Best (configurations of) practices and how do they contribute to high performance?

Much literature exists about best practices and there are many contributions on how to achieve high operational performance. However, there is a lack of theory on the relationships between practices and performance(s). Furthermore, the implementation process of action programmes and especially the effects that process may have on the success of the action programmes is often not considered. This paper focuses on the latter and reports the results of an exploratory case study of a plant, which is part of a large high performance manufacturing company in Denmark. The plant is in the process of implementing a range of action programmes, including TPM, 6 sigma, SMED and CFM to support its ambition to become lean. While these programmes clearly reinforce each other, the plant experiences negative performance effects. In the paper, we propose a range of factors explaining this. We conclude the paper with directions for further research.