2025 Awards Announcement:
The 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award for services to Lean Six Sigma has been awarded to Professor Jiju Antony.
Professor Jiju Antony is recognized worldwide as a leader in OPEX methodology for achieving and sustaining business excellence. He is currently serving as the Vice President of Research for the most prestigious quality body in the world (International Academy for Quality, Japan) and works as a Professor of Quality and Operational Excellence with Northumbria University, England, UK. Professor Antony has authored over 750 journal, conference, and white papers and 17 textbooks. His contributions have appeared in many top tier journals such as International Journal of Operations and Production Management, European Journal of Operational Research Society, Journal of Operational Research Society, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Production Economics, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Production Planning and Control, to name but a few here. He is a LSS Master Black Belt certified through the International LSS Institute as well as the Institute of Six Sigma Professionals, UK. He has won the outstanding contribution to Quality Management Practice Award in 2019 from the Chartered Quality Institute (UK); Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to Lean Six Sigma from the International Lean Six Sigma Institute (UK) in 2020, Crosby Medal and Walter Masing Book Prize from the American Society for Quality for his book on “Ten Commandments of Lean Six Sigma” in 2021 and Outstanding Contribution to Six Sigma Practice award from the Institute of Six Sigma Professionals, UK in 2021. In 2023, he has won Outstanding Leadership for Lean Six Sigma Award from the International Lean Six Sigma Institute. He is in the top 2% among all world scientists list of Stanford University in 2024 and 2025 and is ranked 32 in the world in the field of Business and Management category from a total 145,000 academics. He has the highest citations in the world on OPEX, Quality Management and Continuous Improvement topics in the world today according to Google Scholar and Scopus Databases. He is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, Fellow of the Chartered Quality Institute, Fellow of the American Society for Quality, Fellow of the Institute of Six Sigma Professionals and Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. He is the Editor in Chief of two flagship journals in Europe: International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management and International Journal of Lean Six Sigma. He has trained more than 1000 quality and OPEX professionals from over 180 companies across 22 countries. He has delivered more than 30 keynote sessions to date on various topics related to quality management and OPEX.
It is an honour for the ISSP to recognise Professor Jiju Antony by giving him this Lifetime Achievement Awad for Services to Six Sigma – well done my friend.
Congratulations Professor Jiju Antony – Lifetime Achievement Award 2025
The ISSP 2026 Best Six Sigma Project Awards
The ISSP is now open to receive applications for the 2026 Best Project Awards – to be announced in October 2026. This is a fantastic opportunity for companies to raise their profile and reward and recognize staff who have made significant difference to their business.
Entrants must submit their application before the 30th August 2026 to be considered for the awards. Winners will be announced on the 1st October 2026. Companies are able to submit to more than one category, however each submission should be clearly labelled the category relevant to the submission. Submissions should take the form of a PDF report or presentation with a maximum of 2000 words or 20 slides.
The 5 project based categories for the 2025 awards are:
- Best Black Belt Project – a strategic level project, where the team or individual has demonstrated leadership and maturity within continuous improvement, and has followed a DMAIC improvement cycle.
- Best Green Belt project – a significant project, where the team or individual has demonstrated robust project management and cultural change skills, and has followed a DMAIC improvement cycle
- Best new product or process designed using Six Sigma – a design for six sigma project, where the team or individual has demonstrated meeting a new need or creating a new technology using the principles of six sigma and has followed either a DMAIC or DMADV design cycle
- Best academic project – a higher educational based project where staff or students have made significant improvement within the academic sector, and have followed a DMAIC improvement cycle
- Best apprenticeship project – a modern apprenticeship project, following the requirements of Improvement Technician, Improvement Practitioner, Improvement Specialist, or Improvement Leader apprenticeship standards, and following a DMAIC improvement cycle
Projects will be reviewed by the ISSP accreditations committee in September 2026, and winners will be notified by email by the 1st October 2026. For further details and full terms please contact the ISSP at info@isspro.co.uk.
The final award – “Life Time Achievement Award” is a special award, given to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the field of Six Sigma. Individuals are encouraged to apply with their CV and 1000 words covering letter explaining their contribution to the field of Six Sigma.