A new way of environmentally sustainable manufacturing with assessing transformation through the green deployment of Lean Six Sigma projects

Green deployment of Continuous Improvement (CI) projects such as Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is unknown among scholars and practitioners in contrast with green outcomes of LSS. Therefore, we aim to identify top factors to transform towards the green deployment of LSS projects as an untapped phenomenon for scholars and practitioners. A survey questionnaire was distributed globally followed by the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) as a dimension reduction method. Seven new dimensions for critical success factors (CSFs), critical failure factors (CFFs) and barriers, and five new dimensions for motivators were revealed to recommend top factors for green LSS project deployment. Further in-depth studies including case studies could be conducted to assess the negative environmental impact of LSS projects. This study serves as an initial call for managers, consultants and research scholars to favour the sustainable deployment of LSS projects in manufacturing alongside the use of traditional approaches with a focus on costs, quality and delivery. This is the first study exposing the possibility of a paradigm shift in environmental sustainability integration with LSS project deployment in manufacturing operations.