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The purpose of this paper is to examine a contextualized local government case study of the application of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in conjunction with the Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF) to highlight the importance of a good strategic fit between LSS and organizational objectives before implementation.

A local government council is used in a case study-based approach. Organizational artefacts and documents were used for data collection in conjunction with interviews from senior executives within the organization.

Results indicate that when used in conjunction with the ABEF, LSS provides focus on organizational learning practices embedded within the implementation of continuous improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to discourse regarding the effective application and implementation of LLS in local government.

LSS tools and techniques are known to local government, but are applied in isolation of the overarching LSS framework. This paper emphasizes the importance of comprehensive implementation of these tools, guided by the inclusion of an external contextualized framework (ABEF) in conjunction with the LSS to achieve sustainable continuous improvement.

Business excellence frameworks are widely used in the public sector as a reference/means for improvement. This paper highlights the importance of LSS in operationalizing strategic direction provided by such frameworks and providing the focus on learning practices critical for sustainable improvements.

This paper aims to present a review of literature that considers the use of quality frameworks in higher education (HE). Quality frameworks provide a minimum standard of teaching and learning of students. This systematic literature review identifies the tools and techniques to continuously improve the systems and processes that underpin teaching and learning are missing. With this in mind, the authors present a focus on Lean Six Sigma (LSS) as an improvement methodology adopted by the HE sector and present the factors that drive or hinder the implementation of LSS in higher education institutions (HEIs).

A review of the literature and thematic analysis has been undertaken relating to the application of quality frameworks and methodologies within the literature set.

The findings show that quality frameworks to be lacking insofar as their focus on compliance is no incentive for continuous improvement. This finding is not unique to the HEI sector and similar challenges exist in other sectors. A further finding identifies the need for academic professional practice to go beyond quality assurance to attend to the transformation of students. Together these present an apparent disconnect between continuous improvement methodology and HE quality frameworks.

A literature review does have limitations insofar as some literature may have been missed because of different key terms. A further consideration being literature from 2019 not available at the time the review was conducted.

It represents the state of play in regard to the use of quality frameworks operating in HE and business schools. Insight is offered into how the use of continuous improvement methods can deliver quality in HE to benefit the sector, students and others. An agenda for future research is offered.

The discussion is valuable as it seeks to improve understanding of the relationships between methodologies with adopted quality frameworks in the HEI sector. A contribution is made in the use of force field analysis to represent the critical success factors and barriers of LSS in HEI.

Quality 4.0 is managing quality during the fourth industrial revolution. It is used by modern-day organizations as a strategy to compete and thrive in the marketplace. The purpose of this study is to analyze the potential impact of Quality 4.0 on organizational performance.

This study through an integrative literature review critically analyzed 41 previous literature articles to study the impact of Quality 4.0 on various metrics of organizational performance.

The results of the review suggest that Quality 4.0 may have an impact on financial performance, customer value proposition, internal business processes, learning and growth, environmental performance and social performance.

This study is limited by the databases reviewed. The second limitation is that this study considered articles published in the English language. Therefore, articles published in other languages were not considered in this study.

Organizations can use the findings of this study to strongly leverage the implementation of Quality 4.0 to reach their strategic objectives and improve competitive advantage.

This is the first study to explore the impact of Quality 4.0 on organizational performance through an integrative literature review.

This paper aims to examine the moderating effect of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies on the relationship between socio-technical (ST) practices and workers' health, quality and productivity performance.

In this paper, 192 practitioners from different manufacturing firms adopting I4.0 technologies were surveyed, analyzed the collected data using multivariate techniques and discussed the results in light of ST theory.

Findings indicate that I4.0 moderates the relationship between ST practices and performance, to an extent and direction that varied according to the focus of the technologies and practices adopted.

The I4.0 movement has triggered changes in the work organization at unprecedented rates, impacting firms' social and technical aspects. This study bridges a gap in the literature concerning the integration of I4.0 technologies into manufacturing firms adopting ST practices, enabling the verification of the moderating effects on workers' performance. Although previous studies have investigated that relationship, the moderating effect of I4.0 on performance is still underexplored, characterizing an important contribution of this research.

Industry 4.0 is a new trend among organizations. Some organizations have been early adopters or later adopters of Industry 4.0. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how performance effects vary between early and late adopters of Industry 4.0.

This study applies a qualitative research methodology using grounded theory. 14 senior management professionals who have implemented Industry 4.0 participated in this study through a theoretical and snowball sampling approach. These professionals were from manufacturing and service sectors, from North America, Europe and Asia. The study used semi structured open-ended interviews to capture the organizational performance on operational, financial, environmental and social dimensions.

The findings were analyzed in terms of four broad themes which emerged from the interviews. In operational performance the operational and implementation cost will be higher for early adopters. The late adopters may enjoy the advantage in terms of improved business models. In terms of financial performance, the early adopters may see a marginal increase in profit and increased stock price compared to late adopters. The performance on the environmental dimension will see early adopters enjoying material efficiency, energy savings and an improved image of the company compared to late adopters. In social performance, the early adopters will provide a better quality of work life, safer manufacturing environment. However, the resistance from labor unions will be higher for early adopters compared to late adopters.

Organizations must decide the timing of implementation of Industry 4.0. This study will act as a guide wherein they can decide to be an early adopter or late adopter based on knowledge of the resulting performance consequences.

This is the first paper that studies the performance effects of early versus late adopters of Industry 4.0.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a typology of a disaster that informs humanitarian-relief supply chain (HRSC) design across the stages of disaster relief.

In addition to an interdisciplinary review of pertinent literature, this paper utilises a typology construction method to propose theoretically and methodologically sound dimensions of disasters.

Whilst semantic arguments surrounding the concept of a “disaster” are ongoing, the authors propose three typologies based upon six dimensions that serve as interdependent variables informing resultant HRSC design considerations. These are speed of onset, time horizon, spatial considerations, affected population needs, perceived probability of occurrence and perceived magnitude of consequence. These combinational and independent relationships of the variables offer insight into key HRSC design-making considerations.

The study improves conceptual knowledge of disasters, distilling the concept to only the dimensions applicable to HRSC design, omitting other applications. The typologies provide empirical cell types based on extant literature, but do not apply the models towards new or future phenomena.

This paper provides HRSC practitioners with normative guidance through a more targeted approach to disaster relief, with a focus on the impacted system and resulting interactions’ correspondence to HRSC design.

This paper provides three typological models of disasters uniquely constructed for HRSC design across the various stages of disaster relief.

Measurement practices have long been considered vital for informing the management of performance in organisations. Their application to local governments is a more recent, yet multi-decade phenomenon facilitated by New Public Management trends. This paper aims to review the landscape of publications that discuss performance measurement (PM) practices in Australian and New Zealand local government contexts and identify implications for future research.

A systematic review methodology was used to identify a shortlist of publications. Next, a rating-based researcher appraisal process was applied. Multiple iterations of search and appraisal were conducted to form the basis for inductive thematic analysis and synthesis.

Analysing 65 PM publications, two interrelated themes, namely, discourses of performance as efficiency, accountability or strategic growth and change were identified, which influence the adoption of local PM tools and frameworks. As demands for strategic growth and more complex service delivery increase, strategic and localised adaptation of PMs may be required to integrate learning and communicative competencies with technical and operational capabilities.

The systematic review methodology has been applied to address some of the limitations of publication and reporting biases in literature. This research provides a starting point for future investigations and broadening of discourse in local government contexts.

This paper represents the first systematic review of 1995–2020 publications on performance management practices used by local governments in Australia and New Zealand.

Chemistry as an applied science suffers from the fact that its necessarily close connection with various branches of industry is ill defined and generally very unsatisfactory in character. One result of this is that those who have made chemistry their profession find themselves more often than not in the position of having to subordinate their professional instincts to the temporary exigencies of some particular branch of trade and to find their professional status called in question and criticised by those who are not in the profession itself and who have no right to criticise.