The impact of cultural readiness factors on successful Lean Six Sigma implementation in manufacturing: A case study of diagnosis stage of an action research

Despite high volume of articles published with indication of various cultural readiness factors (CRFs) of Lean Six Sigma (LSS), very few focused on the greater need of critical analysis and review of the interactions between CRFs and LSS implementation technical critical success factors (CSFs). This study aims at investigating the existing attitude of people towards how impactful the CRFs are on technical CSFs of LSS in UK manufacturing sector. This study identifies critical ingredients of CRFs that need to be prioritised to avoid failure and support technical CSFs in LSS project implementation for any manufacturing firm. The study involves surveying people in different relevant departments of the manufacturing firm as part of diagnosis stage of an action research followed by Kruskal-Wallis analysis as a non – parametric test. It was found that particular CRFs need to be prioritised to address LSS technical CSFs. In order to reduce the failure of LSS projects in manufacturing firms, changing the attitude of the people towards importance of leadership style, management visibility, identifying primary strategic objectives and alignment of stretched goals to them, data availability and customised operations should be in priority. The analysis of relationship between CRFs and technical CSFs of LSS is a crucial process financially to be ready to invest on a successful LSS project and it helps managers to diagnose the cultural causes of failure more timely and effectively. As the result of this study, departmental managers, process owners or LSS champions in any LSS manufacturing firm can have both proactive and reactive approach towards success of their LSS projects for more promising and effective outcomes. This study focuses on inter-relationship analysis of cultural CRFs and technical CSFs of a LSS project in manufacturing firms as part of an empirical research analysis in a case study format.