Using the socio-economic approach to management to augment Lean Six Sigma

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a framework and a case that delineates the coordinated use of the socio-economic approach to management (SEAM) and Lean Six Sigma (LSS) to facilitate operational change. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses action research and thematic analysis to explore the augmentation of existing process improvement and organizational assessment methodologies in a production environment. Findings – Organizations are under increasing pressure to improve all aspects of business. Project leaders and consultants often follow popular quantitatively oriented protocols like LSS to evaluate explicit operational processes. Including a qualitatively oriented protocol like SEAM expands the project leader’s capability through greater consideration of implicit organizational issues. This paper presents a case where LSS was complemented by SEAM to assess a process that was entangled with several latent organizational dysfunctions. Practical implications – SEAM and LSS are accepted protocols to facilitate process improvement and organizational change. Pairing the two protocols into a SEAM-LSS model offers the strengths of each approach, while compensating for the limitations of each. The result is a more inclusive change protocol that reduces potential oversights and inefficiencies that could occur if project leaders worked within the purview of only one methodology. Originality/value – This paper uses action research to propose a model to bring qualitative and quantitative methodologies together into a larger complementary framework to use when evaluating organizational problems and opportunities. This paper aims to stimulate discussion and research that would lead to more robust process improvement protocols.