Benchmarking: An International Journal
Connecting the pieces of the puzzle toward sustainable organizations: A
framework integrating OM principles with GSCM
Joseph Sarkis, Chunguang Bai, Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour, Charbel José Chiappetta
Jabbour, Vinicius Amorim Sobreiro,

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Connecting the pieces
of the puzzle toward

sustainable organizations
A framework integrating OM

principles with GSCM
Joseph Sarkis

School of Business, Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

Chunguang Bai
School of Management Science and Engineering,

Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian, China
Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour and

Charbel José Chiappetta Jabbour
Department of Production Engineering,

São Paulo State University, Bauru, Brazil, and
Vinicius Amorim Sobreiro

Department of Management, University of Brasília, Brasília, Brazil

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework integrating the Hart and Milstein
(2003) strategies for organizational sustainable development (SD) with the ideas of Kleindorfer et al.
(2005) on sustainable operations management (SOM), which requires guidance of green supply chain
management (GSCM).
Design/methodology/approach – The construction of the framework was based on previous
studies that discussed synergies between operations management principles with environmental bias
and studies on adoption of GSCM practices.
Findings – The proposed framework guides managers to reconcile operations management practices/
principles that are already being implemented in organizations with an environmental perspective
because these practices sustain organizations to simultaneously reach SOM and SD.
Originality/value – The paper presents a framework that provides guidance on how organizations
can seek sustainability in their operations, considering that articles on the topic of sustainability have
not been developed with this specific focus.
Keywords Sustainable development, Operations management, Sustainable operations,
Green supply chain management
Paper type Conceptual paper

1. Introduction
Operations management has evolved in recent years due to changes in market
requirements and competitiveness including an increase in environmental awareness,
causing industries to rethink their productivity and quality strategies (Gunasekaran
and Ngai, 2012). Natural environmental management requires strategic integration
with business processes and other company functions in order to maintain consistency
between operational strategic planning and environmental planning (Wagner, 2007).

Benchmarking: An International
Journal

Vol. 23 No. 6, 2016
pp. 1605-1623

©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1463-5771

DOI 10.1108/BIJ-04-2015-0033

Received 14 April 2015
Revised 23 November 2015
Accepted 2 December 2015

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1463-5771.htm

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Therefore, the concept of sustainable operations management (SOM) has gained
prominence in the last decade (Gunasekaran and Irani, 2014).

SOM can be defined as strategies, actions and techniques that support operational
policies to achieve economic and environmental objectives simultaneously
(Gunasekaran et al., 2014).

Hart and Milstein (2003) proposed a framework whose purpose was to present how
organizations could pursue the creation of sustainable value for shareholders and
hence contribute to sustainable development (SD). Hart and Milstein’s (2003) article
has about 300 citations in Scopus (through October 2015), and articles that cited it
have not yet explored the framework proposed by the authors through the lens of
SOM (i.e. as principles of operations management can contribute to the
implementation of the strategies suggested by Hart and Milstein, 2003 to reach
SD). Therefore, the absence of that perspective tends to be a research opportunity in
terms of integration proposals between the topics of sustainability and operations
management. Such an argument was confirmed by Dubey et al. (2015), who claimed
that there is an urgent need for an integrated framework for sustainable
manufacturing; Westkämper (2008) outlined that systems, such as total quality
management (TQM), total productive maintenance (TPM), and just in time ( JIT), have
significant impacts on sustainable manufacturing implementation. Additionally,
Despeisse et al. (2012) claimed that the translation of sustainable manufacturing
principles into an operational activity is a blind spot.

Considering the findings of Dubey et al. (2015), Despeisse et al. (2012) and
Westkämper (2008), it is believed that Kleindorfer et al.’s (2005) proposal can be
integrated into the framework of Hart and Milstein (2003) in order to propose a
framework to present how organizations can contribute to SD through operations
management principles. Kleindorfer et al. (2005) offered a framework which suggested
strategies/actions to achieve sustainable operations. These authors have been cited
more than 360 times in Scopus (through October 2015), and the ideas put forward by
them in that framework have not yet been explored in scientific research.

Some articles were identified in discussing ways to SOM (Sangwan and Mittal, 2015;
Subramanian and Gunasekaran, 2015; Dubey et al., 2015; Srai et al., 2013; Despeisse
et al., 2013; Mani et al., 2014), but none considered the ideas disseminated by Hart and
Milstein (2003) and Kleindorfer et al. (2005).

Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a framework integrating Hart and
Milstein’s (2003) strategies to organizational SD with the ideas of Kleindorfer et al.
(2005) on SOM, which requires guidance of green supply chain management (GSCM).
The proposed framework will guide managers to combine operations management
practices that are already being implemented in organizations with an environmental
perspective for these practices to sustain organizations to simultaneously reach
SOM and SD.

Thus, the framework introduced in this paper provides a starting point for
discussing the synergies between principles of operations management and GSCM.
It addresses the support of lean/JIT, TQM, theory of constraints (TOC), Six Sigma
principles and GSCM practices for organizational adoption to achieve levels of
excellence in sustainability.

The following section of this paper presents how the framework proposed was
developed (Section 2); Section 3 discusses some recent research regarding SOM;
Section 4 provides an overview of lean/JIT, TQM, TOC and Six Sigma principles
and their potential contributions to environmental sustainability and GSCM.

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In Section 5, the proposed conceptual framework is introduced. Finally, in Section 6,
final remarks are presented concerning the applicability of the framework and
suggestions for future studies.

2. Methodology
This paper aims to propose an integrative framework between SOM and SD with the
support of GSCM. Articles that support this proposition are Hart and Milstein (2003)
and Kleindorfer et al. (2005). These two articles were selected because they are relevant
in their areas of expertise (sustainability and operations). The main foundations of
these two articles are presented.

Hart and Milstein (2003) proposed a framework whose purpose was to present how
organizations could pursue the creation of sustainable value for shareholders. Some
strategies were suggested for organizations that could contribute to SD. The strategies
suggested were pollution prevention, product stewardship, cleaner technologies, and
vision of sustainability. The framework can be used by organizations as a diagnostic
tool and for identifying opportunities to develop capabilities for achieving sustainable
value and thus new markets. The framework was based on four quadrants: today and
tomorrow internal and today and tomorrow external.

Kleindorfer et al. (2005) alluded to the proposal by Hayes and Wheelwright (1984)
regarding the four stage model for evaluating the role and contribution of the
production function in a company’s competitive advantage. They proposed four
strategies: internal present, external present, internal to the future, and external to the
future. These strategies generally suggest actions that organizations can follow in
order to improve environmental aspects of their operations. Those authors believed
that supply chains could be involved for external strategies.

Figure 1 shows summarized main ideas using Kleindorfer et al. (2005) and Hart and
Milstein’s (2003) proposals. Figure 1 shows Kleindorfer et al.’s (2005) ideas in the
squares and Hart and Milstein’s (2003) strategies for organizational SD in the
pentagons. It can identify alignment between the strategies of Hart and Milstein (2003)
and the actions of Kleindorfer et al. (2005); however, it did not identify articles that
integrated the two proposals and nor articles that proposed how organizations can
pursue the SD by SOM in the literature. Therefore, this paper may be justified because

Internal – Future
Develop renewable inputs
and redesign products to
reduce energy
consumption during
manufacturing and use
(Kleindorfer et al., 2005)

Internal – Present
Improve operations
internally aimed at eco-
efficiency and control of
residue through employee
involvement (Kleindorfer
et al., 2005)

External – Future
Develop capacities in 
products, processes and
supply chains for long-
term sustainability and
seek strategies to facilitate
them (Kleindorfer et al., 2005)

External – Present
Involve the upstream supply
chain, making tradeoffs in
the choice of materials and
processes and seeking to
close the cycle for safe
elimination and disposal
(Kleindorfer et al., 2005)

Clean
technologies
for innovating
and market
repositioning
(Hart and
Milstein, 2003)

Pollution
prevention for
cost and risk
reduction (Hart
and Milstein,
2003)

Sustainability
vision for
growth path
(Hart and
Milstein, 2003)

Product
stewardship
for reputation
and
legitimacy
(Hart and
Milstein, 2003)

Figure 1.
Summarized main

ideas using
Kleindorfer et al.

(2005) and Hart and
Milstein (2003)

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it proposes a framework explaining how principles of operations management and
GSCM practices can support the actions suggested by Kleindorfer et al. (2005) and
hence enable the strategies suggested by Hart and Milstein (2003).

The main principles of operations management, that literature has been considered
important to organizational environmental improvement, were selected according to
MacCarthy et al. (2013) in order to support the actions suggested by Kleindorfer et al.
(2005). Examples include lean/JIT, TQM, TOC and Six Sigma. Some of the relationships
have been pondered such as synergies between lean and green (King and Lenox, 2001;
Duarte and Cruz-Machado, 2013; Dües et al., 2013); lean, green and supply chains
(Azevedo et al., 2012; Hajmohammad et al., 2012); TQM, supply chain and green
(Corbett and Klassen, 2006); TQM, lean and GSCM (Zhu and Sarkis, 2004); lean and
sustainable operations (Piercy and Rich, 2015; Wong and Wong, 2014); and green,
lean and Six Sigma (Garza-Reyes, 2015). However, there are no articles that
simultaneously integrated lean, TQM, Six Sigma, TOC and GSCM.

3. SOM
SOM can be defined as strategies, actions and techniques that support operational
policies to achieve economic and environmental objectives simultaneously
(Gunasekaran et al., 2014). The concept of SOM has gained prominence in the last
decade (Gunasekaran and Irani, 2014).

Some articles that discuss SOM (Table I) were identified. Despeisse et al. (2013) and
Mani et al. (2014) used the perspective of the input/transformation/output model to
propose approaches or methodologies to measure or guide the search for sustainable
manufacturing. Sangwan and Mittal (2015), Subramanian and Gunasekaran (2015) and
Srai et al. (2013) considered product lifecycle stages or processes of a supply chain to
suggest sustainable manufacturing practices. Dubey et al. (2015) considered a set of
dimensions – which were institutional pressure, relationship with suppliers,
remanufacturing system, and manufacturing strategy – to suggest a model for the
adoption of sustainable manufacturing by organizations. These last authors were the one
who held principles of operations management in sustainable manufacture’s discussion.

Therefore, few articles analyzed the support of principles of operations management
with GSCM in an integrated manner to seek a sustainable manufacturing or the
organizational SD.

4. Greening operations management principles and green supply chain
Operations management influences environmental improvement through alterations in
production processes and by taking into account the systemic logic of production
systems (Corbett and Klassen, 2006). Operations management principles and
philosophies such as JIT, TQM, TOC, Six Sigma and lean manufacturing can be
adapted to support environmental management systems and improvements
(MacCarthy et al., 2013). Each of the major operations management principles and
philosophies identified for this paper are now overviewed. Their general relationship to
general corporate greening and environmental sustainability is also discussed.

4.1 Lean manufacturing, JIT and green issues
Historically, lean principles have been defined as the minimization of waste in
processes and products during the manufacturing of a good or service. Its definition

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and operationalization has had a significant focus on inventory reduction and
zero-inventory philosophies, parts of which include the JIT philosophy.

Some have argued that lean is green and aids in the greening of operations within
an organization and across the supply chain (Dhingra et al., 2014). The lean and green
discussion can be traced back to at least the late 1980s and early 1990s when the
issues of relating manufacturing strategy and environmental concerns in
organizations were evolving (Sarkis, 1995). In 2003, a US Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) report examined the relationship between lean and the environment
and identified opportunities for further enhancing organizations’ environmental
performance through their lean initiatives. Some key findings of the report included
the following:

• Lean manufacturing and processes produce an operational and cultural
environment that is conducive to waste minimization and pollution prevention.
Lean typically results in less material use, less scrap, reduced water and energy
use and decreased number and amount of chemicals used in operations.

• Lean manufacturing and processes can be leveraged to produce greater
environmental improvement. Through its continual, improvement-based, waste
elimination culture, lean methods do not explicitly incorporate environmental

Author(s) Purpose of article Framework proposed
Research
methodology

Sangwan and
Mittal (2015)

Identify frameworks from
literature to discuss green
manufacturing

Eight frameworks were selected,
which were based on lifecycle
products

Literature
review

Subramanian
and
Gunasekaran
(2015)

The study systematically
reviewed articles to identify
innovations in products,
processes, and technology that
lead to clean SCM

Some tables that systematized the
extent of cleaner practices have
been associated with supply chain
management

Theoretical

Dubey et al.
(2015)

Define a model for adoption
through sustainable
manufacturing enterprises

The model was based on some
dimensions: institutional pressure,
relationship with suppliers,
remanufacturing system, and
manufacturing strategy

Survey

Mani et al.
(2014)

Propose a methodology to
measure aspects of sustainability
in manufacturing processes

Methodology included various
information of a system input/
transformation/output

Theoretical

Despeisse
et al. (2013)

Guidance for identifying
inefficiencies and improvement
opportunities for resource-
efficient manufacturing

A workflow that considers aspects
of building and facilities that can
support manufacturing operations

Modeling
and
simulation

Srai et al.
(2013)

Proposes a process maturity,
model-based alternative to supply
networks’ carbon-measurement
approaches, namely the
systematic review of
organizational routines and
practices relevant to sustainable
manufacturing

The framework proposed enables a
systematic analysis and assessment
of practices that support
sustainable operations

Case studies

Table I.
Some recent

studies about SOM

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performance considerations. The philosophy provides a platform for broadening
companies’ definition of “waste” to address environmental risk and product
lifecycle considerations.

• Some regulatory issues can be encountered when applying lean manufacturing to
environmentally sensitive processes. Lean manufacturing can be challenging to
use in environmentally sensitive manufacturing processes such as painting and
coating. Some lean practitioners believe this situation results in either
constraining environmental performance improvements or increasing the risk
of non-compliance.

• There is a strong and growing network of organizations promoting lean
manufacturing. These organizations share a goal of promoting environmental
improvement and pollution prevention.

A managerial tradeoff or conflict between lean and green relates to the operational vs
strategic focus of these principles (Mollenkopf et al., 2010). Organizations tend to focus on
shorter-term efficiencies and initiatives with respect to lean practices and philosophies
while greening is viewed in a longer-term perspective. Thus, organizations seeking lean
implementation tended to seek quicker payback and returns, especially when compared
to green initiatives.

Practically, as exemplified by the EPA’s characterizations, lean and green can work
together by minimizing solid waste or people’s time and effort. This lean aspect can
work in consort with organizational greening. The other aspect of lean operations is the
effort to have smaller lot sizes of material. This type of practice would require more
frequent deliveries and setups of equipment and production systems. More frequent
deliveries in a lean system typically means less efficient deliveries and waste of fuel due
to smaller vehicles used for delivery, which are typically less efficient on a per-unit
basis. With greater setups, more material and/or energy may be used that does not add
value to the product or service. These are a couple ways that lean can be less green.
Additional internal setups required to maintain lessened inventory may also cause
waste due to setup runs that require initial stabilization and energy use.

Alternatively, smaller inventories mean smaller space requirements and less
spoilage and obsolescence waste. Less space for smaller inventories and warehousing
means less energy usage, equipment, storage material and overall waste. Evaluating
these tradeoffs requires data gathering, planning and analysis. Integration of these lean
outcomes within a total quality environmental management (TQEM) set of practices
may help to improve the lean and green relationship.

4.2 TQM and green issues
TQM is an operational strategy used by organizations to help meet customer needs and
to satisfy the customer. There are numerous definitions and perspectives on TQM. In
the USA, the TQM movement has been a mainstay in organizations since the early
1980s. Broader Six Sigma programs contain many of the same principles of TQM.

The TQM corporate philosophy covers a broad perspective and can incorporate a
variety of tools, methodologies and organizational practices. Three major elements and
numerous sub-elements of TQM can exist (Chase et al., 2001). There are philosophical
elements (e.g. customer-driven quality, continuous improvement, management by fact),
generic tools (e.g. process flow charts, run charts, cause/effect diagrams) and traditional
quality-control tools (e.g. Six Sigma, process capability, sampling plans).

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Each of these TQM philosophies and tools can be applied to corporate
environmental management practices, expanding it to TQEM. TQEM can work
closely with eco-design, lifecycle assessment (LCA), and ISO 14000 environmental
management systems.

The Global Environmental Management Initiative is an industry-run and
industry-supported professional organization that put together a TQEM Primer in
1993. Within the primer, it defined four basic elements of TQEM:

(1) Customer identification: in TQEM, environmental quality is determined by
customer preferences. Buyers, the local community, environmental groups, and
the general public are considered external customers, while a company’s
employees represent the internal customer group.

(2) Continuous improvement: a company’s management and employees should
work systematically toward the improvement of environmental performance.
Company-wide employee involvement in TQEM is a key to success.

(3) Doing the job right the first time: TQEM supports the elimination of
environmental risks. Employees should seek to identify and eliminate potential
environmental problems.

(4) A systems approach: it is important to design all components of the TQEM
system so that they function together and support each other in achieving
desired goals.

TQEM puts emphasis on source reduction and pollution prevention principles.
Under this principle, source reduction is the primary means for achieving
pollution prevention. Source reduction is defined as reduction in the amount of any
hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant entering any waste stream or
otherwise released into the environment prior to recycling, treatment or disposal.
Source reduction also refers to the use of materials, processes, or practices that reduce
or eliminate the quantity and toxicity of wastes at the point of generation.
By preventing waste, the need for costly treatment and disposal is decreased; that is,
“an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Source reduction can be achieved
by improving operating practices, training, substituting materials, and changing
processes and equipment.

Another important dimension of TQEM programs includes mistake proofing
(and zero defects), which can be effectively applied to pollution prevention. The concept
of zero defects is a core element of TPM and TQM concepts. This concept has also
driven organizations to focus on zero emissions and zero pollution programs. Thus, it
deserves some mention at this time since successful programs in pollution prevention
typically use this concept.

4.3 TOC and green issues
TOC is a management philosophy that aims to assist the managers regarding
“what” to do and “how” to do it to improve administration and production control
(Barnard, 2010; Boyd and Gupta, 2004; Goldratt, 1990; Lea and Fredendall, 2002), or
in other words, it has its underpinnings in organizational theories (Gupta and
Boyd, 2008) because initially it has been shown to address problems of use
of resources.

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Bearing in mind improvement of administration and production control, TOC
focusses on the importance of the restrictive factors in a whole process or system.
It seeks to optimize use of these production system constraints. Complementing this
definition, TOC can be further defined as follows:

[…] a pragmatic and holistic approach to continuous improvement, covering disparate
functionalities under a common theoretical foundation, and consists of an integrated suite of
tools focused on those things that limit greater performance relative to the goal […] (Watson
et al., 2007, p. 400).

From the standpoint of TOC, the system constraints are resources that do
not have the full capacity to meet demand or, in other words, something that
limits improved performance. In that sense, the TOC assumes that in any system,
at least one constraint exists. Otherwise, the system’s performance would be
limitless (Cai et al., 2009; Corbett, 2005). By focussing on the system constraints
as limiting factors of performance, the TOC enables an intuitive sense for improving
the outputs of the system and avoids unused capacity because it enhances the
capacity of all resources without exceeding the capacity of system constraints
(Sobreiro and Nagano, 2012; Cai et al., 2009; Finch and Luebbe, 2000; Luebbe
and Finch, 1992).

In addition to physical constraints, a set of principles – commonly referred to as
thinking processes – gives attention to or deals with other significant problems or
intangible, political constraints (Watson et al., 2007). In the broadest terms, thinking
processes are logic diagrams that support an individual or group of individuals in
solving complex problems, considering a cause and effect relationship (Kim et al., 2008;
Corbett, 2005; Rahman, 2002).

TOC focusses on corporate environmental sustainability or seeking to address
GSCM remain unaddressed. Taking this situation into account, considerable
opportunities exist for investigation of the intersection of TOC and corporate
environmental sustainability. TOC has been proven successful to solve production
problems such as optimizing product mix (Sobreiro and Nagano, 2012). An intriguing
avenue is to verify whether TOC can be of help in mitigating organizational
environmental burdens.

An ultimate goal of GSCM is to enhance the environmental performance of the entire
system beyond the borders of an organization. Using a TOC perspective, supply chain
optimization of environmental performance through managing environmental
bottlenecks (e.g. pollution emissions, natural resources limitations, environmental
technology management) and the bottlenecks of related processes after identifying the
green supply chain system bottlenecks.

TOC theory argues that the performance of the system is determined by the
performance of the bottleneck, so we must first solve the problem of how to ensure the
full use of bottleneck resources so that slack resources are not wasted. Environmental
performance and bottlenecks can increase the instability and uncertainty of corporate
environmental sustainability efforts. The Drum-Buffer-Rope theory buffer model in
TOC can manage these unstable factors, specifically the factors related to the
bottleneck resources and process.

For GSCM practices, setting up a buffer to protect the environmental bottleneck
process and ensuring that the green practices plan can be completed effectively can be
made TOC goals. This focus can improve organizational environmental performance
through a focus on environmental bottlenecks.

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Another avenue is to extend the TOC research results for a generic supply chain to
GSCM. A number of examples exist:

• Using discrete-time linear analytical models (e.g. Hu et al., 2002) formulated to
minimize total operating costs subject to constraints that take into account
internal and external factors, such as environmental operating strategies and
governmental regulations, can be avenues for research.

• Identify within the green supply chain upstream and downstream enterprise
collaboration to promote complete supply chain environmental performance and
profit improvements (Simatupang et al., 2004).

• Applying the thinking process of TOC to identify critical success factors in GSCM
and understand causal relationships between these factors (Rahman, 2002).

• Applying the TOC thinking process to GSCM to achieve win-win (environmental
and business) supply chain strategies (Mabin et al., 2006). One point should be
made before applying TOC in green supply chains.

These are some examples; many more exist that can apply various elements of TOC to
corporate and supply chain environmental sustainability improvements. The field is wide
open in this area to study TOC integration from analytical and empirical perspectives.

4.4 Six Sigma and green issues
Six Sigma has its underpinnings in TQM and has been used as a method to improve
organizational products, services and processes (Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2006).
A simple overview of Six Sigma can be summarized using two viewpoints. As a
quantitative-based approach, it is a comprehensive statistical monitoring process that
focusses on analytically reducing defects in organizations by increasing the level of
capabilities. From a business practices perspective, Six Sigma is a set of fundamental
principles to improve business profitability by reducing defects, wastes and costs that do
not add customer value (Kwak and Anbari, 2006; Dahlgaard and Dahlgaard-Park, 2006).

Six Sigma has also been considered a repackage of old quality management
principles, practices and techniques (Schroeder et al., 2008). Independent of this
observation, Six Sigma contributed to operations management by offering a framework
or system of fundamental rules used to help managers to continuously improve the
quality of their products, services and processes.

This process of continuous improvement is realized and generally known under the
acronym define, measure, analysis, improve and control (DMAIC; Mast and Lokkerbol,
2012), as shown in Table II.

There is growing interest and evidence from practitioner and academic settings for
extending and improving the concepts of Six Sigma to the supply chain. Greening aspects

Elements of DMAIC Descriptions of its key processes

Define Define the problems or processes and benefit analysis
Measure Measure the problems or processes
Analyze Analyze the cause of defect and main and starting point of variation
Improve Improve the processes to exclude the variation
Control Control the system with the objective of improving the processes
Sources: Adapted of Kwak and Anbari (2006) and Mast and Lokkerbol (2012)

Table II.
Elements of DMAIC
and its descriptions

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play a significant role in this expected extension. In certain situations (e.g. foreign suppliers),
the quality of green processes in all parts of the supply chain may need to be known.

Expanding even further, Six Sigma projects can be targeted to improve the
environmental protection performance of supply chain management. Six Sigma can help
in the determination of metrics and support constructing measurement models for green
supply chain performance. These metrics could be applied in a variety of settings to solve
a broad array of issues, including environmental governance capabilities, green service,
environmental quality and even supplier improvement on environmental dimensions.

The fact-based, data-driven, problem solving approaches from Six Sigma can help
to discover “root causes” about environmental issues. Integrated performance
management tools, such as the balanced scorecard and Six Sigma, have been
recommended as complementary tools for corporate environmental management
practices (Hsu and Liu, 2010; Länsiluoto and Järvenpää, 2008).

Environmental management systems (EMS), such as ISO 14001, can also play a role
in how Six Sigma relates to organizational greening. For example, ISO 14001 requires
the existence of proper environmental quality plans, programs, documentation, and
procedures. Thus, ISO 14001 certification and environmental quality performance can
integrate environmentally oriented Six Sigma projects.

4.5 GSCM
Operations management discussion should not be restricted to the context of the
organization. It needs to involve a holistic supply chain perspective. The production of a
given product requires management and coordination of material flows and information
and relationships among the organization, suppliers and clients (Harland, 1996). When
concern for the environmental impacts of products is included, a more systemic
perspective is needed, reaching the context of GSCM (Corbett and Klassen, 2006).

GSCM has emerged as an effective management approach and a philosophy for
leading and proactively developing greener manufacturing organizations (Zhu et al.,
2008). GSCM represents the integration of environmental thought into supply chain
management, including product design, selection and obtaining materials, production
processes, final product delivery to the consumer (transportation and packaging) and the
product’s end of lifecycle after its useful life (Golicic and Smith, 2013; Srivastava, 2007;
Min and Kim, 2012; Zhu et al., 2008), and reverse logistics of closing the loop (Sarkis et al.,
2011; Srivastava, 2007). Firms can be positioned in different stages of GSCM, and because
of this, they may adopt different practices of GSCM (Carbone and Moatti, 2011).

Figure 2 shows the GSCM practices in the context of the immediate relations of a
supply chain, and in Table III, brief definitions are presented for each GSCM practice.

Suppliers Organization Customers

Internal environmental
management
Eco-design

investments recovery
Cooperation with
customers reverse
logistics

Green purchasing

Figure 2.
Illustration of
GSCM practices
in the context of
a supply chain

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5. Proposal of an integrated approach: OM principles and GSCM
Taking into account the previous section, which introduced some conceptual pillars of
integration between principles of operations management and green issues and GSCM,
Figure 3 presents a theoretical proposal on how to integrate these principles within a
SD context. This framework is based on an adaptation for seeking more SOM by
Kleindorfer et al. (2005) and on the ideas of Hart and Milstein (2003). The left side of this
grid is focussed on issues related to internal practices and concerns of organizations.
The right hand side of the grid is on external concerns. The present issues, short-term
operational concerns, are at the bottom of the grid, while future, more strategic
concerns are at the top portion of the grid.

In the first quadrant (internal – present), the focus is on the organization’s internal
operations. In order to make the operations more sustainable in this stage, the GSCM
practices that could have the biggest contribution would be internal environmental
management and recovery of investments. These practices tend to be the most usual for
companies in the initial stages of GSCM ( Jabbour and Jabbour, 2012). Lean and TQM are
the operations management principles that may be effectively employed at this stage.
According to Dües et al. (2013), lean is like a catalyzer for facilitating the implementation
of green. In this sense, lean principles that tend to support the practice of internal
environmental management are the involvement of employees in the search
for environmental improvements and the reduction of hierarchical levels, encouraging
employees to assume responsibilities in the company’s environmental management
system. According to Wong and Wong (2014), human aspects of lean may address
sustainable operations.With the practice of recovery of investments, lean can support these
GSCM activities from the perspective of reducing waste. TQM can support the internal
environmental management practice from the perspective of consumer satisfaction,
internal or external, of the company in relation to promoting environmental programs of
continuous improvement and the search for a philosophy of pollution prevention (Borri and
Boccaletti, 1995). Therefore, in this stage, the target is internal eco-efficiency supported by
lean and TQM in a GSCM context. As a consequence, pollution prevention for the cost and
risk reduction strategies from Hart and Milstein (2003) may be achieved.

GSCM practice Definition

Internal environmental
management

Environmental management system and environmental auditing actions
with support from upper and middle management as well as inter-
functional integration on behalf of environmental improvements in the
production process

Green purchasing Environmental concern considerations in the selection, evaluation, and
auditing process of suppliers, and the involvement of suppliers in meeting
the organization’s environmental objectives

Cooperation with
customers

Customer collaboration in cleaner production, eco-design, and use of
returnable packaging

Eco-design Product design considering aspects such as easy to disassemble, easy to
recycle, reduced consumption of resources, reduced or no use of
hazardous/polluting substances

Investments recovery Sale of used equipment and scrap
Reverse logistics Reuse, recycling, remanufacturing, and correct disposal of products/

components/packaging of after sale and after consumption
Sources: Based on Zhu et al. (2005, 2008)

Table III.
Brief definitions

of GSCM practices

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Proposed framework

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In the second quadrant (external – present), the first actions of supply chain
involvement occur on behalf of environmentally conscious production. A more
systemic perspective should be adopted. GSCM practices that can be effectively
adopted are green purchasing, cooperation with customers and reverse logistics.
Internal practices (internal environmental management and investments recovery)
continue to be applied as the scope becomes broader. However, according to the
literature, companies tend to be in the initial stages of external practices. Green
purchasing and cooperation with customers are the least adopted organizational GSCM
practices in general (Zhu et al., 2012; Jabbour et al., 2013).

Lean with JIT actions and TQM are the operations management principles that
can be effectively employed within this quadrant. In relation to the practice of green
purchasing, lean principles can support actions by suppliers in meeting the
organization’s environmental objectives because of the lean principle of relationships
with suppliers (Dües et al., 2013). TQM, in turn, can also support the practice of green
purchasing with the principle of supplier partnership formation (Borri and Boccaletti,
1995) for reducing or eliminating the use of hazardous chemical substances in those
inputs supplied. In addition, TQM can support the execution of internal environmental
audit procedures in supplier installations (Borri and Boccaletti, 1995). It may support
some audits of suppliers’ sites in order to check workplace conditions to avoid social
problems. It can keep up companies’ reputation and legitimacy.

JIT can support the practice of reverse logistics, especially in the return of packaging
from the supplier or customer. According to Jabbour et al. (2013), the practice of
cooperation with customers is very important for supporting the reverse logistics practice.
JIT also tends to support cooperation with customers. It is important to point out that
TQM, which focusses on customer satisfaction, plays an important role in this quadrant,
since environmental considerations to be mapped and incorporated in production belong
to the stakeholders and not just the customers. In this stage, the companies are thinking
beyond the organization and are initiating effective GSCM actions. As a consequence,
the product stewardship strategy from Hart and Milstein (2003) may be adopted.

In the third quadrant (internal – future), eco-design, an internal GSCM practice,
takes on special prominence. Once some external practices have been successful, such
as supplier involvement in reducing or eliminating hazardous chemical substances, it is
possible to start improving or creating products and processes aimed at being easy to
disassemble, easy to recycle, having reduced consumption of resources, or having
reduced or no use of hazardous/polluting substances. In this sense, the principles of Six
Sigma take on great importance.

Six Sigma is a project management method that aims to improve processes and
products, continuously seeking to reduce defects and variability while focussing on
customer requirements (Kwak and Anbari, 2006). Therefore, Six Sigma, based on
project management, planning and control of processes and DMAIC, can intervene in
the traditional product development process (PDP). So, DMAIC will provide a sequence
to help identify, define, prioritize, conduct, manage, achieve, sustain and improve green
lean initiatives (Garza-Reyes, 2015). The intention is to seek solutions for new products
based on the use of renewable or recyclable materials or materials that are easy to
disassemble and that reduce input consumption. It also aims to analyze and propose
more efficient production processes from an energy conservation perspective and to
reduce the generation of waste.

It is also possible to integrate quality-, environmental- and manufacturing management
systems within this quadrant. It thus permits joint actions (decisions and resources)

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for using lean and TQM principles for environmental improvements in the process and in
the product. In this quadrant, an organization may use learning with the adoption of
external GSCM practices, even if still incipient, for improving and advancing in internal
GSCM practices. As a result, clean technologies for innovating and market repositioning
strategy from Hart and Milstein (2003) may be a reality.

In the fourth and last quadrant (external – future), the company is expected to have
evolved in its understanding of GSCM practices as an effective management tool and a
philosophy (Zhu et al., 2008). In this quadrant, given that an organization has learned and
evolved through the previous three quadrants, an organization will focus on eliminating
possible physical or managerial restrictions between the tiers in the supply chain
that may be hampering full adoption of all GSCM practices pertinent to it. Thus,
the organization at this stage will have internal environmental management practices
and investments recovery well consolidated. With the practice of green purchasing, the
company is expected to have suppliers selected and evaluated based on environmental
criteria. These suppliers will be involved in the development process of environmentally
proper products and processes because of the advances in third quadrant’s eco-design
practices. The practice of reverse logistics should contribute to the remanufacturing and
redesign processes because of advances in third quadrant’s eco-design practices. In
addition, cooperation with customers is expected to advance to where it also cooperates
with the eco-design. In this sense, principles of TOC, such as the thinking process, which
aims at understanding cause and effect relations (Rahman, 2002), can contribute toward
the organization’s construction of a holistic view on how to seek ongoing environmental
improvements in the context of the supply chain. The other principles of operations
management continue to collaborate and to contribute toward the more intense adoption
of GSCM’s internal and external practices. As a result, the sustainability vision for the
growth path strategy from Hart and Milstein (2003) may be a reality.

Thus, in the most advanced quadrant of the proposed framework (external – future),
organizations can properly align planning and the allocation of resources for integrated
decision-making between operational strategic planning and environmental planning.
This alignment of planning and resources can be feasible if the organization begins to
propose integrated actions between functional areas of the company such as production,
purchasing, logistics, product development, marketing, human resources and the
environment. In other words, top management can propose cross-functional projects with
objectives and goals linked to operational and environmental results in order to enable
real synergy between the principles of operations management and GSCM.

This framework of quadrants can be used to guide organizations in a self-appraisal
process and the eventual generation of action plans related to the search for more
sustainable operations while also contributing to SD. A company’s evolution through
the quadrants tends to be gradual, but, at the same time, it requires the simultaneous
adoption of GSCM practices because the stages tend to complement each other because
of the learning curve in using the principles of operations management with an
environmental bias.

6. Concluding remarks
This paper aimed to propose a framework between SOM and SD. The construction of
the framework was based on previous studies that discussed synergies between
operations management principles with environmental bias and studies on adoption of
GSCM practices. There are four quadrants in the proposed framework: internal present,
external present, internal future and external future. For each quadrant, this paper

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proposed the adoption of operations management principles and GSCM practices that
could support the actions suggested by Kleindorfer et al. (2005), thus supporting each
strategy indicated by Hart and Milstein (2003) to organizations that contribute to SD.

The main contributions of the paper were as follows: propose an integration
between the topics sustainability and operations management (Dubey et al., 2015);
provide ways to simultaneously integrate lean, TQM, Six Sigma, TOC and GSCM on
sustainable manufacturing implementation (Westkämper, 2008); and guide how
organizations can pursue SD through SOM (Despeisse et al., 2012).

The conceptual proposal of this paper sought to guide managers to implement SD
based on GSCM practices and operations management principles for achieving an
improved environmental, and potentially economic, performance.

Also, the framework proposed can assist in teaching the management of more
environmentally sustainable operations and GSCM. Most OM texts and courses have
environmental issues inserted into the future of operations topical discussions
(Gunasekaran and Ngai, 2012). Also, few OM courses consider this integration.
The framework can also be useful for organizational consultants who work in
sustainability as well as in operations management.

Some future research propositions are proposed:

P1. The proposed framework needs to be practically validated in a real-world situation.
Whether it is through case studies, surveys, or even action research, verifying
whether the framework is useful for diagnosing a company’s needs is important.

P2. Given the evolutionary nature of the framework, investigating the longitudinal
effects of GSCM practices and their support from OM principles needs to be
carefully examined. This investigation can occur in different geographical,
economic and political contexts, as in cases of developing and developed countries.

P3. Whether there are cultural and institutional differences that may cause this
framework to be adjusted needs to be considered.

P4. Studying the application of this framework through the prism of the individual
level behavioral aspects is important. For example, people involved in the
process of enabling the synergy between principles of OM and GSCM, vs those
who only focus on one or the other, but not both principles, and the effectiveness
of implementation and outcomes need to be investigated.

P5. Analyzing some organizational capabilities and resources which will be
necessary for organizations to move forward among quadrants of framework.

P6. Identifying and analyzing barriers for organizations to move over the quadrants
of framework.

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About the authors
Joseph Sarkis is Head of Department of School of Business at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
His research interests focus on concerns of the social and environmental of industry and business.

Chunguang Bai is an Associate Chair at the Dongbei University of Finance and Economics.
His research interests focus on supply chain management, management of technology, and
business process management and the environment.

Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour has been working at Design Manufacture & Engineering
Management Department, University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, UK). Her research interests
include “green supply chain management,” “low carbon operations management,” “sustainable
operations management,” and “corporate environmental management.” She has published
articles in the International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production
Research, International Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Cleaner Production,
among others.

Charbel José Chiappetta Jabbour is an Academic in “Green Business & Sustainability
Management” at the University of Stirling, Centre for Sustainable Practice & Living (CSPL), and
Centre for Advanced Management Education (CAME), Scotland, UK. Research interests:
sustainability in emerging economies, sustainable supply chains, human factors of corporate
sustainability. He was Associate Professor at UNESP-Sao Paulo State Univ (2011-2016) and
USP-Univ of Sao Paulo (2008-2011).

Vinicius Amorim Sobreiro is an Associate Professor at the University of Brasília.
His research interests focus on heuristics, Theory of Constraints, product mix and finance.
Vinicius Amorim Sobreiro is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: sobreiro@unb.br

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