An analysis of continuous improvement in lean enterprise and six sigma approaches

Lean enterprise focuses on eliminating waste or non-value added activities. While six sigma targets reducing errors and variations. Both use continuous improvement and this research evaluates key continuous improvement characteristics that each approach recommends in regards to leadership, learning, and collaborating, but is often overlooked in execution. Are lean enterprise and six sigma approaches applied to drive continuous improvement? Phone interviews test this hypothesis across a population of 174 different automotive companies in nine industries. This research also evaluates these key characteristics to the methods used, benefits obtained, and industry features --Abstract, page iii