Lean Six Sigma in Banking Services: Operational and Strategy Applications for Theory and Practice

This book explores a range of prospective avenues, models, and operational and strategic approaches to Lean Six Sigma (LSS), a contemporary Continuous Improvement (CI) practice for achieving a quality-based competitive edge in organisations. Lean Six Sigma project case studies from banking organizations help to illustrate the operational dimensions of LSS, while the case-specific and cross-case analyses presented here demonstrate its strategic value. While the case data used to arrive at the findings come from the Banking firms, it allows generalizability beyond the Banking and Financial Services sector.

The book contends that LSS is not merely a CI practice, but a higher-order organizational capability, more precisely a dynamic capability, that allows firms to gain a competitive edge based on quality. Addressing the interests of practitioners and researchers alike, the book strikes a balance between theory and practice.

For practitioners, it offers guidance on using LSS to gain a competitive advantage, and on evidence-based practice in quality management and operational excellence. For researchers, it presents a wealth of literature and expands the body of knowledge on quality management. Accordingly, the book is of immense value to both practitioners and researchers, helping the former unlock the value of LSS as both an operational and strategic resource, and highlighting potential research directions and applications for the latter.

About the Authors

Dr. Vijaya Sunder M is an Assistant Professor, Operations Management at Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, India. In the past, he was the Head of Business Process Excellence at the World Bank Group. Vijaya holds his PhD in Operational Excellence from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, a distinction holder in Master of Business Administration from the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning and a gold medalist in Bachelor of Engineering from the Anna University, India. He is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, ISO 9001:2015 Quality Lead Auditor, and Lean Facilitator. He has led and mentored various re-engineering and process improvement programs that helped improve the customer experience, employee satisfaction, eliminate process defects, increase productivity and reduce costs across reputed organizations including the World Bank, Barclays, American Express and Citi Group. His research and teaching interests include Operational Excellence, Project Management, Quality Management, Industry 4.0 and Operations Strategy. He has published research papers on quality management and operational excellence in several respected international journals.

Dr. L.S. Ganesh is a Professor in the Department of Management Studies at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, India. Ganesh holds the BE (Hons.) degree in Mechanical Engineering of BITS Pilani, and MTech in Maintenance Engineering and Management from IIT Madras. He completed his PhD from IIT Madras with a thesis on educational planning in Tamil Nadu schools. From then on, he has held many responsible positions including, being the Head of the Department and Dean (Students) at IIT Madras. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Project Management Institute (India). His research and teaching interests span a wide range of areas including Systems Thinking, Project Management, Knowledge Management, Public Systems (Education and Energy) and Entrepreneurship.