Purpose: The changes brought forth by the Digital Transformation have an impact on the way we think, assess and manage Quality. While the concept of Quality 4.0 has resulted from these changes, there is still limited understanding and unclear definitions in this new era of Quality Management.Design/methodology/approach: There is a clear opportunity to review and analyze the state-of-the-art of Quality 4.0, its main research efforts, topics and directions. To do so, a bibliometric analysis and descriptive/mapping literature review were performed.Findings: There is a clear focus on the implications of technology for Quality, but other relevant topics include business management and strategy models and systems, as well as human or soft factors. Results reveal an increasing interest in Quality 4.0 as well as a link between topics.Originality/value: Together with the review, analysis and digest of the literature, we offer our own contribution to a commonly accepted definition Quality 4.0.

In an increasingly dynamic environment where change seems to be the only constant feature, operational excellence programmes are often used to achieve improved performance results. However, the capacity of such approaches to make organisations successful in the long term is yet to be demonstrated. Operational excellence should not be seen as an approach to promote change, but rather to provide tools and framing for people in the organisation to deal with it. Our literature-based theory is that the relationships of operational excellence with both organisational culture and agility have the potential for further integration in the promotion of long-term, sustainable operational excellence initiatives. To do so, such initiatives need to look beyond simple cultural fit and work to promote a more agile behaviour and a cultural capacity to deal with constant change. If these conditions are met, the sustainability of operational excellence should be achieved, with organisations being able to strive in the long term with the promotion of organisational agility capabilities and an adaptable culture. The objective of this paper is to sustain this theory building, proposing the research questions that will help us understand the relationships and integration between the concepts of operational excellence, organisational agility and organisational culture.

This article aims to analyze the relationship between Lean and Industry 4.0, further exploring the opportunities for integration with the new concept of Industry 5.0. Departing from a literature review, it shows how the relationship between Industry 4.0 and Lean is—while unanimously positive—clearly orientated towards the more technological aspects. In this scenario, most studies on this relationship highlight the technological side of organizations, emphasizing the integration of Industry 4.0 technology to augment Lean methodologies and tools. As such, most of the apparent value of this relationship derives from the use of technology, and relatively limited inputs input are found on issues related to the human and social factors of organizations—such as leadership, people, integration, and training for new roles and new tasks. In the face of this reality, we evaluate the potential for integration between Lean and Industry 5.0, arguing how Lean may offer a proper perspective to support sustainability, resilience, and human orientation in Industrial contexts.

Operational Excellence (OpEx) is understood by the quest to continuously improve performance. While used by organizations worldwide, the capacity of OpEx programmes to make organizations successful in unstable business environments has been challenged. This article aims to answer the research question of what the nature of the relationship between OpEx and Organizational Agility truly is. The authors have previously proposed a theoretical framework supporting the link between Operational Excellence, Organizational Culture, and Organizational Agility. While built on a strong conceptual background, this framework lacked empirical validation. Following the conclusion of ten industrial case studies, this article provides a summary of the key findings obtained in each case and integrates them into an updated conceptual model. As key findings, this study shows how Operational Excellence enablers and cultural orientation have an important role in the development and scaling up of Organizational Agility capabilities, highlighting how different contexts may influence these dynamics. This article offers a better understanding of the balance needed to maintain high operational performance levels while dealing with change. It connects and upholds the importance of Organizational Agility and of the cultural paradigm in the management of Quality in technical and technological organizations.

Purpose: This article offers a novel approach that brings together management, engineering and organizational behavior. It focuses on the understanding of organizational dynamics in an era of technological change, upholding the importance of organizational agility and of the cultural paradigm in the management of organizations.Design/methodology/approach: In this work, the authors present the conclusions from a set of studies carried out in organizations operating in technical and technological industries. The authors assessed the capabilities of these organizations in terms of operational excellence maturity and its impact on the organizational culture and organizational agility.Findings: Results show the importance of operational excellence either in developing or expanding organizational agility capabilities while reinforcing the cruciality of an excellence-oriented culture to sustain these efforts over time.Originality/value: Increasingly unstable business environments have led to a growing interest in how to develop and maintain operational excellence in the face of continued and disruptive change. However, this interest has, so far, been advanced with little empirical evidence to support the corresponding predictions. This work offers the first practical evidence that continued focus and optimization of operations, with the right cultural alignment, helps organizations survive and thrive in increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments.

About 35 years ago, the word ‘excellence’ entered the business lexicon, quickly making its way into the quality community. Today, excellence has proved to be a valid quality initiative by promoting performance improvements in organisations across the world. But in the face of new industrial paradigms, it also faces challenges - some novel and disruptive; some old and with renewed strength. While in many areas, including the field of quality, discussions regarding the future are common, in the specific case of excellence these have been rare. The driver behind this work is to understand the current state and the future challenges of excellence, supporting these perspectives in a broad literature review covering its history. The results highlight the achievements of excellence, its limitations and challenges, and the key concepts that need addressing in the scope of dealing with the industrial models of the future. Altogether, it looks at the relationships between excellence and other quality initiatives, and identifies opportunities for improvement. By covering the history of excellence, and identifying solutions that can be adapted and integrated in its scope, we hope to present our contributions for sparking discussion and help the development of a robust excellence approach for the future.