Determination of the Critical Success Factors (CSF) in the Implementation of Six Sigma (SS) and Its Sustainable Benefits

Currently, organizations seek to position themselves in the market as the most competitive and profitable in their branch, through the continuous improvement of their processes, products, and/or services, applying various techniques, tools, and methodologies. Particularly in this chapter, focus on Six Sigma (SS) will be shown, a strategy used in companies to achieve competitive objectives, continuously improving processes. In this sense, it is considered important to identify and know the main factors that are involved in its implementation. Likewise, the organizations are presenting a culture towards the sustainability and the environmental care, derived from this, the methodology used to develop a measurement instrument that allows to identify the CSF in the implementation of SS, the sustainable benefits that can be achieve with correct implementation, the procedure used for the validation of the content of the instrument, the validity of internal consistency and the obtained results.

Determination of the Critical Success Factors of Philosophies, Techniques, and Tools for Continuous Improvement Applied in the Service Sector

At the global level, the service industry represents a critical component for the economy and its growth trend is above of the other sectors. This sector alone is responsible for 63% of the gross domestic product and 45.5% of labor occupation worldwide. Despite its role in modern economies, the sector receives very little attention. In the literature, the authors have found the efforts that have been made to increase the efficiency and productivity of this type of organizations: adapting philosophies, tools, and/or techniques that were born to achieve this goal in the manufacturing industry, such as Lean manufacturing, total quality management, six sigma, lean six sigma, among others. The objective of this study is to perform an exhaustive literature review of the critical success factors reported in diverse studies of the implementation of these tools or philosophies in the service sector, as well as their differences, similarities, and results.

Psychosocial Factor Evaluation in Metal-Mechanic Workers With Particular Reference to Mental Load

The International Labour Organization (ILO) considers mental workload one of the most important psychosocial risk factors associated with the characteristics of the task and paramount in the metalworking industry. The objective was to analyze the levels of risk of the psychosocial factors that workers present, considering their physical, social, and mental environment, to respond to the Mexican Official Norm NOM-035-STPS and the ILO guidelines. The methodology consisted of applying to 125 workers a questionnaire of 74 items with 10 factors. The answers were assigned a score of 0 to 4 to later determine the risk level of each factor. The results revealed that the factors with the highest risk are working hours (93%), workload (71%), and lack of control over work (34%). It is concluded that the higher risk factors affect the mental workload of workers in the metalworking industry and associated with the characteristics of the tasks they perform.

Combined Methods for Physical and Mental Workload

This chapter presents information about the methods that combine physical and mental workload/fatigue during ergonomic evaluation. The methods were identified through a systematic literature review. The search criteria were done through a literature search in databases like SciFinder, SciELO, ScienceDirect, etc. As result, the following methods are described: Global Load Scale, Multivariate Workload Assessment, Subjective Fatigue Symptoms Test, Fatigue Assessment Scale, Scale of Recovery for Exhaustion of Occupational Fatigue, Scale of Estimated Fatigue-Energy Points, Swedish Occupational Fatigue Inventory, NASA-TLX, Combined Cognitive and Physical Assessment, Laboratory Method of Economics and Sociology of Work, OWL Method, Ergonomic Checklist Method, RENAULT Method, Joyce Method, NERPA Method, ARBAN Method, and MAPFRE Method. As a conclusion, it is possible to affirm that there are some evaluation methods that provide better elements for an accurate evaluation, and others lack basic elements, which causes an incomplete/not accurate evaluation.

Work Stress and Psychosocial Factors in the Manufacturing Industry

Companies are in constant search of greater productivity and better use of resources; however, they have neglected the human being. In this regard, it is important to analyze the presence of the psychosocial factors to which workers are exposed at all levels. These factors exert both a positive and a negative influence and indeed turn into a risk when they are not in balance with worker capabilities. This literature review aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the psychosocial factors present in the manufacturing industries. The methodology consisted of conducting a search in two databases in addition to government pages. A combination of keywords was used for the search, and each publication was classified according to the factors analyzed, the type of evaluation, and the area of application. Out of all 2,468 publications found, eight were selected. Finally, work-related psychosocial factors were found to be the most analyzed.

Quality Management Approach to Workload and Performance Evaluation

Literature suggests that many organizations have realized both savings and growth by implementing total quality management as an evolution that contributed to the development of principles and practices, the tools, and techniques for continual improvement to partners as employees, customers, suppliers, and owners. This chapter is spotting a correlation in the planning stage process-centered approach and its effect on employee workload design.

Indicators for Measuring Changeover Activities

At present, the manufacturing industries require the implementation of more efficient and flexible fabrication processes to offer high-quality products. The changeover methodologies can be used to reduce the setup times, allowing the industries to be more competitive. The application of changeover methodologies is mainly influenced by the 4Ps model, which is composed of organizational and design factors, such as people, practices, product, and processes. However, this model is not useful in determining the relationship between each one of the Ps and the changeover activities. In this chapter, the authors have developed an exhaustive review of the references to establish the indicators to design an instrument composed of 79 items and divided into the five constructs of the 4P model, which was statistically validated using the Kendall W indicator and the Cronbach´s alpha indicator.

Artificial Intelligence for Evaluating the Mental Workload of Air Traffic Controllers

In this chapter, the authors propose the application of artificial intelligence (namely expert system and neural network) for estimating the mental workload of air traffic controllers while working at different control centers (sectors): terminal control center, approach control center, area control center. At each air traffic control center, air traffic controllers will perform the following procedures: coordination between units, aircraft transit, climbing, and descending. So with the help of the artificial intelligence (AI) and its branches expert system and neural network, it is possible to estimate the mental workload of dispatchers for a different number of aircraft, compare the workload intensity of the air traffic control sectors, and optimize the workload between sectors and control centers. The differentiating factor of an AI system from a standard software system is the characteristic ability to learn, improve, and predict. Real dispatchers, students, graduate students, and teachers of the National Aviation University took part in these researches.

Mental Workload Assessment and Its Effects on Middle and Senior Managers in Manufacturing Companies

This chapter aims to know the mental workload level and its effects on middle and senior managers in manufacturing companies. The chapter aims to know the mental workload level related to gender, age range, civil status, number of children, years of experience, and worked hours per week. As method, the NASA-TLX method was implemented. This method measures mental workload based on six dimensions: mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, effort, performance, and frustration level. Data was collected by applying an online questionnaire. Results indicated that some dimensions contributed to mental workload in the following decreasing order: mental demand, temporal demand, effort, performance, frustration level, and physical demand. Similarly, results from mental workload level varied from 55.73 to 64.10. Nevertheless, there was no clear relationship between the gender, age range, civil status, number of children, years of experience, worked hours per week, and mental workload level. Finally, employees manifested mental workload mainly due to stress, mental fatigue, and headache.

All-in-One Academics

The changing nature of higher education systems and academic work all around the world generally and in Turkey specifically highlight the need for academics to use, analyze, and process so much information simultaneously, and deliver results at a specific period of time, which cause them mental workload. Thus, this chapter addresses the problem of understanding and exploring the dynamics of mental workload in Turkish academic setting. The main data for the analysis comes from a wide field research, including 505 questionnaires and 45 in-depth interviews with academics in various universities of Turkey. The mixed methods research revealed that growing publication pressures, administrative work, teaching and supervision hours, the unpredictability of academic positions, the curse of flexibility, and the bureaucratic nature of universities are some of the factors, leading to mental workload in Turkish academia. The other dynamics, such as academic incentive system, demanding nomination/promotion criteria, lack of family-work life balance, were also explored.