Food Control 112 (2020) 107110

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Food Control
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodcont

The effect of Lean Six Sigma practices on food industry performance: T

Implications of the Sector's experience and typical characteristics
Luana Bonome Message Costaa,∗, Moacir Godinho Filhoa, Lawrence D. Fredendallb,
Gilberto Miller Devós Gangaa
a
Department of Industrial Engineering, Federal University of São Carlos, Washington Luís Road, S/n, São Carlos, SP, 13565-905, Brazil
b
Department of Management, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, 29634, United States

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma initiatives (L&SSi) have been adopted by different industry and service
Lean manufacturing sectors to improve companies' performance and competitiveness; however, adoption in the food industry is still
Six Sigma very low. The sector lacks familiarity with the L&SSi initiatives; it views “quality” as a safety and hygiene factor,
Lean Six Sigma which is one characteristic that differentiates it from other sectors. The purpose of this paper is to examine how
Continuous improvement
the food industry sector's characteristics affects its adoption of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) practices and performance
Food industry
improvement. A survey of 145 food industry firms was conducted and then analyzed using structural equation
LSS performance
modeling to test the research framework. Our findings suggest that LSS is relevant and effective in this sector.
Food industry performance is positively affected by the adoption of LSS practices. Moreover the adoption of LSS
practices in the food industry is greatly affected by the level of experience of the individual company. The level
of experience moderates two performance indicators very valued by the sector (financial gains and product
quality). The food industry is to a certain extent affected by the sector's characteristics. The compulsory cleaning
practices restrict adoption of LSS practices such as set-up time reduction. Six Sigma role structure and Statistical
Process Control dimensions are among the sector's least adopted practices. These practices require financial
resources for training, which can be a challenge in a sector with low margins that primarily focuses on cost
reduction, and they require statistical techniques and knowledge that is generally considered complex and too
advanced in the food industry. These findings suggest that as managerial awareness of the relevance of LSS
practices to food industry performance improvement increases, that managers will encourage employees to gain
experience using the tools.

1. Introduction Six Sigma has unified the strengths of both initiatives to increase or-
ganizations’ performance through enhanced customer satisfaction and
Companies are constantly looking for new ways to improve per- improved bottom line results ($) (Snee, 2010).
formance and remain competitive. Continuous Improvement (CI) in- Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma initiatives (L&SSi) have been
itiatives can help organizations reach this goal by integrating their adopted by different industry and service sectors (Aqlan & Al-fandi,
operational processes and enhancing their ability to make cohesive and 2018; D'Andreamatteo, Ianni, Lega, & Sargiacomo, 2015; Grima,
quick process changes (Anand, Ward, Tatikonda, & Schilling, 2009). Marco-Almagro, Santiago, & Tort-Martorell, 2013; Kumar, Antony, &
The Continuous Improvement concept is associated with different Tiwari, 2011; Tjahjono et al., 2010). They have been used to effectively
initiatives, among them Lean manufacturing, Six Sigma and, more re- improve companies' performance (Drohomeretski et al., 2014; Negrão,
cently, Lean Six Sigma (Drohomeretski, da Costa, de Lima, & Garbuio, Godinho Filho, & Marodin, 2016; Tjahjono et al., 2010). However, in
2014). Lean focuses on enhancing value (or perceived value) to custo- the food industry their adoption is still very low (Dora, Van Goubergen,
mers by adding product or service features removing wasteful activities Kumar, Molnar, & Gellynck, 2014; Lim, Antony, Arshed, & Albliwi,
(Hines, Holweg, & Rich, 2004). Six Sigma seeks to find and eliminate 2015), both in developed (Scott, Wilcock, & Kanetkar, 2009) and de-
the causes of mistakes or defects in business processes by focusing on veloping countries (Manzouri, Rahman, Saibani, & Zain, 2013; Santos &
outputs that are of critical importance to customers (Snee, 2000). Lean Antonelli, 2011).

∗
Corresponding author. Washington Luiz Road, s/n, São Carlos, SP, 13565-905, Brazil.
E-mail address: [email protected] (L.B.M. Costa).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2020.107110
Received 1 November 2019; Received in revised form 10 January 2020; Accepted 11 January 2020
Available online 13 January 2020
0956-7135/ © 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
L.B.M. Costa, et al. Food Control 112 (2020) 107110

In Canada, Scott et al. (2009) found that 44.8% of the survey re- the Contingency Theory and Practice Based View to develop the four
spondents from the food industry did not use any continuous im- research hypotheses.
provement initiatives. In Malaysia, more than 70% of the Halal food
supply chain companies that participated in a survey study had not 2.1. Contingency theory
implemented Lean Supply Chain Management (Manzouri et al., 2013).
In Brazil, 75.68% of the food companies that took part in a survey did Contingency Theory (CT) is a major theoretical lens used to view
not implement Six Sigma (Santos & Antonelli, 2011). The low rates of L organizations (Sousa & Voss, 2008). It argues that no theory or method
&SSi implementation in the food industry have led to speculation about can be applied in all instances (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967; Thompson,
its effectiveness in the food industry. 1967). According to Sousa and Voss (2008) contingency research can
In the food industry the perception of “quality” is biased towards provide guidelines for the selection of the set of Operations Manage-
assurance, safety, health, and hygiene (Dora & Gellynck, 2015a). Food ment (OM) practices that are most appropriate for a given organiza-
poisoning or microbiological outbreaks have been the industry's, gov- tional context (Sousa & Voss, 2008).
ernments' and consumers' biggest concern (Lim, Antony, & Albliwi, Researchers have employed contingency theory in different fields.
2014). Industry efforts focus on ensuring quality and safety by using Tenhiälä (2011) tested the effect of the complexity of process types in
standard quality assurance systems such as Hazard Analysis and Critical the applicability of different capacity planning methods. Taylor,
Control Points (HACCP), British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Interna- Grötsch, Blome, and Schleper (2013) applied it to explaining the cir-
tional Organization for Standardization (ISO) (Dora, Kumar, Van cumstances under which proactive supply chain risk management
Goubergen, Molnar, & Gellynck, 2013; Trienekens & Zuurbier, 2008; evolves with past supplier insolvencies. Lucianetti, Jose, Jabbour,
Tutu & Anfu, 2019). Gunasekaran, and Latan (2018) studied the influence of factors such as
The food industry's heterogeneous product mix and its processes environmental uncertainty, decentralization, and organizational
may also impact the adoption of L&SSi. For example, the shelf-life of strategy on the adoption of advanced manufacturing tools and ad-
food materials is long for a case of frozen or dried or canned materials, vanced managerial practices.
but short for fresh vegetables or dairy products, meat or fruit In this study, we use contingency theory to test the two hypotheses.
(Dudbridge, 2011). The food industry is a process industry, i.e., it These are: the food industry implements LSS practices in a fragmented
handles non-discrete materials that cannot be disassembled and then way, i.e. the practices are implemented in different degrees of adoption;
reassembled (Panwar, Nepal, Jain, & Rathore, 2015). Some inherent and the food industry characteristics impact the degree of adoption of
characteristics of the food industry are seasonality and perishability of LSS practices.
raw materials and products, and long changeover times due to com-
pulsory cleaning requirements (Dora, Kumar, & Gellynck, 2015; Jain & 2.1.1. The degree of adoption of Lean Six Sigma practices in the food
Lyons, 2009; Jiménez, Tejeda, Pérez, Blanco, & Martínez, 2011), all of industry and the effect of the sector's inherent characteristics in these
which may impact the adoption of LSS practices (Costa, Godinho Filho, adoption
Fredendall, & Gómez Paredes, 2018). L&SSi have been widely adopted in multiple industry and service
There are some case studies of L&SSi implementations in the sector sectors (see Costa & Godinho Filho, 2016; Drohomeretski et al., 2014;
that indicate that their adoption is beneficial to food industries (e.g. Fullerton, Kennedy, Widener, & Huntsman, 2014; Netland, 2016; Shafer
Dora et al., 2015; Lopes & Freitas, 2015; Moya, Déleg, Sánchez, & & Moeller, 2012; Yadav & Desai, 2016) to improve companies’ perfor-
Vásquez, 2016; Mu, Li, Zhang, & Gao, 2011; Upadhye, Deshmukh, & mance in the long term (Abreu-Ledón, Luján-García, Garrido-Vega, &
Garg, 2010). However, the number of studies are relatively low (Costa Escobar-Pérez, 2018; Corbett, 2011; Negrão et al., 2016; Shafer &
et al., 2018; Panwar, Jain, Rathore, Nepal, & Lyons, 2018), so the ef- Moeller, 2012). But, there is a limited understanding of L&SSi im-
fectiveness of these CI initiatives in the field are still not well known. plementation in the food sector (Costa et al., 2018). A Six Sigma study
There is a lack of evidence of the application of L&SSi in the sector, by Knowles, Johnson, and Warwood (2004) of an implementation in a
so this research study aims to fill this knowledge gap by evaluating the confectionery plant to reduce cost and to reduce process variation was
capability of food companies to implement L&SSi, assessing how the the first paper found. In the following year (2005), four papers about
food industry sector's characteristics affects the adoption of LSS prac- Lean manufacturing initiatives were published. The publication of the
tices and how companies' performance is improved, to justify the use of hybrid initiative, LSS, was only found in 2013 (Chakrabortty, Biswas, &
LSS in the sector. Ahmed, 2013), thirteen years after its emergence (George, 2002). The
This study is grounded in Contingency theory, which suggests that a peak in the number of L&SSi papers was in 2015, with nine publications
set of practices such as the LSS practices will be more effective in cer- in academic journals in that year (Costa et al., 2018).
tain environments than others (Sousa & Voss, 2008). It also draws on This study focuses on 11 constructs regarding LSS as defined below:
the Practice Based View, which argues that the benefits of practices,
such as those in L&SSi may vary across firms and may depend on • Supplier involvement (SUPPINV): the organization builds close re-
moderators (Bromiley & Rau, 2016). A survey of 145 food industry lationship with supplier and develops them to be more involved in
firms was conducted and then analyzed using structural equation production and deliver process;
modeling to provide an empirical basis for testing the research frame- • Customer involvement (CUSTINV): the organization focuses on their
work comprised of four hypotheses, presented in section 2. customers and their needs;
The research has both theoretical and practical contributions. It • Pull (PULL): the organization facilitates just-in-time (JIT) produc-
uniquely contributes to both theories: Contingency theory and Practice tion by using tools such as kanban to signal when to start or stop
Based View; and practically made specific contributions to the knowl- production:
edge with respect to the evidence that LSS is relevant and effective to • Continuous flow (FLOW): the organization establishes mechanisms
food industry, and that level of experience impacts its adoption. It that enable and ease the continuous flow of products;
contributes to examine whether there is a potential path to improve- • Set up time reduction (SETUP): the organization seeks to reduce
ment in the sector. process downtime between product changeovers;
• Total productive/preventive maintenance (TPM): the organization
2. Theoretical background, literature review and development of addresses equipment downtime by using total productive main-
hypothesis tenance to achieve a high level of equipment availability;
• Statistical process control (SPC): the organization ensures that each
This section develops the theoretical background for the study using process will supply defect free units to subsequent process;

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• Employee involvement (EMPINV): the organization's employees becomes more specialized for the production of a specific product, there
have a role in problem solving and cross functional teams; is less need for it to be used in other products and fast changeover
• Six Sigma role structure (SSROLE): the organization uses improve- practices are less applicable (Abdulmalek et al., 2006). Given what has
ment specialists who are developed through Six Sigma training and been found, our first two hypotheses are stated as following:
certification programs and who have specific leadership roles and
H1. Food industry implements Lean Six Sigma practices in a fragmented
responsibilities in improvement teams;
•
way.
Six Sigma structured improvement procedure (SSIMP): the organi-
zation follows a standardized procedure in planning and conducting H2. Food industry characteristics impact the degree of adoption of Lean
improvement projects or design projects and it uses appropriate Six Sigma practices.
Quality Management tools and techniques as prescribed in each step
of the structured procedure;
• Six Sigma focus on metrics (SSMET): the organization uses quanti- 2.2. Practice based view
tative metrics to measure performance, and to set improvement
goals. Practice Based View (PBV) defines practices as an activity or set of
activities that a variety of firms might execute (Bromiley & Rau, 2014).
Contingency Theory suggests that food industry characteristics that The central argument of PBV is that some firms do not use all practices
are barriers to L&SSi implementation (see Costa et al., 2018) can be that could benefit them; so the use of practices can explain performance
classified as contextual variables. These characteristics can influence variation (Bromiley & Rau, 2016). In contrast to the resource based
the adoption of specific LSS practices, consequently limiting the view (RBV) the PBV examines imitable activities or practices, often in
number of implementations of this CI initiative in the sector. The lit- the public domain, amenable to transfer across firms (Bromiley & Rau,
erature of L&SSi in the food industry and in the process industry are 2014). Also in contrast to RBV, PBV's dependent variable is firm per-
used to identify the main contextual variables that may impact the formance, not sustained competitive advantage (Carter, 2017).
adoption of LSS practices in the sector. To further analyze the effect in Recent studies were drawn on this theory. Treacy, Humphreys,
the degree of adoption of these LSS practices across different food in- Mcivor, and Lo (2019) used PBV to determine whether firms can en-
dustry contexts, a set of contingency variables is selected, considering hance operational efficiency by adopting replicable management
the recommendation of Sousa and Voss (2008). practices prescribed under the ISO 14001 standard. Silva, Pereira, and
Food industry firms are usually characterized by divergent product Gold (2018) identified intra- and inter-organizational supply chain
structures, where a relatively small number of (agricultural) raw ma- practices using PBV that helped focal companies in the cashew nut
terials (e.g. milk) are used to produce a large variety of end products supply chain in Brazil respond to natural disasters. PBV was also used to
(e.g., varieties of milk, yogurt and cream products) (Akkerman & Donk, evaluate the effect of operational, easily imitable types of environ-
2009; Powell, Lundeby, Chabada, & Dreyer, 2017). Differences in mental practices on environmental performance (Betts, Super, & North,
products can be associated with customer-specific products requests, 2018). The PBV analysis assumes the benefits of a practice may vary
either in the packaging (form, size, print, labeling) or product recipe across firms and may depend on a variety of moderators (Bromiley &
(Akkerman, Van der Meer, & Van Donk, 2010). This variety increases Rau, 2016).
the number of process changeovers required for production. In this study, practice based view is employed to test two hypoth-
The changeover is the time elapsed between the last piece in the run esis. These are: the adoption of Lean Six Sigma practices positively
just completed and the first good piece from the process after the impacts food industry performance and, the positive effect of Lean Six
changeover (Lean Lexicon, 2008). It is also affected by one of the main Sigma practices on food industry performance is moderated by level of
aspects that distinguish the food industry from others sectors, their experience, such that the positive effect is greater when the level of
compulsory cleaning activity (Dora & Gellynck, 2015a; Jain & Lyons, experience is higher.
2009; Panwar et al., 2015). Cleaning must be performed to comply with
quality assurance requirements to ensure safety products. When chan- 2.2.1. The effect of adoption of Lean Six Sigma practices in the food
ging between recipes, piping is emptied, the equipment must be ster- industry's performance
ilized and the new product started. Also, when the sterilization process Some case studies showed that adopting L&SSi practices was ben-
or one of the packaging lines reaches its maximum running time, the eficial to small and medium-sized food enterprises. These benefits in-
equipment has to be cleaned and again sterilized to ensure product cluded reduction of production costs and customer complaints, in-
quality (Akkerman & Donk, 2008). According to Dora et al. (2014) this creases in profitability and productivity (Dora et al., 2014). Lean
strict cleaning environment found on food industry plants makes it manufacturing reduced production lead time, eliminated losses, im-
difficult to implement the LSS practices that require set-up time re- proved the use of physical space and machinery in a wine production
duction. company (Jiménez et al., 2011). Six Sigma implementation in a small
Another characteristic of the food industry is the large portion of food plant reduced the number of defective products and increased
raw materials obtained directly from agricultural activities which are production efficiency in India (Maheshwar, 2012). LSS implemented in
subject to harvest cycles, making their availability seasonal (Satolo, a confectionary plant reduced process variability, the number of defects
Hiraga, Goes, & Lourenzani, 2017). Additionally, these raw materials and also achieved significantly improved financial performance (Dora &
can be highly perishable (e.g. milk, fruit, vegetables, meat), so they can Gellynck, 2015b).
be stored only for a short period of time. To minimize raw materials A recent, systematic literature review of L&SSi implementation in
losses and ensure product availability during the year, the product must the food industry counted 31 different benefits in 28 cases of im-
be manufactured to stock (make to stock), affecting the adoption of plementation (Costa et al., 2018). The most cited were productivity
practices related to JIT. increases, cost reduction and inventory reduction. Benefits related to
Food industry production is often batch or continuous production defect, time and value were also found. In accordance with these
(Akkerman & Van Donk, 2007). For example the beverage industry findings we hypothesize the following:
often uses continuous production. In a continuous environment tools
H3. The adoption of Lean Six Sigma practices positively impacts food
such as the kanban pull systems are unrealistic but, equipment relia-
industry performance.
bility and availability are critical, so practices such as TPM are very
useful (Abdulmalek, Rajgopal, & Needy, 2006). The equipment used in In general, the benefits of a practice may depend on moderators
the process also affects the adoption of pull practices. As equipment (Bromiley & Rau, 2016). Experience plays a meaningful role in the

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L.B.M. Costa, et al. Food Control 112 (2020) 107110

allow immediate analysis. The most critical questions were asked in the
first sections. The survey was sent to managers or supervisors from
manufacturing and quality departments.
This instrument was developed using an initial set of constructs and
items from the well-known multi-item measurement scales for Lean
developed by Shah and Ward (2007) and for Six Sigma by Zu,
Fredendall and Douglas (2008). These constructs and items were pur-
ified and refined to establish reliability and validity to measure LSS
concept through four rounds of an item-sorting exercise as suggested by
(Menor & Roth, 2007). Each round was analyzed using 3 interrater
reliability estimators (Interjudge Agreement Percentage, Cohen's k and
Fig. 1. Theoretical research model. Perreault and Leigh's Ir), 3 validity estimators (the proportion of sub-
stantive validity, coefficient of substantive validity, overall placement
implementation of continuous improvement initiatives (Easton & ratio) (Anderson & Gerbing, 1991; Moore & Benbasat, 1991). After that,
Rosenzweig, 2012; Jacobs, Swink, & Linderman, 2015; Jayaram, Ahire, a pretest with a sample of fifty food companies was conducted to
& Dreyfus, 2010; Swink & Jacobs, 2012). Knowledge and experience confirm the reliability and validity of the scales, using composite re-
provides a foundation for new knowledge absorption, by creating fa- liability values, magnitude and sign of the standardized factor loadings
miliarity and reducing causal ambiguities (Swink & Jacobs, 2012). of the measurement items and average variance extracted (Fornell &
Since Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma initiatives are not well stu- Larcker, 1981). Finally, a large sample of 229 food industries was used
died and were recently adopted (Costa et al., 2018), the level of ex- in order to confirm reliability and validity. The final instrument used 45
perience may significantly moderate the LSS adoption and firm per- practices to measure LSS adoption in the food industry.
formance in the food industry. So, we hypothesize the following: The 145 survey respondents were asked about their level of agree-
ment to each of the 45 LSS practices, using a seven-point Likert scale
H4. The positive effect of Lean Six Sigma practices on food industry
range from (1) strongly disagrees to (7) strongly agree. They also an-
performance is moderated by the level of experience, such that the
swered questions about three control variables (plant size, country,
positive effect is greater when the level of experience is higher.
level of experience).
To answer the second research question (What is the impact of Food
3. Methodology Industry characteristics on the adoption of Lean Six Sigma practices?),
section 2 of the questionnaire was based on a systematic literature re-
This study used a survey research methodology to evaluate the ef- view about the implementation of Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma
fectiveness and the relevance of the adoption of LSS in the food industry in the food industry (see Costa et al., 2018) to identify contingency
context, i.e. its appropriateness to the sector. A theoretical research variables associated to food industry characteristics that may impact
model (Fig. 1) based on the literature review was developed to illus- the adoption of LSS practices.
trates the main elements investigated in this study and the hypotheses Considering the third research question (What is the impact of LSS
stated. The aim is to answer three research questions: What is the de- adoption on food industry's performance?), the items to measure per-
gree of adoption of LSS practices in the food industry?; What is the formance were generated based on the benefits and motivation factors
impact of Food Industry characteristics on the adoption of LSS prac- cited more than twice in the systematic literature review of Costa et al.
tices?; What is the impact of LSS adoption on food industry's perfor- (2018). The six benefits (productivity increase, cost reduction, in-
mance? ventory reduction, defect rate reduction, financial improvement, lead
The study population consisted of food firms in Brazil and the time reduction and waste reduction) and the four motivations factors
United State. The sample frame was created from a list of 1849 food (elimination/reduction of product or process variation; cost reduction;
industries found in Brazilian and American Food Industry Associations competitiveness improvement; production/process quality improve-
websites. The survey was hosted at an online survey platform ment) were selected. A seven point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree
(Qualtrics) in Portuguese to Brazilian companies and in English to to 7 = strongly agree) was used for all items.
American companies. An invitation email containing a link to the on- A pilot test was conducted to ensure research rigor (MacCarthy,
line questionnaire including a cover page explaining the purpose of the Lewis, Voss, & Narasimhan, 2013) and to identify and solve problems
study and assuring confidentiality and the benefit of receiving a sum- before the survey was distributed in the field (Dillman et al., 2014). The
mary of the survey results was sent. A total of 337 companies completed questionnaire was submitted to 7 experts in the study domain (food
the online questionnaire, but only 145 (43%) had implemented L&SSi industry) and/or with relevant survey research background. Their
in their settings and their responses were used in this study. comments were used to refine and improve the survey instrument for
The survey questionnaire was designed following a set of re- distribution to the final sample. Based on their feedback, it was decided
commendation of Forza (2009) and Dillman, Smyth, and Christian to narrow the scope of the research by eliminating some blocks of
(2014). First, the question formulation was considered; the language of questions. Those questions that were not comprehensible were refined
the questionnaire was checked to be consistent with the respondent's and all open answer questions were changed to close ended questions.
level of understanding, the close-ended question format was selected to Survey data were collected from September through November of

Table 1
Respondent characteristics.
Hierarchical position Sample % Department Sample % Time in the company Sample %

Manager/Coordinator 43 Manufacturing 48 Above ten years 30

Supervisor/Lead 29 Quality 26 Between one to four years 30
Director 11 Continuous improvement 10 Between 4 and 7 years 20
President/CEO 6 Other 10 Between 7 and 10 years 12
Did not want to answer 6 Did not want to answer 7 Less than one year 9
Other 5

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L.B.M. Costa, et al. Food Control 112 (2020) 107110

2018. Table 1 illustrates the respondents’ characterization: hierarchical characteristics of the industrial environment studied, such as perishable
position, department and time in the company. goods; lack of deep understanding of the initiative principles and tools;
Response bias was investigated since it increases the generalizability localization of the company in the world; and, size of the company.
of findings (Flynn, Sakakibara, Schroeder, Bates, & Flynn, 1990; They were further investigated.
Lindner, Murphy, & Briers, 2001). It was conducted based on the ap- The practices with the lowest adoption in this sector are part of the
proach suggested by Armstrong and Overton (1977) by comparing early Pull, Six Sigma role structure and SPC constructs. The low applicability
respondents (responded following the first contact) to late respondents of pull systems supports the previous findings of Panwar et al. (2018)
(answered on the following contacts). The late respondents are con- and Dora et al. (2014) in the process and food industry, respectively,
sidered more similar to the nonresponse group than the earlier re- that also found the difficult to implement the pull construct, mainly due
spondents (Armstrong & Overton, 1977). After the comparison through to the characteristics of their industries.
an independent t-test, no statically significant differences were found. Six Sigma role structure is an infrastructure practice, which includes
In addition, Harmon's single-factor test was performed to test for the the recruitment, selection, training, and development of talented in-
possibility common method bias (CMB) (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & dividuals at various levels of belts (Master Black Belt, Black Belt, Green
Podsakoff, 2003), since we base our study on a single key informant Belt, and Yellow Belt) (Arumugam, Antony, & Linderman, 2014). This
approach. It reveals that one factor accounted for 36.6% of the variance practice involves large investments (Jacobs et al., 2015), which is a
explained. This means that no one factor emerged that counted for challenge in a sector that often has fairly low profit margins (Akkerman
more than 50% of the variance explained, which suggests that common et al., 2010; Dudbridge, 2011). As a whole, the food industry lacks
method bias is not a major concern in this study (Podsakoff et al., statistical knowledge, which contributes to employees’ fears about
2003). using SPC (Lim, Antony, Arshed, et al., 2015). Also SPC is generally
considered relatively complex and too advanced in this sector (Lim,
4. Results and discussion Antony, Garza-Reyes, & Arshed, 2015). This can be addressed through
continuous training and increasing the awareness and knowledge re-
Data was analyzed to evaluate the four hypotheses through the use lated to SPC implementation (Lim et al., 2014).
of statistical techniques and Partial Least Square-Structural Equation We control the degree of adoption for confounding effects of com-
Modeling (PLS-SME). Friedman two-way ANOVA was used to assess pany size, level of experience, and country where the plant is located, as
differences in the degree of adoption of LSS practices. Kruskall-Wallis they have been often used as control variables by previous studies in the
was applied to evaluate the difference in adoption of practices among continuous improvement field (e.g. DeSanctis, Ordieres Mere,
food industries with different characteristics. Partial Least Square- Bevilacqua, & Ciarapica, 2018; Jayaram et al., 2010; Kull, Yan, Liu, &
Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SME) technique by SmartPLS 3.0 Wacker, 2014; R. Shah & Ward, 2007; Netland, 2016; Yang, Hong, &
software was used to examine LSS practice loading and the path re- Modi, 2011). We employed Kruskal-Wallis tests to check their asso-
lationships hypothesized in this study. ciation with the degree of adoption of LSS practices in the sector (see
PLS was used considering it is particularly suitable when the sample Table 3).
size is small, the data are not normally distributed, and the model is Company size was measured as the number of employees in the
complex with many indicators and relationships to estimate (Hair, Hult, factory, and grouped into three categories: small companies (up to 99
Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2014), and it is a preferred method for exploratory employees), medium companies (between 100 and 499 employees) and
research (Dubey, Gunasekaran, Childe, Hazen, & Roubaud, 2018; D. X. large companies (above 499 employees). Most of the food industries in
Peng & Lai, 2012; X. Peng, Prybutok, & Xie, 2019). To test the ro- the sample are medium (46%), followed by large (32%), and then by
bustness of the model, a bootstrapping procedure with replacement small (22%). The mean adoption rates (mean rank) of ten practices
(5000 resamples) was employed. It was used to determine the estimated were significantly different at the 0.05 confidence level, being most of
standard errors and the significance of the parameter estimates (Chin, them related to Six Sigma constructs (six of them). The other four are
1998; Helm, Eggert, & Garnefeld, 2009). practices related to Statistical Process Control (two of them), Customer
We divide this section according to the four hypotheses. Involvement (one of them) and TPM (one of them) (see Table 3). The
large companies adopted these practices in a high level, which is sup-
4.1. The adoption of Lean Six Sigma in the food industry (H1) ported by evidence in previous literature, that suggests that large
companies are more likely to implement L&SSi practices than small
Hypothesis 1 (Food industry implements LSS practices in a frag- companies (Godinho Filho et al., 2016; Shah & Ward, 2003; White,
mented way) was supported by using a nonparametric test for k related Pearson, & Wilson, 1999).
samples (Friedman two-way ANOVA test). The result shows a difference Six Sigma adoption often involve large investments in training,
in the degree of adoption of LSS practices at a 5 percent significance consulting support, reorganizations, and associated information sys-
level (χ2 = 895.91, df = 44, p = 0.000) (see Table 2). tems (Jacobs et al., 2015), which is a challenge to small companies that
Eight of the 45 LSS practices were adopted by the majority of the usually face financial and human resources constraints (Netland, 2016;
respondents with a median equal to 6 (Table 2). Three of them are Timans, Ahaus, van Solingen, Kumar, & Antony, 2014, pp. 1–16). In
related to Six Sigma Focus on Metrics, two are related to Flow, one to addition, according to Kumar, Antony, and Douglas (2009) many small
Employee Involvement, one to Customer Involvement and one to Sup- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in spite of a number of Six Sigma
plier Involvement (see Table 2). Otherwise, some LSS practices are success stories in large organizations, are yet to be convinced of the
limited adopted in the food industry. Nine LSS practices had a median benefits from the introduction, development, implementation and de-
less than 4.0 (see Table 2). ployment of Six Sigma. These authors concluded that it is imperative for
A Friedman test was employed to compare the degree of adoption of small companies to have a strong management commitment and good
the practices within each of the eleven LSS constructs. Table 2 sum- leadership skills before embarking on the Six Sigma initiative. The lack
marizes the results. Except by the Six Sigma Improvement construct, the of adequate funding also denies many SMEs the opportunity to hire
other ten constructs presented differences between the degree of their ideal management team, suffering from lack of astute leadership
adoption of the practices that represent them, at a 5 percent sig- and planning, preventing SMEs from implementing Lean manu-
nificance level. These results show that the hypothesis 1 can be ac- facturing. Therefore, unless small companies restructure their focus to
cepted, once the adoption of LSS practices in the food industry occurs in become more receptive and capable of absorbing new ideas the im-
a fragmented manner. Godinho Filho, Ganga, and Gunasekaran (2016) plementation of Lean will be delayed or may not be achieved (Achanga,
compiled the main reasons for such phenomenon, being: some specific Shehab, Roy, & Nelder, 2006).

5
 Table 2
The degree of adoption of LSS practices among food industries.
Construct Mean Median Std. Dev. Item Code Item Mean Median Std. Dev. Min. Max. Frequency (%)
L.B.M. Costa, et al.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

FLOW 5.38 6.00 1.32 FLOW_03 Equipment is grouped to produce a continuous flow of families of products 5.58* 6 1.153 3 7 0 0 6 12 28 30 26
FLOW_01 Products are classified into groups with similar processing requirements 5.57* 6 1.129 2 7 0 1 3 14 28 30 24
FLOW_04 Families of products determine our factory layout 5.29* 6 1.554 1 7 2 4 6 17 19 23 28
FLOW_02 Products are classified into groups with similar routing requirements 5.10 5 1.351 1 7 1 3 6 21 29 23 17

SSMET 5.35 6.00 1.52 SSMET_01 Our plant uses metrics to set strategic goals for quality improvement in order to improve plant financial 5.59* 6 1.441 1 7 1 3 5 10 19 30 32
performance
SSMET_03 Financial performance (e.g., cost savings, sales) is part of the criteria for evaluating the outcomes of 5.59* 6 1.372 1 7 1 3 5 13 16 32 30
quality improvements in our plant
SSMET_02 Metrics are used to link quality performance to strategic goals 5.41* 6 1.437 1 7 1 3 7 12 22 28 27
SSMET_04 Our plant systematically uses a set of measures (such as defects per million opportunities, sigma level, 4.81 5 1.679 1 7 2 10 11 16 21 20 19
process capability indices, defects per unit, and yield) to evaluate performance

SUPPINV 5.10 5.00 1.54 SUPPINV_03 We frequently are in close contact with our suppliers. 5.61* 6 1.198 2 7 0 1 3 19 19 30 28
SUPPINV_02 We work with our key suppliers so they are contractually committed to annual cost reductions. 5.36* 6 1.475 1 7 1 5 6 14 23 23 28
SUPPINV_01 We work with our key suppliers so they can deliver to plant on Just in Time (JIT) basis. 5.34* 6 1.335 2 7 0 2 8 17 21 29 23
SUPPINV_05 We strive to establish long-term relationship with our suppliers. 4.68 5 1.581 1 7 2 9 12 21 21 22 13
SUPPINV_04 We give our suppliers feedback on quality and delivery performance. 4.51 5 1.745 1 7 6 9 13 19 19 20 14

SSIMP 5.04 5.00 1.58 SSIMP_02 We use a structured approach to manage quality improvement activities 5.14 5 1.443 1 7 1 3 8 17 28 21 21
SSIMP_03 We have a formal planning process to decide the major quality improvement projects 5.09 5 1.585 1 7 2 6 10 17 18 27 21
SSIMP_04 All improvement projects are reviewed regularly during the process 5.01 5 1.451 1 7 1 3 10 25 23 19 20
SSIMP_01 In our plant, continuous improvement projects are conducted by following a formalized procedure (such 4.92 5 1.824 1 7 5 10 9 12 18 22 24

6
as DMAIC-Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control)

EMPINV 4.98 5.00 1.60 EMPINV_01 Shop-floor employees are key to problem solving teams 5.56* 6 1.452 1 7 1 4 7 6 25 23 34
EMPINV_04 Shop-floor employees undergo cross functional training 5.37* 6 1.389 2 7 0 2 9 17 21 23 28
EMPINV_02 Shop-floor employees drive suggestion programs 4.50 5 1.65 1 7 4 10 12 21 19 21 11
EMPINV_03 Shop-floor employees lead product/process improvement efforts 4.50 5 1.595 1 7 5 6 14 23 23 17 12

SETUP 4.86 5.00 1.53 SETUP_02 We are working to lower setup times in our plant 5.43* 5 1.466 1 7 2 2 8 6 32 19 30
SETUP_01 Our employees practice setups to reduce the time required 4.94* 5 1.485 1 7 1 6 10 17 23 28 14
SETUP_04 We have short production cycle times to quickly respond to customer requests 4.74 5 1.452 1 7 2 7 8 23 28 21 11
SETUP_03 We have low set up times of equipment in our plant 4.32 4 1.536 1 7 1 11 20 23 20 14 10

CUSTINV 4.70 5.00 1.64 CUSTINV_01 Our customers give us feedback on quality and delivery performance 5.47* 6 1.405 1 7 1 3 6 10 28 23 29
CUSTINV_02 Our customers are directly involved in current and future product offerings 4.78 5 1.539 1 7 2 8 9 23 24 19 15
CUSTINV_04 We regularly conduct customer satisfaction surveys 4.42 4 1.755 1 7 7 8 15 21 15 20 13
CUSTINV_03 Our customers frequently share current and future demand information with marketing department 4.14 4 1.532 1 7 6 12 12 26 23 17 3

TPM 4.65 5.00 1.77 TPM_02 We maintain all our equipment regularly 5.20* 6 1.597 1 7 1 8 7 14 19 26 25
TPM_03 We maintain excellent records of all equipment maintenance related activities 4.92* 5 1.627 1 7 2 6 16 13 23 19 21
TPM_01 We dedicate a portion of everyday to planned equipment maintenance related activities 4.48 5 1.667 1 7 3 13 12 17 26 17 12
TPM_04 We post equipment maintenance records on shop floor for active sharing with everyone 4.01 4 1.949 1 7 11 18 14 15 14 15 13

SPC 4.54 5.00 1.81 SPC_04 We use fishbone type diagrams to identify causes of quality problems 5.10* 5 1.751 1 7 5 5 10 12 19 21 28
SPC_03 Charts showing defect rates are used as tools on the shop-floor 4.57 5 1.836 1 7 7 10 13 17 14 24 16
SPC_02 We extensively use statistical techniques to reduce process variance 4.33 4 1.752 1 7 6 13 12 21 19 18 12
SPC_01 Large amount of process/equipment on the shop floor is currently under Statistical Process Control 4.14 4 1.768 1 7 7 17 11 19 22 14 10

(continued on next page)

Food Control 112 (2020) 107110
L.B.M. Costa, et al. Food Control 112 (2020) 107110

There were 24 practices whose adoption greatly differed depending

23
15

10

19
19
13

12
on the company's level of experience with L&SSi (see Table 3). In this
7

9
study the level of experience was assessed by asking about the duration
21
14

17

19

19
18
12
6

8
25 of their company's L&SSi implementation. Companies with less than 1
19

16

19

21
23
16

12
5

year of implementation are classified in the low level of experience

13
23

25

19

19
18
21

18
category, companies that implemented the initiative for more than 1
4
Frequency (%)

10

14

19

18
year and less than 3 years are classified in the intermediate stage, and
3

9
9
above 3 years companies are in the high stage. Most of companies
13

12

10

10

17
2

8
surveyed are in the intermediate stage (43%), followed by high (33%),
10

13

10

15
1

1
6

3
6
and low (24%).
Max.

The years of experience considerably affects the degree of LSS

7
7

7
7
7

7
practice adoption, especially the Six Sigma constructs. Except for one
Min.

Six Sigma practice (“Financial performance is part of the criteria for

1
1

1
1
1

1
evaluating the outcomes of quality improvements in our plant.“), all
Std. Dev.

practices were affected by the level of experience. The greater the

1.554
1.781

1.761

1.869

1.688
1.737
1.811

1.907
company's experience level, the higher the degree of practice adoption.
The four SPC practices were primarily adopted by companies with a
Median

high level of experience. The level of experience also affected adoption

of two practices in each of the Flow, Setup, Employee Involvement, and
5
4

5
5
4

TPM practices. Finally, one Customer Involvement was also affected.

5.12*

4.79*
4.76*
Mean

4.40

4.19

4.12

4.13

3.68

Food organizations with low category experience cannot implement all

LSS dimensions completely due to tacit knowledge requirements. As
We use a “pull” production system (a method of production control in which downstream activities signal
In our plant, members of improvement teams have their roles and responsibilities specifically identified

role structure (or equivalent structure) can obtain the necessary knowledge and skills to fulfill their job
Our plant uses differentiated training so that workers who have different roles in the black/green belt

The black/green belt role structure (or equivalent structure) helps our plant to recognize the depth of

organizational experience grows, the company benefits from accumu-

We use a black/green belt role structure (or equivalent structure) to prepare and deploy individual

lated knowledge. Furthermore, prior experience may increase man-

ager's trust in the effectiveness of L&SSi in the food industry, so com-
panies increase the adoption of their practices.
The last control variable analyzed was the company location.
Hofstede scale (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005) differentiates them by their
culture aspects, i.e. plants located in countries that score 50 or lower on
the Hofstede Individualism dimension were categorized as collectivistic
Production at stations is “pulled” by the current demand of the next station

We use a Kanban, squares, or containers of signals for production control

cultures, as Brazil, whereas those with a score above 50 were categor-

ized as individualistic cultures, as the USA. In relation to the level of
development, Brazil is classified as a developing country and the United
State as a developed country (United Nations, 2018).
The result indicates a high level of LSS adoption in Brazilian food
Production is “pulled” by the shipment of finished goods

industries, 14 practices are more frequently adopted in Brazilian com-

panies than in the USA, in which differs from recent literature reviews
workers for continuous improvement programs

(Cherrafi, Elfezazi, Chiarini, Mokhlis, & Benhida, 2016; Costa &

Godinho Filho, 2016; D'Andreamatteo et al., 2015; Jasti & Kodali, 2015;
Yadav & Desai, 2016) demonstrating that developed have more pub-
lications about continuous improvement. A possible reason for that
their needs to upstream activities)
workers' training and experience

could be the collectivistic culture of Brazil, since LSS involves work in

group and collectivism increases the involvement of employees (Pakdil
& Leonard, 2015), which may actually lead to a more successful im-
plementation. Another possible explanation is the fact that most of
Brazilian companies in the sample are large factories (37%) and the
responsibilities

American companies are mostly dominated by medium factories (67%).

As observed before, large companies implement some LSS practices in a
high level.
Item

4.2. Food industry inherent characteristics and the adoption of LSS

SSROLE_02
SSROLE_04

SSROLE_03

SSROLE_01

practices (H2)
Item Code

PULL_02
PULL_01
PULL_03

PULL_04

We analyzed the contingency effect of food industry characteristics

in the adoption of LSS practices, since LSS adoption in this sector is not
Std. Dev.

well studied and the food industry's inherent characteristics are cited as
1.79

1.84

barriers to implementation (see Costa et al., 2018). A Kruskal-Wallis

test was employed to evaluate hypothesis 2 (Food industry character-
Median

istics impact the adoption of Lean Six Sigma practices in the sector), and
5.00

4.00

to check the contingency effect of food industry characteristics

Table 2 (continued)

(cleaning impact, demand response strategy, process type, equipment

*p value < 0.05.
Mean

4.46

4.34

type) on the adoption of LSS practices. Table 4 shows the characteristics

of the companies surveyed.
Construct

SSROLE

Most of the companies stated that changeover time is highly af-

PULL

fected by cleaning time. The Kruskal-Wallis test confirmed that the

compulsory cleaning process in the food industries make the adoption

7
L.B.M. Costa, et al. Food Control 112 (2020) 107110

Table 3
The effect of control variables in the degree of adoption of LSS practices among food industries.
LSS practices Company Size p-value Level of experience p-value Country p-value

Small Medium Large Low Intermediate High USA Brazil

Mean rank Mean rank Mean rank Mean rank Mean rank Mean rank Mean rank Mean rank

FLOW_01 71.78 76.14 69.41 0.67 64.76 67.38 88.15 0.01* 74.41 72.37 0.779
FLOW_02 69.38 77.80 68.72 0.43 68.47 71.31 80.31 0.24 76.86 71.27 0.447
FLOW_03 70.61 70.83 77.68 0.63 60.57 71.68 84.90 0.042* 61.72 78.08 0.025*
FLOW_04 81.28 70.72 70.56 0.43 70.63 75.89 73.57 0.16 65.38 76.43 0.133

SSMET_01 58.13 75.86 79.11 0.06 53.15 73.59 88.78 0.000* 74.21 72.46 0.809
SSMET_02 50.13 76.11 84.21 0.001* 47.94 73.52 90.63 0.000* 73.58 72.74 0.909
SSMET_03 67.86 75.84 72.51 0.66 65.16 73.37 79.44 0.318 71.36 73.74 0.743
SSMET_04 57.03 78.39 76.31 0.045* 58.06 67.80 90.03 0.003* 80.77 69.51 0.129

SUPPINV_01 84.84 64.81 76.44 0.06 71.82 68.81 80.13 0.48 60.48 78.64 0.013*
SUPPINV_02 77.11 71.33 72.55 0.80 73.93 65.97 82.97 0.12 75.67 71.80 0.599
SUPPINV_03 76.72 70.80 73.56 0.79 70.74 66.91 83.62 0.15 73.20 72.91 0.968
SUPPINV_04 79.50 71.23 71.06 0.60 70.44 72.73 76.46 0.69 62.48 77.74 0.040*
SUPPINV_05 58.55 75.92 78.73 0.08 68.31 67.01 83.36 0.15 69.06 74.78 0.44

SSIMP_01 53.97 78.02 78.90 0.013* 56.97 72.44 87.53 0.003* 65.99 76.16 0.170
SSIMP_02 55.66 77.61 78.33 0.025* 57.16 70.64 90.29 0.000* 66.78 75.80 0.220
SSIMP_03 62.53 76.99 74.52 0.25 47.34 77.10 87.53 0.000* 69.90 74.40 0.543
SSIMP_04 59.23 77.50 76.05 0.10 54.91 76.82 83.57 0.002* 69.53 74.56 0.496

EMPINV_01 70.11 68.60 81.15 0.24 69.19 67.20 84.62 0.093 65.90 76.20 0.157
EMPINV_02 57.63 76.21 78.96 0.06 64.88 65.70 88.64 0.019* 70.61 74.08 0.641
EMPINV_03 72.42 67.94 80.50 0.28 60.46 72.92 82.85 0.106 53.58 81.74 0.000*
EMPINV_04 65.95 67.99 84.83 0.05 64.03 70.53 84.62 0.047* 54.49 81.33 0.000*

SETUP_01 67.55 72.69 77.15 0.59 53.99 69.86 91.62 0.001* 61.40 78.22 0.023*
SETUP_02 61.22 79.30 72.18 0.12 63.12 73.40 81.97 0.045* 70.89 73.95 0.674
SETUP_03 75.02 75.34 68.34 0.64 66.94 71.44 78.46 0.520 69.47 74.59 0.489
SETUP_04 64.52 72.65 79.27 0.29 71.16 71.78 77.18 0.653 61.60 78.13 0.025*

CUSTINV_01 68.86 80.86 64.78 0.10 73.54 70.46 75.38 0.89 82.06 68.93 0.072
CUSTINV_02 79.11 72.63 69.36 0.58 68.90 70.40 78.52 0.59 61.69 78.09 0.027*
CUSTINV_03 55.67 75.03 81.95 0.018* 58.57 75.85 79.34 0.13 72.50 73.23 0.922
CUSTINV_04 58.94 75.71 78.77 0.09 60.65 71.02 86.22 0.021* 66.68 75.85 0.218

TPM_01 61.89 71.18 83.12 0.07 58.82 74.40 83.05 0.035* 67.21 75.61 0.258
TPM_02 64.14 69.01 84.64 0.05 57.57 73.59 82.64 0.051 67.59 75.44 0.287
TPM_03 52.42 74.11 85.46 0.002* 61.59 67.82 89.20 0.009* 67.54 75.46 0.285
TPM_04 69.59 67.37 83.22 0.12 60.88 73.95 82.36 0.057 58.58 79.49 0.005*

SPC_01 66.38 74.26 75.74 0.58 62.49 68.94 87.20 0.026* 65.40 76.42 0.138
SPC_02 66.75 77.89 70.39 0.40 59.34 74.01 83.47 0.028* 67.27 75.58 0.264
SPC_03 47.44 77.01 84.78 0.000* 58.60 71.48 87.07 0.010* 68.98 74.81 0.433
SPC_04 45.56 77.08 85.96 0.000* 63.46 70.35 85.56 0.023* 68.13 75.19 0.339

SSROLE_01 59.28 71.55 84.38 0.028* 56.75 73.61 85.54 0.011* 60.19 78.77 0.013*
SSROLE_02 61.72 71.82 82.34 0.09 64.72 68.42 86.43 0.038* 53.70 81.69 0.000*
SSROLE_03 55.41 79.05 76.49 0.023* 51.09 74.30 89.00 0.000* 60.12 78.80 0.012*
SSROLE_04 65.08 68.43 84.81 0.06 50.74 71.00 92.22 0.000* 63.24 77.39 0.057

PULL_01 75.53 74.75 68.82 0.70 68.12 71.90 77.73 0.76 69.11 74.75 0.447
PULL_02 73.89 69.45 77.37 0.60 68.03 72.24 76.89 0.74 59.17 79.23 0.007*
PULL_03 65.02 75.42 75.04 0.47 61.57 72.60 82.51 0.15 66.64 75.86 0.216
PULL_04 69.84 66.31 84.54 0.06 65.76 72.73 80.19 0.25 59.50 79.08 0.009*

*p value < 0.05.

of the set-up time reduction difficult. The greater the cleaning time, the only when a machine is stopped (such as inserting a new die) from
lower the adoption of SETUP_03 practice (“We have low set up times of external operations that can be performed while the machine is running
equipment in our plant.“) at p-value < 0.05. However, we found no (such as transporting the new die to the machine), and then converting
difference in the practices associated with the effort to reduce set-up internal setup operations to external operations (Lean Lexicon, 2008).
time (“Our employees practice setups to reduce the time required.” and Lopes and Freitas (2015) applied this tool in a beverage industry. They
“We are working to lower setup times in our plant.“), which indicates reported gains in productivity with negligible investment, and savings
the food companies are searching for ways to reduce their set-up time. in manufacturing costs estimated to amount to 35.000 Euros/year.
For this purpose LSS tools such as SMED (single minute exchange of The effects of the demand response strategy used by the food in-
dies) could be considered and could be applied more. SMED refers to dustry factories on L&SSi adoption was also considered. Most of the
the target of reducing changeover times to a single digit, or less than companies surveyed manufacture their products to stock (MTS), pos-
10 min, first separating internal setup operations, which can be done sibly to minimize the losses caused by the perishability of their raw

8
L.B.M. Costa, et al. Food Control 112 (2020) 107110

Table 4 in some prior research (see Dora et al., 2014; Upadhye et al., 2010;
Companies characteristics. Vlachos, 2015).
Company characteristic Category Sample % Table 5 provides the descriptive statistics of managerial related
barriers in the food industry. These factors were the lack of skilled
Cleaning impact Low 28 workers; lack of management support; poor employee participation;
Moderate 28
resistance to change. These factors had previously been found to be
High 44
Demand response strategy MTS 46
barriers to the adoption of L&SSi in the food industry (Costa et al.,
Mix to Order 8 2018). A five-point Likert scale ranges from 1 (the factor does not im-
MTO 22 pact at all the adoption of L&SSi) to 5 (the factor impact in a great
Hybrid 24 extent the adoption) were used to ask respondents the impact of these
Process type Batch 39
factors on the adoption of L&SSi.
Continuous 35
Hybrid 26 Except for one item, “Poor employee participation” whose median
Equipment type General-Purpose 38 was 3.0, these managerial barriers had a median score of 4.0. This
Mix 35 means that they had a moderate/high impact of adoption of LSS prac-
Specialized 27
tices, which indicates the lack of familiarity and uncertainty that food
industry has about the effectiveness of L&SSi.
materials or to ensure the availability of the food during the year. The
factories demand response strategy did not impact the level of adoption 4.3. The effect of Lean Six Sigma adoption on food industry performance
of pull practices. No statistical significance (at p < 0.05) was ob- (H3 and H4)
served. Moreover, no significant relationship was found between the
adoption of pull practices and process type, neither between pull A reflexive hierarchical component model was constructed to ana-
practices and equipment type. The lack of knowledge about practices lyze the relevance of adopting LSS practices in the sector and evaluate
related to Pull dimension could be a possible reason, since it was the the impact of LSS practices in food industry performance hypothesized
LSS dimension less adopted by the sector. (H3: The adoption of Lean Six Sigma practices positively impacts food
More knowledge about the Pull practices and their benefits may industry performance). The model simultaneously maps the lower
facilitate its adoption. In addition, some actions to produce using other constructs (i.e., the 11 LSS dimensions) and a higher-level construct
demand response strategies instead of pure MTS may facilitate its (i.e., the LSS initiative). This reduces the number of relationships in the
adoption. Make to order (MTO), in the food industry, is applied when structural model, creating a PLS path model that is more parsimonious
MTS is not viable because of unpredictable demand and the perishable and easier to apprehend (Hair, Sarstedt, Ringle, & Gudergan, 2017).
nature of the products, and the hybrid strategy (MTS-MTO) is adopted The model estimation was conducted following two stages re-
as a consequence of the huge increase in product variety and shorter commended by Peng and Lai (2012), examining validity and reliability
lead-time requirements of the customers (Soman, van Donk, & of the measurement model and analyzing the structural model. A con-
Gaalman, 2007). However, pure MTO can be ruled out because of the firmatory factor analysis was employed to evaluate the reliability and
large number of relatively long, costly set-ups that are required (Soman convergent and discriminant validity of the model. Convergent validity
et al., 2007). was tested using the Fornell and Larcker's (1981) criteria, that considers
The mix-to-order strategy (i.e., flexible recipes are stored and sub- the average variance extracted (AVE) which measures the amount of
sequently mixed when customer orders arrive) was used by a few variance that is captured by the construct in relation to amount of
companies (Akkerman & Donk, 2010). It could be employed more, since variance due measurement error, and it was also assessed using the
food-processing companies can sometimes produce the same end pro- magnitude and sign of the standardized factor loadings (λ). The relia-
ducts in different ways: either in packaging form, size, label, or product bility was assessed using composite reliability values (CR) to check
recipe. whether the measurement items sufficiently represent their respective
The process type affected the adoption of two practices related to constructs.
TPM (“We maintain excellent records of all equipment maintenance The constructs and its practices exceeded the recommended values
related activities” and “We post equipment maintenance records on of reliability and convergent validity estimators (i.e. AVE > 0.5,
shop floor for active sharing with everyone”). In continuous companies λ > 0.7 and CR > 0.7) (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2009), ex-
these were adopted more (significance p < 0.05) as expected, since cept by five items that presented loading factor value (λ) between 0.5
equipment reliability and availability would be critical in this sector. and 0.7. A bootstrapping procedure was performed, all items showed
The other two TPM practices had higher adoption in continuous flow high statistical significance (at p < 0.05) related to their corre-
factories, but they were not statistically different (p < 0.05). sponding construct and all LSS dimensions showed high statistical sig-
These results indicate that hypothesis 2 is partially supported since nificance (at p < 0.05) related to LSS, so we decided to keep all the
the adoption of some LSS practices are affected by the food industry item in the instruments. The results are illustrated in Table 6.
characteristics. However, the effect of industry characteristics is low The discriminant validity among the constructs was assessed by
compared to the effect of level of experience. This suggests that the lack comparing the AVE (average variance extracted) of each factor to its
of knowledge is a barrier to the adoption of L&SSi in the sector as found shared variance (squared correlation) with each of the other constructs

Table 5
Managerial related barriers in the food industry.
Barriers Median Mean Std. Dev. Min. Max. Frequency (%)

1 2 3 4 5

Lack of knowledge 4 3.51 1.06 1 5 3 14 28 35 19

Lack of skilled workers 4 3.76 1.02 1 5 1 11 26 34 28
Lack of management support 4 3.32 1.44 1 5 15 17 17 21 30
Poor employee participation 3 3.37 1.19 1 5 7 17 28 27 21
Resistance to change 4 3.82 1.07 1 5 3 9 20 37 30

9
L.B.M. Costa, et al. Food Control 112 (2020) 107110

Table 6
Results of validity and reliability.
Lean Six Sigma scales and measurement items λ t value AVE CR t value

Supplier Involvement
We work with our key suppliers so they can deliver to plant on Just in Time (JIT) basis 0.75 17.82 0.54 0.85 22.07
We work with our key suppliers so they are contractually committed to annual cost reductions 0.69 12.30
We frequently are in close contact with our suppliers 0.75 15.69
We give our suppliers feedback on quality and delivery performance 0.74 17.63
We strive to establish long-term relationship with our suppliers 0.75 17.12
Customer involvement
Our customers give us feedback on quality and delivery performance 0.65 8.45 0.52 0.81 13.02
Our customers are directly involved in current and future product offerings 0.71 10.65
Our customers frequently share current and future demand information with marketing department 0.74 12.06
We regularly conduct customer satisfaction surveys 0.78 17.47
Pull
Production is “pulled” by the shipment of finished goods 0.77 15.71 0.59 0.85 13.31
Production at stations is “pulled” by the current demand of the next station 0.80 20.30
We use a “pull” production system (a method of production control in which downstream activities signal their needs to upstream 0.88 38.79
activities)
We use a Kanban, squares, or containers of signals for production control 0.58 6.36
Continuous flow
Products are classified into groups with similar processing requirements 0.81 24.77 0.55 0.83 13.87
Products are classified into groups with similar routing requirements 0.76 13.20
Equipment is grouped to produce a continuous flow of families of products 0.77 16.36
Families of products determine our factory layout 0.59 7.02
Set up time reduction
Our employees practice setups to reduce the time required 0.80 19.47 0.52 0.81 22.61
We are working to lower setup times in our plant 0.78 18.00
We have low set up times of equipment in our plant 0.73 12.75
We have short production cycle times to quickly respond to customer requests 0.52 5.72
Statistical Process Control
Large amount of process/equipment on the shop floor is currently under Statistical Process Control 0.85 25.15 0.63 0.87 35.14
We extensively use statistical techniques to reduce process variance 0.84 31.47
Charts showing defect rates are used as tools on the shop-floor 0.79 19.94
We use fishbone type diagrams to identify causes of quality problems 0.70 12.07
Employee involvement
Shop-floor employees are key to problem solving teams 0.76 15.38 0.66 0.89 32.53
Shop-floor employees drive suggestion programs 0.80 20.16
Shop-floor employees lead product/process improvement efforts 0.86 33.92
Shop-floor employees undergo cross functional training 0.83 29.92
Total productive/preventive maintenance
We dedicate a portion of everyday to planned equipment maintenance related activities 0.79 19.77 0.68 0.89 31.20
We maintain all our equipment regularly 0.85 29.53
We maintain excellent records of all equipment maintenance related activities 0.86 14.96
We post equipment maintenance records on shop floor for active sharing with everyone 0.80 24.21
Six Sigma role structure
We use a black/green belt role structure (or equivalent structure) to prepare and deploy individual workers for continuous improvement 0.90 46.76 0.71 0.91 28.88
programs
In our plant, members of improvement teams have their roles and responsibilities specifically identified 0.70 13.81
The black/green belt role structure (or equivalent structure) helps our plant to recognize the depth of workers' training and experience 0.86 32.56
Our plant uses differentiated training so that workers who have different roles in the black/green belt role structure (or equivalent 0.89 48.83
structure) can obtain the necessary knowledge and skills to fulfill their job responsibilities
Six Sigma structured improvement procedure
In our plant, continuous improvement projects are conducted by following a formalized procedure (such as DMAIC-Define, Measure, 0.83 30.01 0.72 0.91 64.25
Analyze, Improve and Control)
We use a structured approach to manage quality improvement activities 0.86 24.75
We have a formal planning process to decide the major quality improvement projects 0.87 40.10
All improvement projects are reviewed regularly during the process 0.81 29.90
Six Sigma focus on metrics
Our plant uses metrics to set strategic goals for quality improvement in order to improve plant financial performance 0.89 48.93 0.67 0.89 23.23
Metrics are used to link quality performance to strategic goals 0.86 30.32
Financial performance (e.g., cost savings, sales) is part of the criteria for evaluating the outcomes of quality improvements in our plant 0.77 15.86
Our plant systematically uses a set of measures (such as defects per million opportunities, sigma level, process capability indices, defects per 0.74 14.66
unit, and yield) to evaluate performance

(Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Table 7 shows that all the AVE values meet significant at p-value < 0.01 (see Table 9). A good model fit is estab-
these criteria as they are greater than the square of the correlation lished since the model has significant path coefficients and acceptably
between all possible pairs of constructs. Further evidence of dis- (moderate) R-square value. To assess the predictive relevance of the
criminant validity was that the factor loading for each item on its in- endogenous variables in our PLS model, we calculated the Stone-Geisser
tended construct was higher than its cross-loadings on all other con- test criterion Q2 using the blindfolding procedure (Geisser, 1974;
structs (Hair et al., 2014) (see Table 8). Stone, 1974). The positive value of Q2 (0.211) indicates that the pro-
PLS-SEM was used to estimate the relationships among LSS adoption posed model has predictive relevance (Peng & Lai, 2012).
and food industry performance and to test hypotheses 3. Fig. 2 gives the The findings confirm the effect of LSS adoption in food industry
result of this relationship. The path coefficient (β) between LSS and performance is positive, so hypothesis 3 can be accepted. LSS adoption
Food Industry's Performance is 0.678 (R2 = 0.459), and statistically contributes to improve food industry performance.

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L.B.M. Costa, et al. Food Control 112 (2020) 107110

Table 7
Squared Correlations between factors with AVE on diagonal.
CUSTINV EMPINV FLOW PULL SETUP SPC SSIMP SSMET SSROLE SUPPINV TPM

CUSTINV 0.724
EMPINV 0.490 0.813
FLOW 0.501 0.482 0.740
PULL 0.389 0.521 0.449 0.767
SETUP 0.435 0.610 0.461 0.519 0.718
SPC 0.509 0.670 0.449 0.519 0.612 0.795
SSIMP 0.506 0.732 0.554 0.538 0.623 0.778 0.847
SSMET 0.529 0.571 0.464 0.457 0.601 0.680 0.733 0.817
SSROLE 0.457 0.746 0.412 0.486 0.608 0.685 0.747 0.630 0.842
SUPPINV 0.644 0.606 0.580 0.518 0.572 0.527 0.604 0.463 0.483 0.735
TPM 0.495 0.678 0.519 0.498 0.653 0.643 0.706 0.599 0.673 0.602 0.824

Table 8
Cross-loading analysis.
CUSTINV EMPINV FLOW PULL SETUP SPC SSIMP SSMET SSROLE SUPPINV TPM

a
CUSTINV_01 0.655 0.312 0.347 0.280 0.346 0.289 0.344 0.405 0.260 0.443 0.306
CUSTINV_02 0.710a 0.351 0.434 0.258 0.284 0.234 0.275 0.259 0.304 0.456 0.350
CUSTINV_03 0.742a 0.292 0.303 0.288 0.267 0.349 0.395 0.448 0.290 0.386 0.295
CUSTINV_04 0.785a 0.445 0.373 0.300 0.357 0.549 0.434 0.413 0.441 0.563 0.460

EMPINV_01 0.249 0.760a 0.311 0.315 0.392 0.505 0.489 0.450 0.529 0.351 0.432
EMPINV_02 0.447 0.798a 0.341 0.352 0.418 0.502 0.555 0.441 0.581 0.486 0.501
EMPINV_03 0.360 0.864a 0.425 0.550 0.576 0.545 0.670 0.434 0.607 0.530 0.585
EMPINV_04 0.509 0.827a 0.468 0.451 0.568 0.616 0.644 0.529 0.693 0.575 0.658

FLOW_01 0.357 0.415 0.810a 0.310 0.420 0.409 0.479 0.431 0.333 0.440 0.435
FLOW_02 0.412 0.360 0.763a 0.261 0.275 0.311 0.401 0.340 0.246 0.408 0.338
FLOW_03 0.380 0.376 0.772a 0.437 0.452 0.365 0.471 0.421 0.412 0.460 0.480
FLOW_04 0.350 0.249 0.594a 0.315 0.138 0.205 0.235 0.097 0.179 0.419 0.226

PULL_01 0.216 0.260 0.307 0.771a 0.311 0.238 0.317 0.245 0.237 0.352 0.325
PULL_02 0.321 0.458 0.481 0.804a 0.437 0.495 0.437 0.398 0.412 0.503 0.449
PULL_03 0.369 0.439 0.360 0.880a 0.520 0.447 0.481 0.423 0.414 0.437 0.424
PULL_04 0.257 0.409 0.180 0.581a 0.270 0.357 0.385 0.295 0.399 0.253 0.296

SETUP_01 0.327 0.542 0.365 0.491 0.804a 0.504 0.530 0.416 0.539 0.489 0.531
SETUP_02 0.385 0.525 0.327 0.354 0.784a 0.512 0.541 0.584 0.483 0.446 0.508
SETUP_03 0.238 0.310 0.298 0.313 0.727a 0.411 0.349 0.339 0.368 0.418 0.461
SETUP_04 0.286 0.324 0.344 0.312 0.523a 0.293 0.324 0.359 0.317 0.256 0.355

SPC_01 0.471 0.535 0.473 0.482 0.590 0.851a 0.624 0.527 0.581 0.502 0.536
SPC_02 0.446 0.577 0.379 0.493 0.574 0.836a 0.664 0.571 0.593 0.497 0.593
SPC_03 0.349 0.456 0.274 0.371 0.382 0.789a 0.602 0.515 0.480 0.317 0.449
SPC_04 0.335 0.559 0.279 0.276 0.367 0.696a 0.582 0.555 0.515 0.333 0.452

SSIMP_01 0.429 0.614 0.445 0.462 0.465 0.681 0.834a 0.630 0.687 0.441 0.571
SSIMP_02 0.426 0.645 0.413 0.405 0.577 0.694 0.864a 0.666 0.642 0.549 0.593
SSIMP_03 0.504 0.599 0.509 0.538 0.584 0.679 0.875a 0.650 0.620 0.563 0.601
SSIMP_04 0.347 0.622 0.512 0.412 0.479 0.576 0.813a 0.529 0.580 0.489 0.630

SSMET_01 0.527 0.538 0.444 0.435 0.535 0.591 0.692 0.887a 0.590 0.409 0.537
SSMET_02 0.445 0.501 0.383 0.404 0.487 0.659 0.664 0.861a 0.562 0.385 0.543
SSMET_03 0.415 0.451 0.430 0.357 0.497 0.447 0.547 0.768a 0.407 0.470 0.440
SSMET_04 0.318 0.356 0.240 0.281 0.443 0.513 0.462 0.745a 0.487 0.234 0.424

SSROLE_01 0.380 0.684 0.322 0.419 0.587 0.646 0.651 0.581 0.895a 0.399 0.543
SSROLE_02 0.420 0.555 0.420 0.447 0.440 0.543 0.569 0.478 0.703a 0.417 0.592
SSROLE_03 0.341 0.620 0.306 0.376 0.531 0.581 0.648 0.539 0.863a 0.378 0.563
SSROLE_04 0.395 0.643 0.341 0.392 0.477 0.528 0.638 0.515 0.890a 0.431 0.568

SUPPINV_01 0.504 0.415 0.387 0.522 0.440 0.435 0.464 0.317 0.362 0.751a 0.501
SUPPINV_02 0.529 0.422 0.448 0.430 0.474 0.472 0.511 0.440 0.400 0.685a 0.437
SUPPINV_03 0.455 0.470 0.455 0.319 0.377 0.303 0.386 0.238 0.352 0.751a 0.399
SUPPINV_04 0.454 0.478 0.446 0.318 0.414 0.394 0.472 0.439 0.350 0.738a 0.491
SUPPINV_05 0.404 0.442 0.385 0.285 0.376 0.304 0.359 0.231 0.295 0.747a 0.360

TPM_01 0.349 0.508 0.406 0.408 0.535 0.468 0.552 0.467 0.525 0.433 0.790a
TPM_02 0.380 0.465 0.381 0.359 0.478 0.452 0.508 0.486 0.497 0.446 0.848a
TPM_03 0.455 0.536 0.416 0.337 0.576 0.547 0.583 0.537 0.554 0.470 0.859a
TPM_04 0.435 0.695 0.491 0.519 0.551 0.627 0.662 0.478 0.624 0.609 0.796a

a
Higher loading in the original constructs.

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L.B.M. Costa, et al. Food Control 112 (2020) 107110

Fig. 2. Generated hierarchic structural model.

Table 9
Significance analysis of the structural model relationships.
Relation t value p value

LSS → Performance (H3) 14.064 0.000

Performance → Performance 1 (Inventory level decreased) 6.691 0.000

Performance → Performance 2 (Process efficiency increased) 22.529 0.000
Performance → Performance 3 (Productivity increased) 22.515 0.000
Performance → Performance 4 (Financial gains increased) 23.043 0.000
Performance → Performance 5 (Losses decreased) 20.429 0.000
Performance → Performance 6 (Process variation decreased) 14.560 0.000
Performance → Performance 7 (Defect rate decreased) 10.838 0.000
Performance → Performance 8 (Machine availability increased) 15.715 0.000
Performance → Performance 9 (Lead time decreased) 9.140 0.000
Performance → Performance 10 (Product quality improved) 15.851 0.000
Performance → Performance 11 (Space utilization improved) 8.639 0.000

Table 10 Table 11
The moderator effect of level of experience in food industry performance (latent The moderator effect of level of experience in food industry performance
variable). (manifest variables).
Relation Path p value Performance Low Level of experience High p-value

LSS → Performance (H3) 0.678 0.000 Intermediate

LSS → Performance (Level of experience_High) 0.735 0.000
LSS → Performance (Level of experience_Low/Moderate) 0.688 0.000 Inventory level decreased 66.84 73.07 74.32 0.691
Process efficiency increased 67.50 72.72 74.31 0.739
Difference 0.047 0.301 Productivity increased 65.01 70.35 79.23 0.260
Financial gains increased 54.96 72.56 83.60 0.007*
*sig. < 0.05. Losses decreased 62.47 71.20 79.95 0.150
Process variation decreased 69.26 67.94 79.34 0.314
Defect rate decreased 71.06 65.13 81.74 0.102
We find that adopting LSS practices at a higher rate improves firm Machine availability increased 67.71 68.49 79.73 0.275
performance. These findings demonstrate that the food industry bene- Lead time decreased 74.94 71.77 70.17 0.870
fits from the adoption of LSS practices, which supports prior research Product quality improved 69.26 64.99 83.22 0.058**
that there is a positive relationship between the adoption of CI in- Space utilization improved 69.63 74.50 70.41 0.809
itiatives and performance (Fullerton et al., 2014; Hofer, Eroglu, &
Rossiter, 2012; Marin-Garcia & Bonavia, 2015; Nawanir, Teong, &
Othman, 2013; Swink & Jacobs, 2012).
To further explore the relationships among LSS implementation and

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L.B.M. Costa, et al. Food Control 112 (2020) 107110

food industry performance, we also tested whether the level of ex- overview of potential barriers to LSS in food industries.
perience (i.e. duration of implementation) moderates the relationship. Moreover, the theoretical implication is that the Practice Based
No significant effect was found in the latent performance variable View theory is supported, since two performance indicators, very va-
(Table 10). So, we employed a Kruskal-Wallis test in order to analyze lued by the sector (financial gains and product quality) are moderated
the moderator effect in the manifest performance variables (see by the level of experience. More experience in implementation in-
Table 11). creases the potential benefits to food organizations. The study also
The results show the level of experience positively moderates two presented the impact of contingency variables, such as cleaning impact
performance indicators, highly valued by the sector - financial gains and equipment type on the adoption of LSS practices.
and product quality. For both, the higher the level of experience, the Therefore, these findings suggest the necessity of increasing the
better is the performance with a significance of 0.05 and 0.1, respec- level of experience of organizations in the sector and the managerial
tively. These findings suggest that the level of experience is important awareness about the relevance of applying LSS practices to improve
when adopting LSS practices in the food industry sector. food industry performance. The level of experience was assessed by the
The study shows that even a sector with specific characteristics and duration of their company's L&SSi implementation. Further studies are
lack of familiarity is able to implement LSS practices and, even in a recommended to examine multiple measures of experience using mea-
fragmented way, these practices are helping food companies to achieve sures such as individual experience, organizational experience, team
improvement in their performance. Moreover, the food industries have leader experience, among others, and their relationship to the perfor-
a great opportunity to improve their performance by adopting LSS mance of LSS adoption. Another limitation of this study is that our
practices in an integral way. analysis involves data collected from a single respondent. The study is
also limited by the country of investigation, only Brazil and the USA.
5. Conclusion Further studies should investigate other countries to compare the re-
sults found. Moreover, there are a host of other performance effects that
This study of L&SSi adoption in the food industry used a survey should be examined, such as changeover time, waiting time and rework
methodology to evaluate the relevance of the initiative in the sector. reduction.
This sector views “quality” as a safety and hygiene factor, which dif-
ferentiates it from other sectors. In addition, this sector also lacks fa- Funding
miliarity with the L&SSi initiatives, so it important to examine whether
this is a potential path to improvement in the sector. This work was supported by CAPES (a Foundation within the
One of the key implications associated with our study involves the Ministry of Education in Brazil).
role of level experience in the adoption of LSS in the food industry and
its effect on company's performance. Our findings suggest that LSS CRediT authorship contribution statement
adoption in the food industry is greatly affected by the level of ex-
perience of the individual company. We found that the adoption of Luana Bonome Message Costa: Conceptualization, Methodology,
more than half of the LSS practices studied was affected by the com- Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft,
pany's experience with LSS. There was a smaller impact of adoption due Visualization. Moacir Godinho Filho: Conceptualization, Supervision.
to the size of the company and the country in which the firm was lo- Lawrence D. Fredendall: Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing -
cated. Brazilian food industries have adopted the L&SSi practices more review & editing, Supervision. Gilberto Miller Devós Ganga:
than American firms, which may be associated with the collectivism Methodology, Formal analysis.
culture of Brazil and the higher number of large companies in the
Brazilian sample. Small companies adopt some of L&SSi practices, but Declaration of competing interest
to a lower degree than large companies, possibly because of financial
and human resources constraints. None.
The compulsory cleaning practices in the food industry restrict
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