Quality management and operational excellence have a long tradition in Sweden, embedded in national values of democracy and pragmatism. Early pioneers of Swedish Quality practice and research were Lennart Sandholm, Bo Bergman and Bengt Klefsjö.

Today many researchers and practitioners carry the flame. Historically, Swedish products were well-known for high quality, today the quality work has been expanded into sustainability and societal satisfaction. It has been included in many parts of the processes of businesses and public organisations to the extent that quality management has often been incorporated into the normal way of working, sometimes making it almost invisible. Still, the basic values of quality management are as important as ever: focus on customers (now expanded to the stakeholders of society), work with processes, base decisions on facts, improve continually and, last but not least in Sweden, let everybody be committed. All of these are surrounded by management commitment and systems thinking.

Cronemyr, P., Fundin, A. (2024) “Editorial for the Special section on Operational Excellence and Quality Improvement in Sweden”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 15 No. 6, pp. 1157-1161.

Issue publication date: 3 October 2024