the six sigma model, (Coronado and Antony, 2002).
Lean Six Sigma at JLR
The implementation of Lean Six Sigma at JLR has been in existence since it began its operation and has been perfected over time. Figure 5 below shows the model adopted by JLR. The model consist of a combination of kaizen, Lean and six sigma which shows that Arnheiter and Maleyeff (2005) argument on efficient performance achievable through a combinations of lean with other tools is verified considering the tremendous success of JLR.
Laureani and Antony (2016) offer deeper understanding of Lean Six Sigma application by highlighting mainly the role of leadership in successful implementation of Lean Six Sigma in order to allow organisations to focus their efforts on these factors in order to obtain success and for continuous improvement programmes. They also showed significant factors for the effective implementation of Lean Six Sigma involve: leadership, selection of talented employees and project management and they suggested more investigation is needed on the type of leadership for different stages of Lean Six Sigma programme maturity but they did not focus their research on one based organisation in order to study the type of leadership for different stages of Lean Six Sigma programme. Lean Six Sigma has been found to be effective in some organisations, where it is not only looked as only a cost reduction technique but it has been incorporated into the culture of the organisation; as it is the case for Toyota for Lean (Liker, 2003) and GE for Six Sigma (Thomaset al., 2016). While many other organisations still finding difficult to make it a success technique because of different failure factors (Antony, 2014), and that has resulted with question being asked about the styles of leadership can have an impact on Lean Six Sigma implementation for organisation to result with the success of Lean Six Sigma. Having a better understanding of Lean Six Sigma, it is therefore important to analyse its advantages and disadvantages so as to be able to have a theoretical understanding of the advantages it offers to big firm such as Jaguar Land Rover. There are some studies about Lean Six Sigma implementation that have recognised the critical factors for successful application of most management tools as such as the case of Lean Six Sigma (Antony & Banuelas, 2002 and Laureani & Antony, 2012); these studies concentrated more on leadership in the way to determine the requirement needed for Lean Six Sigma programme by stating the characteristics of leaders to enable Lean Six Sigma programme for successful implementation journey and to facilitate the right role leadership may have in the accomplishment of Lean Six Sigma in the organisation.
The advantages are that Lean Six Sigma
- Emphasises on achieving realistic goals
- Yield great results with yet to be implemented projects and already implemented projects
- Its tools allows for a scientific analysis of operational management achieved with precision
- Instils management generally with much dedication and passion
- Its implementation benefits employers, employees, customers
- Enormous financial benefits ( Senior & Fleming, 2006)
The disadvantages are that Lean Six Sigma
- It requires perfect leadership style
- It may require a change in management
- May incur high cost and dedications from management
- Probable failure due to scarcity of skills and inexperience (Kumar, 2010)
There are limitations that exist in the research investigations about the implication of leadership and Lean Six Sigma. With successful report about Lean Six Sigma mentioned in some organisations whereas other fails to succeed in the implementation of Lean Six Sigma. As Deming (1994), indicated similar ideas about success of quality can be well exploited and it is determined by top leaders and cannot be delegated, and the quality of the production of a company isn’t as good as those of the quality at the top but their study did not focus on one organisation as an example to investigate the role played by the leadership.
Other reports about Lean Six Sigma failures and dissatisfaction in some cases with the results and improvement programmes shortages that may due to not paying enough attention the critical success factors such as the role of leadership, top management commitment, selection of projection and staffs training by the organisations during implementation (Snee, 2010). Regardless of the aim of Lean Six Sigma in a company the vision and understanding must be share across all parts of the firm so as to enable employees to see its core values and help in its implementation. Another research review also confirmed the current limitation in regard to the causes of LSS failure (Duarte et al., 2012). There have been reports about Lean Six Sigma initiative projects fail to attain the expected results, according to Ringen and Holtskog (2011). Besides, Pedersen and Huniche (2011) also confirm that not all Lean Six Sigma initiative projects succeed and almost 70 % of have failed, this results were supported by Bhasin and Burcher (2006) that revealed less than 10 per cent of the UK companies have implemented it successfully. Furthermore, Chakravorty (2009) and Kumar et al. (2007, 2008b) investigation carried out in 2005 in the aerospace companies revealed 30% respondent were dissatisfied, with 20% satisfied and around 50% respondents’ satisfaction. A study in the healthcare carried out by Feng and Manuel (2007) revealed that, there are still 54% of companies that do not look to implement Lean Six Sigma. Snee (2010) indicated that leadership is one of the causes that contributed to failure or success in implementation of quality management tool. The leadership role is to ensure that all required resources are present during the quality Lean Six Sigma implementation and it is especially important for successfully implement Lean Six Sigma or its failure as it has been found in different researches putting accent to its particular importance (Martinez-Jurado and Moyano-Fuentes, 2012; Snee, 2010).
The critical review of implementing Lean Six Sigma shows that its implementation can be very advantageous or disadvantages depending on the companies, but understanding how it functions becomes one of keys essential for its success. As it can be seen from its disadvantages as well, the implementation of Lean Six Sigma requires perfect leadership which is very hard to achieve. Therefore, the present review aim will try to close the existing gap in the literature by evaluating the Lean Six Sigma application based on the leadership role at JLR using a case study model.
In general, the outcomes of this review also indicated that the effect of leadership on Lean Six Sigma implementation could is valuable in respect with results supporting for the leadership role in the implementation of Lean Six Sigma to be productive as it provides for longer term sustainability for organisations. The importance of Lean Six Sigma at JLR would be analysed through a case study involving leadership involvement in the application of Lean Six Sigma at one section of the organisation that was having to many issues in regards to quality of parts such as weld spatter on parts, missing nut, bent parts, bad thread, extra stud welded, and other issues (wrong label, wrong studs, wrong nuts, etc.), after data collection from a period of six months that’s include three months before the application and three months after the application of Lean Six Sigma and a questionnaire attributed to its engineers, managers so as to enable a reel comparison between theories and practicality to assess the effect leadership role in the application of Lean Six Sigma.
This chapter sums up the research methodology chapter explains a methodology that charms the thoughts and actions of all individual involved at Jaguar Land Rover and, in doing so, by carrying out a research into the social concepts of JLR’s culture. A case study was believed to be the most suitable research strategy, which according to Bonoma (1985) creates use of interviews, and depend on verbal reports and unremarkable observation as primary data sources. As a result, a case study makes the research methods to be classed as qualitative rather than quantitative data, to enable the researchers to explore the complexity and drive of organisational settings of Jaguar Land Rover. The secondly to explore the apprehensive the case study data collection, and the following analysis of data. Questionnaires survey were emailed to the managers and engineers in charge of quality management department and the engineering team before and after the application of Lean Six Sigma on production section at Jaguar Land Rover with accompanied with a cover letter stating the motive of the research to help reduce any chance of bias, which can affect the accuracy of the qualitative data collected based on the adoption of data triangulation (Jick, 1979).
Questionnaire administration and development
At first produced more leadership roles based on the H1, the more the leadership involvement with top management; the more they are commitment to Lean Six Sigma projects at Jaguar Land Rover. The more the leadership involvement with top management in Lean Six Sigma implementation; the more excellence in quality of products on the H2; the more the leadership involvement with top management; the commitment to Lean Six Sigma successful implementation at Jaguar Land Rover in support of H3; The more the leadership involvement with top management; the more the employees motivation in Lean Six Sigma implementation at Jaguar Land Rover in accordance with H4.
As earlier mentioned in chapter three (3) the sample size under consideration was between 10-20 and the after requesting for this investigation to be carried out, JLR sites at Solihull was the most appropriate site to conduct this research as 20 different managers and engineers were more than happy to provide us with answers from various sectors ranging from manufacturing to trade. A questionnaire survey was developed that consist of 21 items to evaluate leadership roles. The leadership role was derived based on model used in the survey conducted by Yeung and Ready (1995). They initially created about 50 leadership roles played based on the literature of leadership which was reduced to 45 items after pilot survey. Referring to the context of JLR car manufacturing and expert opinion, the current study has identified 21 items that suits better evaluation of leadership role and seven point Likert scale was applied, with 1 showing not at all and 7 indicative of very important.
For assessing the extent of Lean Six Sigma implementation at Jaguar Land car manufacturing, the study current included the reliable and valid quality management system instrument recommended by Das et al. (2008) researcher to reduce any translation bias, which consist of seven-point Likert scale was used with 1 showing strongly disagree and 7 suggestive for strongly agree.
Questionnaires were emailed before and after the application of Lean Six Sigma on production section at Jaguar Land Rover with a cover letter to clarify the motive and the aim of the research to the managers in charge of quality management department and the engineering team that are responsible for initiating and implementing changes and implementing quality systems that suit the organisation and they also that helped us to take parts in the Lean Six Sigma project they were investigation in one section where they manufacture the car chassis for the new Range Rover Sport model that will be demonstrated further in the current research in a fixed period of twelve weeks to twenty four weeks after the application of Lean Six Sigma in that section.
Responses
The evaluation of Lean Six Sigma effect and the analysis of the leadership roles are basically relying on the knowledge and skill of the researchers within quality management systems based on their educational level in order to conduct a well presented work but it is important to mention the hard-team working with supply chain, operation and production managers in the implementation of quality improvement systems and change management based on the vision of senior leaders from such as Production Managers/Directors, Plant Managers/Directors, Engineering Managers/Directors and Operations Managers/Directors.
The quality managers and quality director are also known for their role in the evaluation performance of Jaguar Land Rover quality management better than other managers as they are well dedicated to bring changes, innovation and improvement in the organisation as the company of the size of Jaguar Land Rover has an unique characteristics that may have other effects on how Lean Six Sigma can be applied to result with positive contribution to organizational performance. This is well visible through the quality of their luxury and prestigious cars that can reflect the leadership style and leadership role of their top management.
The research strategy
The nature of our research shows that an explanatory approach would be ideal for meeting the aim and objectives of this research. The strategy to adopt however is still very much unclear and referring to few literature, or secondary research analyses points out Saunders et al, (2007) guide lines in using a step by step approach in analysing research problems, questions and define the right methodology or strategy to fully grasp the issue surrounding the research and easily define the solution to resolve it. Considering our research questions in the first chapter of this report, one could say that the best way to analyse this and successfully achieve the aim of this research would be in the adoption of the research opinion model
2017-2-9-1486646583