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CHAPTER – II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This chapter examines the studies abroad and in India on Six Sigma, it further

discusses the different views put forward by the authors and academicians.

Kim H. Pries designed to walk the reader through the body of knowledge at about a

medium level of detail it follows the order of the body of knowledge exactly. ASQ defines the

Six Sigma black belt body of knowledge on its website. It prescribes the minimum amount of

information expected for the black belt certificate .It performs the additional function of

defining a body of knowledge for all kinds of black belts many of which are so designated

without any kind of formal examination 1.

James R. Evams & William M. Lindsay explained in their book about the foundations

of Six Sigma, principles of quality management, and other introduction concepts of Six

Sigma & traces its evolution from earlier approaches to quality management. They also

discussed the link between Six Sigma, business results, competitive advantage and secondly

project selection, definition, focusing on organization issues. They also explained about

process measurement with the help of DMAIC and DMADV in process analysis emphasizing

with statistical tools and other valuable methods, which is focusing on process improvement

phase 2.

Jiju Antony Ricardo Banvelas, Ashok Kumar demonstrated on how Six Sigma could

be applied or has been applied in a real industry setting, and it also provides a systematic

approach in contemporary organizations both for assessment and application purpose .The

purpose of this book is to clearly explain how Six Sigma methodology can be applied to a

particular manufacturing, service or transactional problem and also the calculations of

estimated cost savings from the project and the benefits of Six Sigma, effective management

decisions and improved internal communications 3.

Thomas Pyzdek in the book “The Six Sigma Hand Book” explained the guidelines

and directions to find a complete overview of management and organization of Six Sigma

and its philosophy which underlines those problems solving techniques and statistical tools

49

most often used in Six Sigma. It is intended as a guide for champions, leaders, belts, team

members, and others interested in Six Sigma approach to make their organizations more

efficient, and more effective or both and he also described the importance of rewards and

incentives for the success of an organization 4.

Geoff Tennant in his book has provided a detailed resource of guidance and

inspiration covering all the aspects of business strategy, design, project management and

execution necessary for the successful introduction of new products and services under the

auspices of a customer-focused Six Sigma approach. With a clear discussion of all the aspects

that contribute to the commercial design and launch of new products, services and supporting

processes, this work lays the foundation for any organization to take on board Design for Six

Sigma.5.

William Truscott’s book recognizes that there are two diametrically opposing views

expressed on Six Sigma those that are strongly in favour, and those that are not, for various

reasons, this book deals with the principle reasons for such hostility. It cuts through the hype

associated with the brand name. It proposes simple remedies for certain defined frailties in

the standard approach, particularly those related to the Sigma Measure that provides the

brand name for the Six Sigma breakthrough strategy. The book is highly supportive of the Six

Sigma continuous improvement process, provided it is tailored to the needs and expectations

of a particular organization. The commitment and active participation of top management is

emphasized, to ensure the necessary change in culture and priorities demanded, in most

organizations 6.

Greg Brue and Rod Howes, in their book covered information like introduction to Six

Sigma, strategies, techniques, DMAIC, DFSS, Six Sigma which has brought measurable

success and bottom line results to Motorola, DuPont, Raytheon and other international giants

7.

Sung H Park detailed primarily for company managers and engineers in Asia who

wish to grasp Six Sigma concepts, methodologies, and tools for quality and productivity

promotion in their companies. In his book he mentioned mainly three streams:

a) First is to introduce an overview of Six Sigma.

b) Second is to explain sigma tools other management initiatives and some practical

tools.

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c) The third is to discuss practical questions in implementing Six Sigma and to

present real case studies of improvement projects 8.

H.E. Cook explained the design for Six Sigma as strategic experimentation. It is a

practical science based methodology for guiding the product realization process for highly

competitive markets; forecast of cash flows; market share and price have been used to select

the final design from among the alternatives considered. Strategic experimentation is an

extension of Taghuchi’s seminal ideas for robust component design to all levels of design,

manufacturing system, subsystem and component. System design is mostly about doing the

right things whereas subsystem and component design and manufacturing are mostly about

doing the right things right 9.

Keki R. Bhote has urged that in this landmark the ultimate Six Sigma is not only to set

the record straight but also to take Six Sigma a big step further to go beyond quality

excellence to the pursuit of total business excellence, to excellence in customer loyalty, to

excellence in leadership to excellence, in a nurturing organizational infrastructure and to

excellence in releasing the inherent creativity of employees to reach their full potential.

Further the author transcends the boundaries of the original Six Sigma to reach the ultimate

Six Sigma, provides the necessary information and tools for implementing and assessing the

progress of Six Sigma strategy in the major areas of business strategy that determine the

success of any company 10.

Nilesh K Patel, B N Shagia, Bhavin P Marolia, Ashish D Mishra,, Dinesh R Shah,

detailed in their article about Six Sigma methodology in managing process variations that

cause defects. It can be defined as a rigorous and disciplined methodology that utilizes data

and statistical performance practices and systems. Six Sigma identifies and prevents defects

in manufacturing and service related process. In many organizations Six Sigma simply means

a measure of quality that strives for near performance reliability and value to the end

customer. Motorola has reported over US 17 billion dollars in saving from Six Sigma till date 11.

D Sreedhar Ajay, G Pise Vijendra, S Ligade Manthan and D Janodia have illustrated

that Six Sigma was initiated by Bill Smith at Motorola in 1986 and it is a registered service

mark and trade mark of Motorola Inc. Since then a variety of organizations have adopted the

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discipline and highly benefited from it. Six Sigma stands for (Six Standard deviation in

statistics) from mean. It provides the techniques and tools to improve capability and reduce

the defects in any process by constantly reviewing and re-tuning. To achieve this, Six Sigma

uses two methodologies DMAIC and DMADV which determine customer needs and

specifications, analyze the process options to meet the customer needs 12.

Debhasis Sarkar enumerated that the Six Sigma is probably one of the best

methodologies to pervade the world of improvement. What differentiates Six Sigma from

other quality methodologies is its measurements orientation, rigorous training scheme process

centricity and stake holder involvement. This book unfurls some of these little things which

are often lost and missed during Six Sigma implementation. The lessons may be common and

mundane but are quite uncommon in the workplace. Six Sigma is a highly disciplined

process, which helps to create and deliver near perfect products and services to customers,

and not just another quality programme. The goal of Six Sigma is to increase profits by

eliminating variability defects and waste that undermine customer loyalty. It is the one

methodology which can serve as the lever for business improvement growth performance and

profits 13.

Terence T Borton and Jeff L Sams explained in their book which provides a detailed

implementation road map and frame work for scale able Six Sigma deployments and then

shows how they can be applied successfully in smaller and mid-size organizations. It also

includes methodologies, models hands on techniques case studies, implementation tools and

an extensive Six Sigma assessment process. It also demonstrates how to apply Six Sigma to

non-traditional transactional process areas such as supply chain, engineering, finance, sales

and marketing and customer service. It is also useful in the areas of new product strategy and

creation, call center operations 14.

Rath & Strongs said that Six Sigma is a proven and highly effective business initiative

for improving customer satisfaction and increasing efficiency of processes. But diving into

Six Sigma with out proper preparation and planning is inviting failure. This practical guide

from the global leader in Six Sigma solutions helps business leaders understand the

methodology, major issues of Six Sigma and helps in the successful implementation. It

highlights critical factors that make or break implementation offers, best practices for getting

it right the first time and offers real life examples and case studies that light the path to

52

success. It offers the perspective needed to make the wise choice when considering any

aspect of the methodology and issues of importance to today’s business leaders. It is a link

between process leadership culture and customer which leads through every cycle of

deployment such as Motorola, Johnson & Johnson, Honeywell and GE. It is unparalleled in

customer satisfaction and helps to achieve greater profitability 15.

R S Chalapathi has designed the book to be used as a course material for green belt

and black belt courses as well as a reference tool for teams. It also covers the body of

knowledge for IQF-certified Six Sigma exam:-

a) Where to use the DMAIC?

b) When to use specific techniques and options?

c) How to use the tool correctly?

d) How to use Microsoft excel for the analysis?

e) How to interpret the output and charts? 16

U. Dinesh Kumar, John Crocker, T.Chitra, Harith Sarangh, explained that reliability

and Six Sigma is a carefully developed integration of mathematical models that relate Six

Sigma and reliability measures, case studies for application. Basic probability and statistical

techniques essential for analysis reliability and Six Sigma problems. How to predict them,

interpret them and how these measures are related. Tools and techniques needed for

evaluation of system reliability and the relationship between system reliability and sigma

level, and also issues related to and the management of in-service reliability, Techniques to

estimate the methodologies from in-service and test data 17.

Peter S Pande, Robert P Newman, Roland R Gavanagh, detailed in their book to help

business leaders from CEO’s to supervisors tap into the power of the Six Sigma movement

that has been transforming some of the world‘s most successful companies, and the hidden

truths like Six Sigma encompasses a broad array of business practices and skills that are

essential ingredients for success and growth. Six Sigma is much more than a detailed

statistics based analytical method. The benefits of Six Sigma will be accessible whether one

leads an entire organization or department. One will be prepared to achieve breakthrough in

these untapped gold mines of opportunity and to broaden Six Sigma beyond realm of the

engineering community 18.

53

Shing-Han Li, Chi-Chuan Wu, David C Yen & Min–Chih Lee detailed in their article

that, Six Sigma concept depicts a ‘Triangle Relationship’ that integrates three attributes such

as customer loyalty, science manners and team work .By employing this concept with the

required survey and data collection to carry out the continuous improvement, a company can

truly take advantage of the minimum set of operational variables and lowest cost procedures

and hence result in an increasing competitive value for/to the company . The research is

conducted based on the Six Sigma methodology, DMAIC principle and deals with project

related issues to improve the efficiency of help–desk system, which can help company to

improve its service quality and efficiency. In addition, managerial implications and research

limitations have also been discussed 19.

Larry B.Weinstein Joseph Petrick, Joseph Castellano & Robert J.Vokurka have

explained in their article that instructors face enormous challenges in presenting effective

instruction on concepts and tools of quality management. Most textbooks focus on presenting

individual concepts or tools and fail to address complex issues confronted in the real-world

problem-solving situations. The supplementary use of cases does not help students to

understand the dynamic challenges that professionals encounter in organizational settings. In

this article, the authors describe an approach used to direct students through Six Sigma

process improvement projects at local companies to reinforce the student's class room

experience. These projects provide excellent tools for enhancing learning and strengthening

the bonds between universities and business communities 20.

Chen Joseph C, Li Ye, Shady Brett D, detailed in their article that though lean

manufacturing has been widely recognized for its effectiveness in continuously improving

productivity ,product quality, and on-time delivery to customers, the cost for hiring a full-

time lean manufacturing engineer has kept many small businesses from implementing lean in

their facilities. This paper presents a case study of lean implementation at a small

manufacturer in the United States. Starting with collecting process information a current

value-stream map was then proposed to serve as guide for future lean activities. Next hurdles

that kept the company from moving towards future state were identified. The "5 whys"

method was employed to reveal the root cause for each hurdle, followed by kaizen events

proposed as solutions In this case study, two kaizen events were proposed. For the first kaizen

event, Taguchi experiment design was used to find the optimal matching parameters and the

reduced variation in plasma cutting process. It consequently eliminated rabbit chasing,

54

increased the system flexibility and consequently reduced inventory levels between work

stations 21.

Jenica Petcu Andreea Mihai, Draghici Sorin, Anagnoste has demonstrated how

business environment and performance can be improved in an organization that used and

implemented lean Six Sigma methodology. Lean Six Sigma can be a management approach

of an organization focused on quality and continuous improvement, based on the participation

of all its employees which aims to ensure long term success. It’s very important for an

organization to believe in the capacity of work and intellect of their employees to invest in

them. So in this way they will feel useful and become more self confident. This in turn will

help the company to move one step ahead in this very competitive market 22.

Krishna Moorthi K.S explained in this article that the importance of statistical

thinking for Six Sigma in the United States. It says that knowledge about statistics has been

considered vital to understand the variability in product and process variables in order to find

the means for reducing the variability to produce quality products. However the father of

modern statistical quality control, Walter Shewhart, who wrote in his book that long -range

contribution of statistics does not depend much on getting many highly trained statisticians.

The statistical thinking provides the empirical complement to engineering knowledge of

processes, which leads to fuller insight into problems and then to their resolution23.

William J. Stevenson & A. Erhan Mergen discussed the desirability of incorporating

Six Sigma thinking into an undergraduate business curriculum, and several alternatives for

doing so. Although many companies have adopted Six Sigma programmes to improve

business results, few business programmes have kept pace by incorporating Six Sigma

thinking into their curriculum. Business employs Six Sigma concepts in improving operations

and achieving higher standards of quality. Projects are selected that are likely to achieve

reductions in cost time and increased profits. The linking of project selection based on

business results is central to the desirability of teaching Six Sigma thinking to business

students. Doing so will mean that graduates will be better prepared for careers in business,

and have a competitive advantage over graduates who don’t have this knowledge24.

Gerald J. Hahn, William J. Hill Roger W Hoerl, Stephen A Zinkgraf explained about

Six Sigma improvements as a highly disciplined and statistically based approach for

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removing defects from products, process and transactions involving everybody in the

corporation has been adopted as major initiative by some of our leading companies. This is

fundamentally changing the paradigm of how statistics is applied in business and industry,

and has had a career-changing impact on those statisticians who have been involved. We

describe the Six Sigma initiative and its evolution, the enthusiastic and visionary support by

the CEO at major corporations that have embraced it its successes to date, and the impact on

statistics and statisticians’ .We then turn to a major theme-what statistician must do to be

maximally effective in this exciting new environment. These changes will not be limited to

the companies that have adopted Six Sigma, or for that matter, industry, but are all –pervasive 25.

Lousie Davison & Kadim Al Shaghana discussed about empirically influences on

quality culture development, with particular reference to a Six Sigma management

programme. Questionnaires were designed to measure organizational factors, including the

use of proposed cultural change agents, and relative quality culture development.15

organizations of varying types were then surveyed .The Six Sigma group was found to have

higher mean scores for all quality culture dimensions and also had slightly stronger (i.e.,

homogenous) cultures. Organisational factors having significant relationships with the

development of a quality culture were found to be demonstration of management

commitment to quality creating awareness of quality training employee participation, and

performance evaluations based on quality-related criteria. Six Sigma organizations on

average, scored higher on these factors than did non six-sigma organizations hence it was

concluded that a Six Sigma management programme may play a part in the development if a

quality culture 26.

Hakan Wiklund & Pia Sandvik Wiklund detailed that Six Sigma has been established

as an approach to improving organizational performance and many manufacturing companies

have reported on their successive work with Six Sigma programmes often the focus of Six

Sigma is put on only reducing defects and improving process capability. This paper discusses

Six Sigma as a company wide approach for organizational improvement incorporating

organizational learning. Six Sigma programmes have been studied and the fundamental

principles of organizational learning have been applied in order to improve the long-term

implementation of the programmes. This paper also discusses factors associated with

manufacturing work organization and leadership that are essential for improving

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organizational learning and for stimulating the competence development and motivation

among personnel 27.

Thomas N Williams observed that total quality or continuous improvement is s

consensus theme used by many industries for improving product quality and service .In the

last decade a newer quality philosophy known as “Six Sigma” has become well established in

many companies like Motorola, GE, Ford, and Honda. His study explains that the current

state of product variability for hardwood flooring-veneer and the specific attributes of

finished blank length width and veneer-slat thickness 28.

Peter Cronmemyr analyzed the subject with an ultimate purpose of blending Six

Sigma programme with process management because in his point of view Six Sigma

programme can’t be run as a parallel programme to process management. He also explained

the five phases of Six Sigma for which he gave an acronym as DMAIC the roots have been

connected to Bill Smith at Motorola in 1980 29.

Karin Schon studied on how successful organizations have attained high levels of job

satisfaction among their employees with reference to Swedish organizations. To achieve

sustainable health and what are the ways of implementing Six Sigma in a non-American

culture and Six Sigma and work satisfaction consequences mainly in the companies like

Ericsson & Siemens 30.

Nattapan Bvavaraporn’s research contributes to knowledge in the area of quality

management in particular to business process improvement methodology and service quality

for the financial services sector and he also explains how financial institutions adopt BPI

methodology for improving service quality providing a better understanding for managers in

accurate targeting of the operations process to be improved and enhance customer satisfaction 31.

Henk De Koning explains Six Sigma intends to help companies to survive in a

competitive environment by creating cost savings, improving customer satisfaction,

improving organizational competence for innovation and continuous improvement 32.

Raine Isaksson studied how synergies of total quality management and sustainable

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development can be realized. He mainly emphasized on increasing the focus on processes. A

process based change model for sustainable development has been developed. The model

should be applicable for all types of organizations but with a particular focus on organizations

in the Third world 33.

Pete Pande & Larry Holpp wrote in their book that Six Sigma is a smarter way to

manage a business or a department. Six Sigma puts the customer first and uses facts and data

to drive better solutions. They explained mainly on how Six Sigma targets three main areas,

improving customer satisfaction reducing cycle time, and also reducing defects, by improving

in these areas usually represent dramatic cost savings to business as well as opportunities to

retain customers 34.

Masoud Hekmatpanah explained that the Six Sigma method is a project driven

management approach to improve the organization’s products, services and processes by

continually reducing defects in the organization. Understanding the key features, obstacles,

and shortcomings of the Six Sigma method allows organizations to better support their

strategic directions, and increasing needs for coaching, mentoring and training. It also

provides opportunities to better implement Six Sigma projects. The purpose of his survey is

of Six Sigma process and its impact on the organizational productivity .So he studied key

concepts, problem solving process of Six Sigma as well as the survey of important fields such

as DMAIC. Six Sigma and productivity applied programme and other advantages of Six

Sigma 35.

Kifayah Amar and Douglas Davis presented a review of Six Sigma focusing on

implementation frameworks/models in the literature. The work is a part of research project

aimed at developing a Lean Six Sigma implementation framework for Indonesian SME’s.

Most implementation frameworks examined used the concept of critical success factors in

their development. In his study he examined four implementation frameworks found in the

literature from two perspectives. Firstly from critical success factor perspective and secondly

from the perspective of Roger’s diffusion of innovations theory. Their research suggests a

customized implementation framework needs to be designed for Indonesian SME’s based on

Rogers diffusion of innovations approach, but also drawing from literature on critical success

factors 36.

Russ Jones examined Six Sigma Lean or other more simple continuous improvement

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programmes are currently well accepted, proven and effective company wide tools to make a

business more profitable. If designed correctly these tools generate above cash flow into the

financial balance sheet of a business during every phase of each economic business cycle.

According to him continuous improvement’s primary goal is to generate cash from increased

ROA. To allow business to grow for the financial benefit of everyone concerned, including

suppliers which will permeate the whole company. Particularly these concepts are used to

dramatically improve the financial yield from existing Six Sigma, Lean or other

companywide financial improvement efforts 37.

Michael Forster illustrated that given the competitive nature of corporate business,

companies are constantly seeking the most effective ways to improve productivity and

maximize monetary gain. Consequently companies are demanding more control over their

business processes. Serving as bridge that joins technology with business process

management, technologies aid streamlined workforce efforts, reduced task times, lesser

process variation, and make the results more predictable. This in turn makes the business

more robust and profitable 38.

Rob Stewart says as budgets are being slashed across the board many Six Sigma

deployment executives are facing the seemingly insurmountable task of maintaining or even

increasing their LSS Greenbelt training levels. Those organisations that find ways to forge

ahead in 2009, with forward thinking training solutions, will not only survive this economic

downturn but will come out heads and shoulders above the competition. To keep in step with

the needs of today’s multi –generational workforce it has become increasingly important for

organizations to incorporate e-learning technology into their LSS training programmes.

However his survey data shows e-learning to be an effective LSS training solution on its own 39.

Steven H Jones explained the creative approach to design new robust process,

products and services. This roadmap is focused purposed to obtain significant competitive

advantages or quantum leaps over current environments. However DMEDI projects tend to

be more time and resource intensive. DMAIC is an analytical data driven approach to

eliminate weakness in active processes, products and services. DMAIC brings incremental

improvements. He also explained the difference between DMAIC &DMEDI 40.

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Ebrahim Oliya, Mohammad Saleh Owlia, Zohreh Dehdashti Shahrokh, Laya Olfat

have highlighted the significance of improvement of marketing process using Six Sigma

methodology, in the context of a banking environment. Based on Six Sigma's DMAIC model,

the paper uses Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control phases to study marketing

process improvement in Saman Bank. Research states the way concepts of marketing

performance management relates to the improvement of a bank marketing process using Six

Sigma. Low quality was observed in the process and then regarding customer relations as one

of the main priorities, improvement actions were planned. A major marketing failure for the

bank was decline of online banking usage, which justifies the importance of loyal online

banking customers in marketing plans. This paper helps marketing departments in financial

institutions to analyze their current performance and execute improvement actions to

optimize their process. One fact in designing marketing improvement actions for banks is

effectively using related information systems to organize the high amount of marketing data

and to respond quickly to customer needs. Marketing performance measurement is done in a

new way as the research describes how a general marketing process can adopt Six Sigma

tools to have stronger customer relations, reduced marketing costs and how to prioritize

improvement actions systematically 41.

Douglas C Montgomery illustrated a quality and business improvement frame work

based on Six Sigma. This approach is consistent with Deming’s philosophy of quality

improvements and is based on his system of profound knowledge. Quality process

improvement effort that utilizes Six Sigma and DMAIC DFSS & Lean can form two or three

building blocks of a company wide quality management system. It is providing guidance for

implementing quality & productivity improvement across a wide range of industrial and

business endeavors. Since implications for education of future business leaders in a variety of

disciplines including engineering statistics and business administration 42.

Indra Devi Rajamanoharan, Paul Collier, Brain Wright detailed in their article that

drawing on International Federation of Accountants IFAC conceptual frame work for

management accounting this study argues that many of the principal roles in the Six Sigma

DMAIC process fit closely with IFAC’S four key roles for management accounting .The

results showed that the SS features applicable at all phases of the DMAIC process match

closely with IFAC’S key roles for management accounting. At the broadest level, the case

studies illustrated that the role of management accounting had undergone considerable

60

change. In parallel with the changes that were taking place in the wider business activities

with adoption of the DMAIC management process, changes occurred mainly in the course of

project prioritization define phase and in project deployment measure phase onwards at both

SS members of management accounting in terms of the 14 concepts that form part of the

conceptual framework for management accounting. Therefore the results of this study

provide a common understanding of the potentially usually role that IFAC’S best practice of

management accounting could play in the DMAIC phases 43.

L.J. Gutierrez, O.F. Bustinza and V.Barrales Molina explained the importance of the

Six Sigma methodology in industry which is growing constantly. However, there are few

empirical studies that analyze the advantages of methodology and its positive effects on

organizational performance. The purpose of this paper is to extend understanding of the

success of Six Sigma quality management initiatives by investigating the effects of Six Sigma

team work and process management on absorptive capacity. It also seeks to understand the

relation between absorptive capacity and organizational learning as two sources sustainable

competitive advantage. The information used, comes from a larger study, the data for which

has been collected from random sample of 237 European firms, out of which 58 are Six

Sigma organizations. Structural equation modeling has been used to test the hypotheses. The

main findings show that Six Sigma team work and process management positively affect the

development of absorptive capacity .A positive and significant relationship is also observed

between absorptive capacity and organizational learning orientation 44.

Doug Sanders and Cheryl Hild enumerated that the application of Six Sigma

techniques still provided some gain in both process knowledge as well as reduction in costs.

The ability to achieve improvements and to sustain gains is tied directly to the desire by the

organization to change and the willingness to deal with issues and barriers as they are

encountered. In this company, certain organizational behaviours demonstrated this desire

.Senior management was involved throughout the improvement work. As a result of

behaviour, senior management supported the idea of making major, yet fundamental changes

to functional responsibilities. Finally, the improvement work was not confined by a sequential

step-by-step approach to problem solving. Due to the involvement from high level managers,

the improvement efforts did not stay within the boundaries of loan processing. When they

exist along with a decision to implement a data-driven improvement approach, such as Six

Sigma each and every issue faced is much easier to overcome 45.

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Sunil Thawani detailed today’s business environment expects speed, flexibility,

adaptability, accuracy, ease of doing business, with product and service performance as a

minimum requirement. To meet this new set of business needs, organizations need to deploy

tools, which can enable them to remain competitive and grow in the increasing digital age.

Six Sigma is one of the strategies and tools which leading organizations have started using to

achieve accuracy and speed and at the same time reduce cost and increase customer

satisfaction and profits. Six Sigma is Greek alphabet character and the sigma value indicates

how often defects are likely to occur. Six Sigma’s target is to achieve less than 3.4 defects or

errors per million opportunities hence the name .According to Michael Hammer, at least 25%

of the fortune 200 companies claim to have a serious Six Sigma programme. The issue is no

longer whether Six Sigma should be considered or not but a question of when and how, since

an organization cannot do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow 46.

Franck Ardourel detailed that a best practice is a proven methodology to successfully

achieve a business objective. Six Sigma, for example is a best practice to turn your business

process into a model of excellence. In marketing one should pick themselves up, dust off, and

refine their business process to implement tools that target would enhance their strategy to

impact the bottom line of the industry.

Find more-define the market, identify profitable opportunities and determine target

segments. Win More –build awareness, create the product, and cover the market and the beat

the competition. Keep More-Serve and support, capture full value and expand the customer

relationship. “Product Solutions” like CRM or e-commerce tools that marry hard ware and

software equipment to fit specific market needs 47.

Niall Piercy, Nick Rich enumerated in their research paper about how service

businesses are struggling with customer demands for better quality service and managerial

demands for cost reduction. There is evidence to suggest that service businesses are in

practice failing on both these counts, seeing increased costs and reductions in service quality.

The application of lean production approaches to the service context has been suggested as a

means to resolve these problems, reducing costs, and improving quality. Despite the

validation of lean approaches in the product-service context, the application of lean

approaches in the pure service environment remains largely untested. The purpose of this

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paper is to assess the suitability of lean production methodologies in the pure service context 48.

Kun-Chang Lee & Bong Choi from school of business administration detailed that Six

Sigma has long been used as an effective way to restructure a company’s management. The

process’s numbers of successful cases have been reported of Six Sigma based management

activities dramatically enhancing a company’s strategic performance over study periods of

several years. There is lack of empirical studies that adopt statistical approaches. To fill this

void, this study proposes a research model to test whether Six Sigma based management

activities improve corporate competitiveness. They applied a structural equation model to 161

valid questionnaires collected from managers in a number of Samsung companies that have

introduced Six Sigma and have been actively applying its activities for several years.

Empirical results showed that Six Sigma activities do indeed contribute to process

management refreshment, quality improvement, and finally corporate competitiveness 49.

Rick L Edge Man & John P Dugan from university of Idaho, detailed that Six Sigma

innovation and design developed in manufacturing environments, but their deployment is

rapidly expanding to application in service areas including, perhaps most notably, health care.

This paper discusses Six Sigma innovation and design as interdisciplinary strategies with

potential for boundary –crossing and novel applications that are not strictly driven by

technological advancement, but possibly also by ethical concerns. Included in the discussion

are military and defense applications as well as ones related to society, energy and natural

conservation, and potential for applications in such ‘soft’ areas as entertainment, civil rights

and human performance 50.

Sameer Kumar and Stephanie Schmitz explained the focus of their study is to analyze

the management of recalls in a consumer products supply chain, as well as the reasons, costs

and measures to prevent recalls. A Six Sigma DMAIC methodology is used to understand the

root causes and management of recalls and also analyze the costs in a consumer products

supply chain. There are many variables in supply chain, so it is essential for manufacturers to

have procedures in place to prevent failures that result in a product recall. It is important that

companies have traceability capability or containment measures for parts, products and

processes throughout a global supply chain in the event a quality or safety issue arises.

Companies in the consumer products industry need to consider not only the cost to their

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financials in an event of a product recall, but also the loss in terms of goodwill and consumer

risk. It is clear from recent Toyota recall and others, companies need to seriously examine

their strategic business objectives with their priorities in mind 51.

Fraser Nuran & John enumerated in their study the use of lean Six Sigma

methodologies and tools as applied to supply chains within a services environment. The

approach taken was to examine a L6S some project as run within a large American financial

services conglomerate to understand how this has been applied. The project not only

demonstrated the results achievable but also the business thinking presented some compelling

findings. Although there are differences between the Lean and Six Sigma approaches as well

as the difference between manufacturing and services environment, there were also some key

learning’s demonstrated .Certainly some of the key issues uncovered is that clear objectives

combined with accurately set parameters and data gathering aligned with stakeholder buy-in

is key to the success of a project of this nature. The implications and strategies adopted by the

services company are borne out with the result as outlined in this study and further supports

the deployment of a carefully thought L6S programme within services supply chain 52.

P.B. Deshpande, S.L. Makker and M. Goldstein in their article, have presented an

overview of Six Sigma concepts and provided examples of their use. Six Sigma is neither

new nor is it rocket science. It is, however, an elegant collection of tools for problem solving

that, when properly exploited will lead to handsome returns and globally competitive

positions. Based on their combined sixty-plus years of experience in quality related areas in

manufacturing and non manufacturing operations, they firmly believe that potential

opportunities for Six Sigma quality programmes in all enterprises worldwide are endless 53.

Mojtaba Tabari, Yousef Gholipour-Kanani and Reza Tavakkoli-Moghaddam in their

paper enumerated that the purpose of their study is to empirically assess the six-sigma project

presently used in organizations and to examine their impact on the business excellence

model, known as European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). Six Sigma affects

on the five constructs of the EFQM model; namely leadership, strategy, people, partners and

suppliers and processes. In this paper, a real case study is considered to implement the Six

Sigma methodology and the EFQM model. The analysis of the data obtained from the

questionnaire for 30 mangers out of 42 managers confirms the significant contribution of

implementing 6F projects to the successful EFQM model. Improvements in effectiveness and

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efficiency in ownership, empowerment with accountability, partnership within the inter-

functional peer group, communicating the strategy, people’s knowledge and capabilities and

business, including the design of products and services. In addition, improvements are

observed in the decision-making process. Six Sigma directly affects on the business

excellence, as it contributes to improve the human resource and process as well as fulfill the

system specifications 54.

Shirley Mo-Ching Yeung explained the aim of the article is to explore the use of

suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs and customers in Six Sigma to monitor products and

services provision for customer satisfaction. This paper has been supported with literature in

Six Sigma quality management and marketing management with case of retail shoe shop in

Hong Kong. Previous researchers seldom covered the application of SIPOC in marketing

management to fulfill customer need, customer satisfaction, concerns of stakeholders and the

community. A case of integrating SIPOC of Six Sigma into a social responsible the ethical

retail shoe shop has been demonstrated in this paper. However, adopting quality concepts in

marketing management is neither common in academic curriculum nor in business practice. It

is suggested that carrying out further researches on the use of quality concepts in analyzing

the relationship between consumer behaviour and business performance 55.

Eisenhower C Etienne explained the measurement and reduction of process variation

are recognized in both total quality Management and six-sigma strategy as critical drivers of

systematic process improvement. However there exists no systematic computational

procedure for measuring the reduction in variation that is required to move a process from a

current sigma measure to the six-sigma metric. The current six-sigma practice simply applies

the DMAIC process to compute process sigma metrics, define and launch projects that will

simply reduce process variation and measure and compare the resultant sigma measures to

the six-sigma benchmark, after the fact. This paper introduces and empirically evaluates a

mathematical model for exactly computing in advance of the specification and launch of

improvements projects, the required reduction in process variation (RRPV) that will drive a

process to perform at the Six Sigma benchmark 56.

Henk De Koning & Jeroen De Mast detailed about the Six Sigma programme has

developed into a standard for quality and efficiency improvement in business and industry.

This fact makes scientific research into the validity and applicability of this methodology

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important. The article explores the possibilities of a scientific study of the methodology

important. This article explores the possibilities of a scientific study of methodological

aspects of the Six Sigma programme, and its breakthrough Cookbook in particular. The

objective of the paper is to provide researchers with a scientifically sound approach for

studying the validity and applicability of a methodology such as Six Sigma. Several research

methodologies have been considered, where upon grounding research approach is developed.

Comparison of the results of a literature review and proposed research plan learns that current

literature on the methodologies aspects of Six Sigma does not meet scientific standards of

precision and consistency 57.

K Jeyaraman enumerated that the objective is to analyze the critical success factors

for lean Six Sigma implementation and its impacts towards company performance in

multinational electronic manufacturing service industries. Pilot study has been conducted to

identify the top ten CSF’s for LSS implementation, based on these factors a structured

questionnaire has been constructed. The questionnaire will be disturbed to multi-sites of six

EMS industries to obtain the data across Malaysia and other sites globally. The target

population is the LSS programme implementer such as master black belts, black belts, and

LSS champions in the EMS industries. These EMS industries provide outsourcing platform

for the original equipment manufacturing industries to outsource their products in order to

reduce operational cost. This paper is relevant to most EMS industries and provides

guidelines to small and medium enterprises in, Malaysia through improving their

competitiveness and capability in the globalization market 58.

Jeroen De Mast detailed that we seek to provide a unified characterization of Six

Sigma by studying the phenomenon from the perspectives of business economics,

organizational theory, competitive strategy and industrial statistics and we pinpoint its core

methodologies principles. We describe Six Sigma as a prescriptive framework for the

routinization of incremental product and process innovation, organized as a decentralized

project organization. The methodological basis of Six Sigma consists of principles borrowed

from methodology for empirical inquiry and facilitated by techniques from quality

engineering problem solving and marketing 59.

Mahmoud I Awd, Adam Ewing, George Sedlak, Tong Yi Yassir Shanshal have

enumerated that the design for Six Sigma has been utilized over the last few decades to

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deliver more robust products with more functionality and reduced cost. In this article, a case

study is presented where a systematic DFSS approach is used to improve the life expectancy

of track rollers and idlers for an off –road machine. The approach took advantage of CAE to

build an analytical model that predicts stresses imposed on the rollers and idlers. The study

investigates the effect of several factors on stresses and concludes by selecting a few vital

factors needed for improvement 60.

Theresa Waterbury and Claribel Bobilla described that in the last 20 years the rate of

change has accelerated in manufacturing and service organizations as they embark on the

challenge of staying competitive and meeting the demands for improved performance.

Service sectors encounter tremendous variability while working with the customers numerous

and changing needs, differing arrival times and their unique personalities. Core challenge to

profitability is the management of variability in the day-to-day operations .Operations

management theory strongly suggests that variation and waste must be eliminated to improve

processes. Lean Six Sigma is an improvement methodology that has helped many

manufacturing companies with waste and variability issues in their operation. This paper

provides several pathways for lean Six Sigma strategy executions in the service sector that

are dependent upon the varying levels of organizational readiness. A case study is presented

to validate a strategy execution dependent on the organization’s level of readiness. The paper

serves as a guide to evaluate the readiness level of the organization and provides varying

levels strategy execution leading to financial gains 61.

Eisenhower C Etienne explained that Six Sigma is now widely accepted as a highly

performing strategy for driving out defects in a company’s quality system. Measurement

through the Define, Measure Analyze, Implement, Control process is central to it. In this

paper, he showed that quality performance data expressed is the usual percentage defect rate

and based on the manufacturing industry case studies can be converted into a wide range of

vital. Six Sigma metrics and that these can be used to develop insight into a company’s

quality system and its comparison to the Six Sigma benchmark, both at the qualitative and

quantitative levels. The Six Sigma metrics developed here are much richer than those found

in published Six Sigma tables. Moreover, the degree of divergence at the qualitative level of a

company’s quality system from the Six Sigma standard anticipates the degree of convergence

at the level of the critical quantitative Six Sigma metrics. We draw the fundamental

implications for Six Sigma management practice and research 62.

67

Maha Mohammed Yusur, Abdul Rahim Othman and Sany Sanuri Mohd Mokhtar

detailed that achieving high rate of performance is the aim of any organization especially

under the pressure of competition. In this regards, innovative abilities of any organization is

considered as the leverage of the competitive abilities. The organization’s abilities have

drawn the attention of the scholars and practitioners over the last decade. Trying to link

between innovative abilities and another organizational discipline is one of the most

interesting fields to the schools; therefore the current study tries to evaluate the relationship

between innovative abilities of organization and Six Sigma as one of the organizational

discipline that belongs to the quality umbrella. Six Sigma is considered as equality approach

which has proved its abilities to review the literature to introduce a conceptual framework

that discusses the relationship between the two fields of the organizational discipline

represented by Six Sigma and innovation from the perspective of the absorptive capacity

theory. Finally the study presents some suggestions for further studies that can be conducted

in the future 63.

Venkatewarulu Pulakanam and Kevin E Voges enumerated that organizations are

increasingly adopting Six Sigma in a bid to improve the quality of their processes and

products, and thus achieve competitive advantage. However, despite the apparent popularity

of Six Sigma, very little is known about the extent to which Six Sigma is actually being

adopted by organizations. Since 2004, a number of empirical studies have been undertaken

in different countries and industry sectors to address these gaps in our knowledge of Six

Sigma adoption .The majority of these studies are reviewed and summarized in this paper.

Our conclusions are that Six Sigma is only a distant second to lean in term of popularity.

During the period 2003 to 2007, Six Sigma was implemented in 5% to 15% of these

organizations 64.

S.L. Ho, M Xie, T.N. Goh attempts to study the feasibility of applying the Six Sigma

frame work in higher education. Some fundamental issues and challenges in designing

effective Six Sigma training programme, integrating Define–Measure–Analysis–Improve–

Control (DMAIC) methodology and statistical quality engineering education into existing

curriculum and potential applications of Six Sigma for educational excellence are discussed.

Some strategic relevance among Six Sigma education, Sun TZU’S art of war thinking and

Da-Vinci’s principle exist, and these provide useful strategic insights. From a systems

perspective and depending on the context, adopting the Six Sigma framework in higher

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education is feasible. Understanding the DMAIC methodology and education in statistical

quality engineering are important for Six Sigma project success. Using the operational

amplifier circuit analysis drawn from the electrical engineering course as an illustration, it has

been demonstrated that the Six Sigma frame work provides an excellent platform for infusing

statistical education into the engineering curriculum 65.

Alexander Chakhunashvili, Bo Bergman explained that there are usually two distinct

objectives to attain a process in statistical control, including economic aspects, and

predictability. While both objectives are important from a statistical quality control

standpoint, they do not necessarily have to be fulfilled simultaneously. In this paper, we

suggest a generalization of the concept in statistical control especially useful for processes in

which assignable causes of a certain kind are found but their presence does jeopardize the

predictability of the process. Such processes are referred to this paper as processes in weak

statistical control 66.

Mathew Hu and Jiju Anotony detailed about transfer functions, one of the core

components in design for Six Sigma which provide the needed relationships between design,

process and materials parameters, and are the critical to quality in the product and process

development cycle. Transfer function provides a direct method for understanding and

representing an overall product and process function. Transfer function also provides a

strategy for customer voice cascade, function decomposition, physical modeling, and concept

generation. The concept of transfer function is not new. However the development of transfer

function is not trivial but a creative and challenging task. Developing a proper transfer

function in DFSS frame work will facilitate earlier decision making and enhance in designing

it right, the first time 67.

Jung-Lang Cheng developed an exploratory framework for integrating Six Sigma with

business strategy. The purpose of this paper is to identify the primary factors in the Six Sigma

business strategy framework, and to display the relationship between the factors in a

preliminary exploratory framework and their associated equations in a quality performance

model for Taiwanese companies. The results of the study are based primarily on statistical

package for the Social Services Statistical Analysis (SPSS). The result of the study shows that

organizational culture is the most important factor to enhance business performance when

integrating Six Sigma with their business strategies. It has been shown that DMAIC

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integration has the greatest influence on quality performance of Six Sigma activities

integrated with a business strategy based on execution of management by objectives and

effective project management with define, measure, analyze, improve and control,

methodology are the critical points to attain excellent business performance 68.

Maneesh Kumar detailed that the benefits of Six Sigma primarily have been realised

by large organizations and the question therefore remains how best to apply Six Sigma in

small-and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) .This paper reports key findings of a Six Sigma

survey conducted in a UK manufacturing SME with an objective of assessing the status of

Six Sigma in the company the instrument designed captures the respondent’s viewpoint on

the critical success factors and barriers faced in Six Sigma implementation and its impact on

the performance measures existing within the company. Findings reveal that uncompromising

an undying commitment from top level management is critical to the success of Six Sigma

.Poor training and resource availability have been identified as two major stumbling blocks

encountered during Six Sigma implementation. The concluding remark arising from the study

is that SME’s can also benefit from implementing Six Sigma similar to their larger

counterparts 69.

Ronald D Snee has explained on an evaluation of trends in the development and use

of business improvement methodology is presented. It is conjectured that the next generation

of improvement methodology will integrate the best aspects of currently used approaches

such as lean manufacturing, Six Sigma ISO 9000 and Baldrige assessment, thereby

streamlining the improvement methodology in increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of

the approach. It is argued that the resulting approach needs to be more than just a

methodology for conducting improvement projects. Type of culture function leadership

management systems and other factors must also be taken into account. The characteristic of

a holistic approach to improvement that accomplishes these goals is presented 70.

Mingzhon Jin, Mike Switzer, Gozde Agirbas detailed in their paper a case study of

applying the principles and procedures of Six Sigma and lean thinking in designing and

operating a healthcare logistics centre. The customer needs were identified from the

viewpoint of patients, four “critical to quality” parameters have been defined as the fill rate,

accuracy rate, and efficiency and expiration/spoilage rates. Based on the eleven initiatives

were implemented to improve the critical to quality parameters. The project resulted in better

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storage management, better use of space, man improved and cleaner workspace, more timely

and efficient delivery of the right items with right amount to the right patients and tracking

and reducing waste. The logistics centre is currently running in a lean way, in the sense of

the same amount of staff, more items to patients, and an $800,000 annual saving 71.

Qian Yu, Kai yang enumerated that the registration process is the first process that

patients interact with hospitals. The quality of experience in registration will form the

perceptions for hospitals. The waiting time is an important performance metric for the

registration process .In this paper a rigorous Lean Six Sigma approach is used to analyse an

existing registration process and the root causes for the long average waiting time are

identified. Lean operation principles are used to redesign the registration process. After the

implementation, a drastic reduction in the average waiting time is achieved and sustained 72.

Rajesh Jugulum,Sagar Kamarthi,Ibrahim Zeid,Philip Samuel explained about Lean

Six Sigma and design for Six Sigma methodologies have been successfully applied in a

variety of industries 1) To improve performance, 2) To design new products, processes and

services, 3) To redesign the existing ones Taguchi’s robustness strategies are an important

part of the DFSS approach. In this paper he has described that how robustness strategies are

used to design a radio-frequency identification system .The main objective of the design is to

select a combination of design parameters that can assure good tag readability. This research

takes into consideration the effect of base material ,the distance between tag and base

material ,and the distance between tag and base material, and the distance between tag and

reader antenna on the robustness of the tag readability.73

Tongdon Jin, Yeliz Ozalp detailed in their study that an optimization procedures to

minimise product warranty cost through design for reliability in the early development phase.

The DFR tool enables the product manufacturers to pro-actively design out potential failure

modes due to hardware software, process and customer usage issues. Reliability predication

for complex hardware-software systems usually is difficult when uncertainties exist in

operational environment. This paper proposes a stochastic reliability model to estimate

component and non-component failure rates considering uncertainties in operational

temperatures and customer usages. Based on the stochastic model, an optimization

programme is formulated to minimise the expected product warranty cost subject to the

design budget constraint. The trade-off and the between the design budget and the warranty

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cost is compared under different design options. Finally the optimal DFR procedure is

demonstrated on a type of automatic semiconductor test equipment. Throughout the paper,

systems and products have been used interchangeably 74.

Sean P Goffnett explained that the purpose of his study is to explore the fundamentals

of Six Sigma and its connection with industry and academia with an effort to provide a

greater understanding on the subject. This paper tries to offer insight by answering two

general questions: First, what is Six Sigma? Second, if Six Sigma affects industry and

academia, then what are some of the implications? The basic premise and analysis in this

study foster an examination of the fit Six Sigma in industry and academia. It may promote a

re-examination of current curriculum and accrediting principles. Moreover a possible

reassessment of career goals and options for college graduates, academics and various

industry professionals might be warranted as a result of this study 75.

Bernard J Kornfeld, Sami Kara detailed in their paper to provide a systematic

overview of approaches to project portfolio selection in continuous improvement and to

identify opportunities for future research. Manufacturing organizations must routinely deliver

efficiencies in order to compete, but their ability to realise sustainable competitive advantage

from these improvements is hampered by the lack of objective approaches for targeting their

efforts. In this paper a normative framework for linking strategy to process improvement

implementation is presented. The paper then examines the literature on portfolio selection in

continuous improvement and presents a descriptive framework that presents the current state.

There gaps are highlighted: optimization of the future, portfolio generation, and the

appropriate measurement to judge outcomes 76.

Razvan Lupan, Ioan C. Bacivarof, Abdessamad Kobi & Christian Robledo in their

paper has proposed a strategy for the implementation of the Six Sigma method as an

improvement solution for the ISO 9000:2000 Quality Standard. Our approach is focused on

integrating the DMAIC cycle of the Six Sigma method with the PDCA process approach,

highly recommended by the standard ISO 9000:2000. The Six Sigma steps applied to each

part of the PDCA cycle are presented in detail, along with some tools and training examples.

Based on this analysis, the authors conclude that applying Six Sigma philosophy to the

quality standard implementation process is the best way to achieve the optimal results in

quality progress and therefore in customer satisfaction 77 .

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Kin Fayah Amar and Douglas Davis presented a paper on a review of Six Sigma

focusing on implementation frameworks for Indonesian SME’s .Most implementation

frameworks examined used the concept of critical success factors in their development. In

this paper the authors examine four implementation frameworks found in the literature from

two perspectives. Firstly from a critical success factor perspective and secondly from the

perspective and secondly from of Rogers diffusion of innovations theory none of the

frameworks examined comprehensively address issues suggested by Roger’s diffusion of

innovation theory. The most robust framework appears to be the one developed by Burton

and Sams. Our research suggests a customized implementation framework needs to be

designed for Indonesian SME’s based on Rogers diffusion of innovations approach but also

drawing from literature on critical success factors 78.

Masoud Hekmatoanah, Mohammad Sadroddin, Saeid Shahbaz, Farhad Mokhtari,

Farahnaz Fadavinia have explained the Six Sigma method as a project-driven management

approach to improve the organization’s products services, and processes by continuously

reducing defects in the organization. Understanding the key features, obstacles and

shortcomings of the Six Sigma method allows organizations to better support their strategic

directions and increasing needs for coaching mentoring and training. It also provides

opportunities to better implement Six Sigma projects. The purpose of this paper is the survey

of Six Sigma process and its impact on the organizational productivity. 79

.

Norhayati Zakuan Muhamad Zameri Mat Saman detailed in operation management

research field. Six Sigma has been considered as infrastructural strategy manufacturing

company’s trend is to implement this strategy in order to maintain their competitive

advantage. The purpose of this study was to explore the value of Six Sigma in improving

quality performance. This study then proposed a model that integrated Six Sigma practices

with top management support and metric focus. This integrative model will be tested using

structural equation modeling. Based on the proposed model research hypotheses are being

developed. The paper culminates with suggested future research work 80.

Petcu Andrea Jenica, Draghici Mihai and Anagnoste Sorin explained in their article

that is to demonstrate how business environment and performance can be improved in an

organization that used and implemented Lean Six Sigma methodology and create an

organizational framework auspicious for their employees. Lean Six Sigma can be a

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management approach of an organization focused on quality and continuous improvement,

based on the participation of all its employees which aims at ensuring long term success. It’s

very important for a organization to believe in the capacity of work and intellect of their

employees, to invest in them ,so in this way they will feel useful and will became more self

confident and will help the company to move one step ahead in this very competitive market

we are facing today 81.

Micheal O’Neill and Cheryi Duvall have detailed in their paper about post occupancy

evaluation (POE) research methods and discuss how these methods can be deployed within

the context of a Six Sigma quality framework. The paper outlines the importance of

conducting POE’s to support the creation and management of optimal spaces for office

workers. The authors review a variety of existing POE approaches and discuss their approach

to using POEs as part of ongoing quality framework. The results of pilot programme using

their approach, and application of these POE and quality tools, are discussed in this paper 82.

P Nonthaleerak, L C Hendry enumerated that it is a timely point to extensively review

the literature on Six Sigma given the recent increased research interest. This paper reviews

more than 200 Six Sigma papers, classifying them according to their research content and the

research methodology employed. A comprehensive list of future areas is given. Key examples

are further development of a scientific foundation for the methodology, integrating Six Sigma

with other methodologies such as adding lean tools, considering implementation issues in

areas other than North America and Europe and furthering the debate on how to adapt the

approach for use in a service context 83.

Karian Schon explained that the paper examines various approaches to the

implementation of the improvement methodology of Six Sigma in a non-American culture.

Qualitative data is collected from semi-structured in-depth interviews with representatives

from three Swedish based firms -Volvo Cars, Ericsson and SKF. All respondents had been

instrumental in the implementation of Six Sigma in their respective firms. The study finds

that the three companies have implemented Six Sigma in different ways. Volvo cars were

ordered to implement Six Sigma by its American owner, Ericsson implemented Six Sigma

slowly on a voluntary basis and SKF has implemented Six Sigma gradually in units through

out the world. The success factors emphasized by the respondents were management

commitment., having a focus on training project selection having strategy for the

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implementation linking Six Sigma to business strategy focusing on results, involving middle

management have qualitative goals basing the initiative on knowledge and competence and

learning from previous experience. The ways in which these companies have implemented

Six Sigma reflect their individual corporate cultures and the Swedish culture in which they

are based. In all cases, different from the American mode of implementing Six Sigma is noted

and discussed 84.

Bengt Klefsjo, Bjarne Berquist, Rick L Edgeman explained for decades now TQM has

been a dominant management concept for improving competitiveness and financial results. In

recent years, however TQM seems to have lost some of its nimbus with other concepts and

approaches such as lean enterprise and Six Sigma have been launched and are increasingly in

vogue. The aim of this paper is to look at TQM and Six Sigma, their backgrounds, definitions

and ingredients, and their similarities and difference to see whether the two concepts really

are different dishes or contain the same ingredients in different proportions 85.

Chaao-Ton-Su, Tai-Lin Chiang, Che-Ming Chang mentioned in their article that,

today service processes are usually slow processes which are consequently prone to poor

service quality. In addition, service has the inherent characteristics of heterogeneity, which

means there is variation in service quality that is unsatisfactory to the consumer. Fortunately,

these issues can be addressed by combining the speed advantage of lean discipline with Six

Sigma capability of uniform process output. This paper aims at developing and applying an

integrated lean Six Sigma methodology in a service-quality improvement endeavor. An

empirical case study of IT) help –desk service was utilized to examine the effectiveness of the

methodology 86.

Indra Devi Rajamanaharan and Paul Collier expressed in their case study based

research used the business process change management model as a framework to explore SS

implementation issues, patterns of organizational change, the impact of SS on performance

measurement systems and the involvement of accountants. The results indicate that a low

level of cultural readiness and an adequate knowledge-sharing capability successful SS

implementation while leadership support, learning capacity and IT leveragability were the

primary facilitators of successful change. The evidence also confirms that companies need to

have an appropriate measurement system in place and that absence of real involvement from

accounting personnel had negative effects 87.

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Leila Jannesari Ladani, Diganata Das, Jerry L Cartwright, Robert Yenkner, Jafar

Razme have detailed in their paper that the Six Sigma methodology and the way it is

implemented in an EMS company. The importance of EMS industry and its role in electronic

manufacturing have been discussed. The competitive advantages of Six Sigma for EMS

companies are presented. Qualities and responsibilities of infrastructure levels and training

procedures at each level are presented. Greenbelt and black belt course of study at each step

as used in Celestica is provided. Comparison between Six Sigma implementation in

Celestica, General Electric and Motorola is provided two technical examples of the projects

implemented successfully through DMAIC process in Celestica are provided 88.

Philip G Rowe detailed in his study in this paper by way of a case study, a

methodology compatible with design for Six Sigma for constructing comprehensive statistical

design and process control specifications are critical to quality characteristics which require

tolerances. The method can be used for stand-alone CTQ, but is most effective when

employed with a system transfer function y=f(x), since this enables the transmission of

variation through the system to be quantified, amongst other things. Also discussed is the

significance of human aspects associated with what seems at first sight, complicated

statistically based design specifications 89.

Rick L Edgeman explained in his study that lean Six Sigma in service, is well

through-out and instructive and is equally suitable for use as a course text, or as a reference

for professionals who use the Six Sigma innovation and design methodologies. That said the

text is not stand-alone in the sense that it generally presumes either prior familiarity with a

large array of the tools and techniques common to lean/Six Sigma projects or if such

familiarity is missing then one or more supplementary resources such as the various method –

oriented “memory joggers” available from GOAL/QPC would be helpful, as would a solid

back ground in applied statistics. The strongest points of further text are breadth an

organization of service applications of DFSS along with an impressive array of tools and

techniques purposefully applied in total. It is additionally encouraging to consider that critical

results have been achieved by student teams with directions from a course instructor and

support from a black belt and project champion. An additional strength of the text is the

provision of an accompanying website where case data are accessible and can be used either

to reconstruct the cases or to investigate the alternative approaches and solutions 90.

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Andrew Chappell & Helen Peck detailed in this paper reports on the findings of an

investigation into supply chain process variability in the UK defence supply chain. The study

‘s objectives were two fold (1) to investigate the nature and causes of variability in the

defence supply chain, (2) to ascertain whether a Six Sigma methodology could be applied

usefully in this context. Herein it is described how by following the DMAIC framework and

employing a mixture of quantitative and qualitative tools, a number of specific problems and

their root causes were identified. An action plan for improvement is put forward based on the

findings of the study. The research concluded that Six Sigma has applicability in the defence

supply chain. However it was also concluded that it is unlikely to be implemented through

out the supply chain under present circumstances, due to current stock holding policies and

low levels of activity in certain demand categories. Statistical process control methods were

nevertheless recommended together with the formation of an exception management team to

investigate problems and lead efforts to foster a continuous improvement culture. Most

importantly, the research revealed the pernicious effects of a cultural and organizational

dependence on the mean average as a performance metric. This research recommends that

urgent consideration be given to the introduction of variance-based measure instead. When

made available to distribution centre staff in the form of user-friendly bar charts, variance

based measures illustrate the real implications of poor process controls for their fellow

servicemen on the front line91.

Kenneth W Leffew, Srinivas S Yerrapragrada and Pradeep B Deshpande enumerated

an industrial application of data driven modeling to solid –state polymerization process is

presented. The goal is to predict the exit IV Intrinsic Viscosity) given a set of independent

variables. The problem is interesting in that it involves a distributed parameter system with

numerous inputs and many hours of time delays. High –fidelity delay-free predications allow

for the adjustment of independent variables for improved quality control. The problem is

analyzed from the increasingly popular Six Sigma perspective for a comparative assessment

between modeling advanced control, and optimization and Six Sigma 92.

Sung H Park, Celestine A Ntuen and Eui H Park detailed a new paradigm of Six

Sigma is emerging. A new term-data technology is defined and its roles in modern technology

and Six Sigma are explained. The importance of knowledge management is stressed. A new

paradigm of Six Sigma called “Knowledge Based Digital Six Sigma”, which is based on DT

and KM and its characteristics and the way of implementation are elaborated 93.

77

Raid Al-Aomar, Mohamed A Youssef expressed in this paper an approach for

achieving Six Sigma rating in critical to quality criteria measured through a system discrete

event simulation model. Lean manufacturing techniques are utilized at the improve phase of

DMAIC to reduce manufacturing lead time. DES provides a flexible platform for applying

DMAIC analyses as well as lean manufacturing techniques. An example of a simple

manufacturing process is used to clarify the application of the proposed approach. Results

showed that while achieving Six Sigma rating may not be always practically attainable at

system level, significant relative improvement can still be achieved 94.

Alessandro Laureani, Jiju Antony and Alex Douglas enumerated a case study aims to

illustrate the application of lean Six Sigma in a call centre of a service industry corporation.

Design/ methodology /approach. The study draws on process information and primary data

from real projects. Findings the study describes improvements in the operation of the call

centre attributable to lean Six Sigma: increase in first-call resolution ratio, reduction in

operator turnover and streamlining of processes, practical examinations-the introduction of

lean Six Sigma into the call centre daily operations management may have organizational

benefits. Originality / value although lean Six Sigma has been extremely successful in the last

two decades in the manufacturing sector, its applicability to the service sector has been a

controversial topic, This study illustrates its application to a fast-growing area of the service

sector, assisting companies in identifying areas of development for their call centers 95.

Goh T.N. Isegohtn detailed Six Sigma with as a quality improvement framework has

enjoyed an unprecedented long period of popularity. This article brings out factors that

contribute to the uniqueness of Six Sigma with its extension and derivatives such as design

for that Six Sigma and lean Six Sigma. Those features that have brought about an impetus for

quality improvement are regarded as “triumphs”, of Six Sigma, where some worrying trends

in the practice of Six Sigma labeled as “tragedies”, clearly industry should leverage on the

strengths of Six Sigma and be careful not become unwitting victims of the weakness .A

realistic and balanced view is certainly called for at this juncture ,and the advantage and

pitfalls associated with Six Sigma should be fully recognized if Six Sigma is to continue its

“winning streak”, of the past quarter of a century 96.

Kumar, Sameer, Schmitz and Stephenie focused on the management of recalls in a

consumer products supply chain, as well as on the reasons, costs, and measures to prevent

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recalls. A Six Sigma DMAIC methodology is used to understand the root causes and

management of recalls and also analyze the costs in consumer products supply chain. There

are many variables in a supply chain, so it is essential for manufacturers to have procedures

in place to present failures that result in a product recall. It is important that companies have

traceability capability or containment measures for parts, products and processes throughout a

global supply chain in the event a quality of safety issues arises. Companies in the consumer

products industry need to consider not only the cist to their financials in an event of a product

recall, but also the loss in terms of goodwill and consumer risk. It is clear from recent Toyota

recall and others, companies need to seriously examine their strategic business objectives

with priorities in mind. This is more critical, rapid business growth and profits or quality

design of their products that are vulnerable to failures 97.

The authors Kailash C. Kapur, Qianmei Feng in their paper elucidated the integrated

optimization models and strategies for the improvement of the Six Sigma process. First

introduce the steps for each phase of the six-phase process. In order to improve the Six Sigma

process, some integrated optimization models are developed for the analysis and the

improvement phases. An optimization model based on the total cost to the producer and the

consumer is given to develop the specifications for the analysis phase. For the improvement

phase, three topics are presented: the System Transfer Function STF), the Variance

Transmission Equation VTE), and an integrated optimization model to develop the means and

variances of the controllable factors of the process, based on the STF and VTE. These topics

are also important in terms of the basic research in engineering statistics and optimization 98.

Jiju Antony and Craig Fergusson explained that Six Sigma is a disciplined approach to

define measure, analyze, improve and control processes that result in variability and defect

reduction. Although Six Sigma has been widely embraced by many world class

manufacturing companies, it is still new in the software industry. This paper initially makes

an attempt to compare software industry with manufacturing industry. This is followed by

presenting the results from a pilot survey on Six Sigma in the software industry. The focus is

on the Six Sigma tools and techniques used by software industry, key Six Sigma metrics used

by the software businesses, important attributes in the software development process and

finally critical success factors for successful implementation of Six Sigma in software

industry 99.

79

Preeprem Nothaleerak and Linda Hendry presented in their research paper that aims

to explore areas of weakness in Six Sigma implementations that may require enhancements in

the methodology, to investigate implementation difference between manufacturing and

services and to investigate critical success factors, exploratory empirical evidence is

presented from nine case study companies in Thailand, including manufacturers, sales and

service companies and a national airline. The key findings are Six Sigma is more appropriate

for high risk complicated large-scale and cross functional projects the Six Sigma

methodology could be enhanced to ensure that projects are aligned to company goals: the

evidence questions standard text book advice that a “Black Belt” should have a full time role,

as part –time BB role can be more realistic particularly in a small company and the training

materials available need to be improved to be more appropriate for service operations 100.

Johnnsen, Florian, Leist Susanne and Zellner, Gregorl discussed in their article that

part from being applied in production Six Sigma has grown considerably, in importance as a

business process management method services. The transfer of the method from production

to service applications does however pose problems which affect the success of implementing

Six Sigma as BPM method in services. For a successful application of the Six Sigma method

in service it is helpful to know these possible problems in order to able to avoid them and

to achieve the goals of Six Sigma improvement projects. In addition from a theoretical view

knowing the problems is first step for further development of the Six Sigma method.

Therefore the present article deals with the following questions: which key problems

regarding the application of Six Sigma in service mentioned in the literature and which

phases of the Six Sigma cycle can they be assigned to?, The existing literature on this subject

is reviewed and a qualitative content analysis of its contents is presented. Additionally a

survey based on the problems results shows, on the one hand that to date the problems of the

application of Six Sigma in service have little been dealt with. On the other hand the

evaluation provides a survey of the problems structured in accordance to the phases of the Six

Sigma cycle. Thus, the present paper offers new findings as regards the state- of –the art of

the Six Sigma method 101.

Mark R Chassin expressed in this article about the underlying causes of quality

problems, discusses some of the most salient obstacles to improvement ,and suggests the

components of an effective strategy to increase the pace and scope of quality improvement in

the delivery system. Are human systems so different from others in which Six Sigma has

80

been achieved or attempt that high levels of reliability are unattainable? Perhaps General

Electric has applied the same sigma methods that worked to improve its manufacturing

processes to its other more service-oriented businesses. Health care now frequently produces

defects at rates as high as 500,000 per million –as exemplified in failures to recognize and

treat clinical depression 102.

Rodney A Stewart & Clinton mentioned that significant expenditures of time, money

and resources, both human and material, are wasted each year as a result of inefficient or non-

existent quality management procedures. In an attempt to improve their market

competitiveness, by limiting the extent of non-value adding activities, some organisations are

beginning to monitor the performance of internal and external engineering and construction

processes to achieve these bold aims, these organisations are looking to other industries such

manufacturing to examine the effectiveness of measuring and monitoring tools such as Six

Sigma. Only in recent years has the Six Sigma method been utilized by some of the major

players in the construction sector. To familiarize both researchers and practitioners on how

to implement the six-sigma method and its potential benefits, the paper describes the

outcomes of a Six Sigma process improvement project conducted for the construction of

concrete longitudinal beams on the St. Pancars raised railway station in London,UK. In

summary, the Six Sigma approach provided the PIP team with a structured process

improvement strategy to reduce waste and other non-value adding activities from the

construction process 103.

Davis R.Bothe detailed that ever since Motorola Inc. Introduced its Six Sigma quality

initiative quality practioner questioned why followers of this philosophy add a 1.5∂ shift to

the average before estimating process capability. Six Sigma advocates claim such an

adjustment is necessary but offer only empirical studies as justification for this decision. By

examining the sensitivity of control charts to detect changes of various magnitudes, this

article provides a statistically based reason for including such a shift in the process average .A

new capability index, called dynamic CPK in corporating the shift is introduced.104

Kun-shan-Wu,Li-Ren Yang & I-Chang Chaing enumerated in this paper the ways to

determine whether the effect of leadership on Six Sigma project success (PS) may be

mediated by member cohesiveness (MC).The second objective was to examine whether the

impact of MC on PS were also investigated in this research. To address the primary aims, a

81

survey was used to measure the MC. It may serve as a mediator between leadership and PS

.The results also indicate that resource allocation has a moderating effect on the relationship

between MC and PS.105

M.Sokovic, D Pavletic, E Krulcic explained in their paper that Six Sigma project

undertaken within company for production automotive parts, which deals with identification

and reduction of production cost in the deburring process for gravity die-castings and

improvement of quality level of produced parts. The objectives are achieved by application of

Six Sigma approach to quality improvements project in automotive industry. The applied Six

Sigma approach includes team work s through several phases like Define, Measure, Analyze,

Improve and Control, Systematic application of Six Sigma DMAIC tools and methodology

within an automotive parts production results with several achievements such are reduction of

tools expenses, cost of poor quality and labour expenses. It was shown that Six Sigma is an

effective way to find out where the greatest process needs are and which are the softest points

of the process. Also, Six Sigma provides measurable indicators and adequate data for

analytical analysis 106.

Abdullah AlSaheer, Hamdan Bin Mohammed mentioned that sustainability is not a

method or a tool. It is the state of a company in which the efficiency of resources is

maximised, customers are satisfied to a great extent, an improved condition in long lasting

success is maintained and competitive advantage is sustained. Literature review carried out in

this research depicts that researchers have extensively worked on identifying and

documenting the enablers, challengers, risks projects, corporate commitments and strategic

integration of Six Sigma with other frameworks but at the same time, the literature

establishes that Six Sigma is neither completely welcomed by companies nor the

methodology has proven its worth for most of the corporations. The latter argument suggests

the need for identification of gaps between the capabilities of Six Sigma methodology and the

actual situation in the enterprise world. The theme of this paper is to explore the capabilities

of Six Sigma that can enable companies to achieve the state of sustainability to a great extent 107.

Yahia Zare Mehjerdi detailed about Six-Sigma points that researchers, implementers

and users should keep in mind in addressing six-sigma to large and small companies as well

as system development and/or planning for such applications. In addition to that this author

82

proposes an algorithm for calculating the overall sigma level of multistage. In this paper, the

author reviews the fundamental concept of Six Sigma and elaborates why it is important for

small and large organizations to employ six –sigma concepts into their working methodology

for quality improvement. The DMAIC steps to be taken, tools to be used and the deliverables

are completely discussed. The author also discusses a Six Sigma weighted average

methodology for calculating the overall six-sigma level for an organization with many

working stages or processes 108.

In the article “Implementing Six Sigma Techniques in Management Institutes” Singh

Sumer has provided an insight on Six Sigma approach and advantages of Six Sigma. He has

explained how to integrate Six Sigma into the organizational infrastructure and capabilities

and key factors for implementing a successful Six Sigma programme in institute. As per his

study, the statistical aspects of Six Sigma must compliment institute perspective and

challenges to the organization to implement Six Sigma techniques successfully109.

Ashok Kumar Sharma has suggested that in order to make the working of Six Sigma

methodology successful, sufficient training is to be given to the employees. Training is

provided with certifications as “Belts” to the participants for implementation of Six Sigma110.

“The Power of Six Sigma” is a book that clearly explains the key elements of

implementing Six Sigma. Subir Chowdhury has provided an enlightened summary of the

Critical Success Factors required for understanding the power of Six Sigma111.

“Six Sigma as an enabler for Quality: Resources and aspects of RUP Methodology”,

in this article the author Nanadan Dasgupta has focused on Implementation and

Methodologies of Six Sigma in IT through a case study112.

Rajesh Kumar U Sambhe and Rajendra S Dalu in their research paper studied the

implementation of Six Sigma in the Indian mid sized automotive organizations to identify and

analyze the critical success factors and development of Six Sigma framework113.

Six Sigma is a Business Process Management strategy aimed at improving the quality

of a business process whereas strategy Six Sigma) and system ERP) largely deal with data.

In his article U Lakshmana Rao aimed at highlighting the synergies of combined applications

83

of Six Sigma and Enterprise Resource Planning ERP) in achieving the business process

excellence114.

Six Sigma is one of the Strategic tools used by leading organizations to achieve

accuracy and speed and at the same time reduce cost and increase customer satisfaction and

profits. In this paper authors Jayesh Pathak and Tushar N Desai presents methodologies of

Six Sigma, differentiate Six Sigma with Total Quality Management (TQM) elucidate the

strengths and barriers, strengths and barriers of Indian Industries in implementing Six Sigma.

In their paper they also explained key factors for implementing a successful Six Sigma

programme, benefits of implementing of Six Sigma programme, some common myths of Six

Sigma as well as obstacles and challenges of Six Sigma methods115.

In the paper “Improving customer delivery commitments the Six Sigma way: case

study of an Indian Small scale Industry” the author Darshak A Desai made an attempt to

introduce Six Sigma to small scale sectors. The paper discusses the real life case where Six

Sigma has successfully applied at one of the Indian small-scale units to improve one of the

core processes116.

Dhruv Desai has explained Six Sigma as a transformational quality methodology and

works towards process improvements and continuous enhancement of the process. He has

taken an example of breakthrough improvement, by considering a recruitment process which

recruits Feet on Street FOS) sales executives and has a service level agreement of 15 days

from resource requisition to joining. In the event of recruitment turnaround time and also

various example projects like automatic payroll benchmarking with competitors, productivity

enhancement. This is a low-hanging fruit for HR117.

Manish Bhargava, Awdhesh Bhardwaj and A.P.S Rathore in their article presented the

tools of Six Sigma for Telecom Industries which can achieve powerful operational

improvements that produce sustainable business benefits. This paper maps some of the

changes in the telecom markets that resulted from competitive entry and gives an insight into

the dynamics of competitive markets with relation to quality improvement. Additionally the

presentation seeks to demonstrate that in the quest for the particular competitive outcome via

independent and transparent regulation118.

84

In their research paper authors Jiju Antony and Darshak A Desai presented the results

from an empirical investigation of Six Sigma status in the Indian industry and unrepresented

region of investigation on Six Sigma implementation119.

Bandyopadhay has explained that ever since a confederation of Indian Industries CII)

has launched EXIM Bank business excellence Award, adopted from EFQM model, many

organizations are challenging this award every year. His study highlights as to how Six Sigma

supports an organization’s endeavor in adopting the excellence model 120.

Amit Chatterjee’s article is focused on the use of the Six Sigma concept to combine

robustness with flexibility for strategy deployment process within the Indian manufacturing

industry. Information on the core idea of strategic Six Sigma, characteristics of Six Sigma,

brief history of the Six Sigma and its concept121.

In this article authors Jitesh Thakkar, S G Deshmukh and Arun Kanda described the

use of Six Sigma model in services and education, in particular. Their paper aimed at

exploring the benefits and implementation challenges of Six Sigma for a case of educational

services. Interactive sessions and unstructured interviews with academic experts and top

management were considered as the source of inputs. The present work prioritized challenges

to Six Sigma implementation in education using Analytic Hierarchy Process AHP). Further,

this paper suggests the remedial actions to prioritized challenges, based on Alderfer’s

motivation model. The paper delivers tentative Define - Measure – Analysis – Improve –

Control DMAIC) measures in educational services122.

Prabhushankar examined the status and issues of Six Sigma programme in Indian

automotive components sector. The results from his study reveal about twenty five

companies. The study suggests that financial constraint is a significant barrier for

implementing Six Sigma and he is also suggests that Indian automotive components sector

have been implementing Six Sigma along with ISO/TS16949 in an integrated manner in

order to gain to the global market123.

Soti Ashish enumerated the status of applications of Six Sigma in Indian

manufacturing industries. He attempts to find out the needs, benefits and critical success

factors through empirical observation in Indian manufacturing industries. Further he

85

presented a model among nine critical success factors to classify them in three groups of

three factors each Design/methodology/approach-questionnaire based survey is used to find

empirical observations from Indian manufacturing industries. The model developed among

the critical success factors will be of immense value to the Six Sigma users124.

S.V. Deshmukh and R.R. Lakhe’s paper was aimed at identifying the factors that need

greater attention for successful implementation of Six Sigma in SMEs of India. The finding

of the study showed that majority of the surveyed SMEs 75% did not possess ISO certificate.

Besides, only 51% were ISI certified, indicating lower importance to quality management

practices. The study reveals that training forms an important factor to achieve the desired

effect of Six Sigma implementation programme and hence the present DMAIC model needs

to be enriched with T (training) making it T-DMAIC125.

E.V. Gijo & Tummala S Rao has explained that Six Sigma implementation is

spreading to many organizations the world over and the success stories are increasing every

day. In several cases impressive financial benefits have been recorded, whereas in few

organizations, the implementation of this methodology has not given the expected benefits. In

their study the authors discussed various hurdles faced by the organizations from their

experiences, and give a few recommendations for Six Sigma implementation126.

In their paper Prabhakar Kaushik and Dinesh Khanduja review the implications of

applying Six Sigma methodology over a technical institute to increase the passing rate of

students. It was found that application of Six Sigma project recommendation increased the

sigma level of the technical institute to 4.17 from 2.28 and significantly resulted in increasing

the passing rate of students. This article provides documented evidence of Six Sigma

implementation in technical education in India127.

In developing nations where Six Sigma concepts have not picked up in the

manufacturing industry, design for Six Sigma would be a far-fetched dream. Instead the same

result of reliability in design can be approached by tracking a simpler metric called First Time

Right FTR). This measures the number of instances where the first design worked

successfully. In his paper V E Annamalai has outlined the methodology to identify and

improve the factors that affect FTR. This methodology has helped the industry in successfully

raising the reliability of our designs from 20% to 72%, over a period of six years128.

86

Kaushik Prabhakar has illustrated that an attempt is being made to apply Six Sigma

methodology to a process industry taking a specific case of a thermal power plant DM de-

mineralized) water in thermal power plants is an expensive input material. A DM water

make-up cycle is required to compensate for the losses incurred in the water stream cycle due

to evaporation, start-up and shut-down, venting valve passing and blow downs. In the

process he studied and implementation of the Six Sigma project recommendation and

improvement action plans reduced the mean make-up of water from 0.90% to 0.54% of MCR

maximum continuous rating) accruing with it a comprehensive energy saving of nearly Rs.

296.09 Lakhs per annum129.

B.N. Sarkar in his paper analyzed the internal dynamics of improvement initiative

deployment in an organization and tried to find out the loose ends for the successful

deployment of an improvement programme. Through the analysis of achievements and

failures after initiating different initiatives in a steel plant in India, author has suggested few

issues which should be looked into for successful deployment and getting the desired result.

For analysis, tools such as life cycle analysis, Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) and

casual modeling using system dynamics have been used130.

Prasun Das enumerated that the management of a company was facing the problem of

procuring materials in a scheduled time owing to its many pending activities. A study was

conducted to reduce the delay in procurement of incoming materials using the Six-Sigma

methodology. The objective of the study was to understand and internalize the methodology

and also to reduce the time taken by the critical activities through a disciplined approach. The

defect levels for each activity and for the overall system were estimated. The base line sigma

levels were found to be 1.8. After taking actions on the critical activities the average time

taken for completing the activities along with their variability have been reduced

satisfactorily. The yield of the overall process has improved to 76% from the level of 62%,

leading to an improved sigma level of 2.4131.

J. Ravichandran in his study observed that in the literature of Six Sigma, one can see,

that an organization is classified as either “world-class or industry average or “non-

competitive” based on the sigma level- the milestone- it achieves at a given point of time. It is

well known that, in an organization, many critical processes exist. When an organization is

termed as a Six Sigma organization there exists a question whether all critical processes are at

87

Six Sigma level. If all such process is not at Six Sigma level then how an overall sigma level

is obtained needs further study. Hence it is attempted to assign weights to all critical

processes based on their importance and this information is used along with the defects per

million DPM) units produced by the respective process to determine the overall sigma level

called as ‘weight-based sigma level’ of an organization at a given point of time. As weights

are assigned to the DPM’s of the respective critical processes, the resulting DPM’s are

considered equally likely. The approach is described in detail and studied numerically to

illustrate the effectiveness of the approach using various arbitrary values of weights and

sigma levels132.

Deepali Kishore Desai enumerated that ambitious people who are driving their way

towards improvement, efficiency, customer target, business process, was explained in his

book with two parts the first part consists of what Six Sigma? Ways to Six Sigma,

Organizing, working people and methods of Six Sigma. Where as second part guides to

implement use of Six Sigma tools, Six Sigma and top level management and live cases with

Six Sigma. For most companies today the Cost of Poor Quality CoPQ) is likely to be 25%

sales. In almost every company where the CoPQ is unknown, the CoPQ exceeds the profit

margin133.

Anuradha and D S Rao in their article “Exploiting Six Sigma by using DTS” have

explained the applications of Six Sigma in software industry and how it makes software

projects transparent to both management and customers. According to them Transparency

requires an important cultural change, after transparency is achieved, completing accurate

project estimations while meeting both deadlines and customer requirements become a lot

easier. They had implemented DTS as a prototype by using techniques of Six Sigma to track

an error and also the help of graph showed the number of bugs incremented or decremented

versus date of track134.

“Customer Care Management Model for Service Industry” by Muthuswamy

Shanmugaraja, Muthusamy Nataraj and Nallasamy Gunasekaran describes a model for

Customer care management in an automotive service industry. Design/

methodology/approach – Customer care management CCM) model is developed using TQM

techniques, Quality Function Deployment QFD) and Six Sigma. The matrix structure in QFD

has been used to transform customer complaints into Critical-to-Quality CTQ) parameters.

88

By using Six Sigma DMAIC approach, the customer complaint parameters have been

analyzed for improvement135.

Rallabandi Srinivasu and others contributed this paper for sheer understanding of

TQM & SIX SIGMA, how they are helpful to the organizations to achieve success in terms of

quality. This paper elucidate the approach of SIX SIGMA vide DMAIC & DMADV. The

main aim of this paper is to look at TQM & SIX SIGMA history, definition, importance and

the contribution in an Industry and also explains the strengths, differences and

weaknesses/deficiencies of TQM & SIX SIGMA136.

The objective of the research article “The role of Human Resources HR) in Six

Sigma” by Saibal Kr. Mukhopadhyay is to focus on the introduction of Six Sigma into an

organization which will lead to a major change that will have a profound effect on a broad

group of stakeholders. Managers and employees at many levels of the organization will be

asked to engage in new behaviours which will see Six Sigma as a source of competition for

resources, executive attention and organizational power. HR professionals can increase their

chances of being included in Six Sigma decision making and implementation137.

Gokhan Senol and Adem Anbar in their paper in their paper, Six Sigma was examined

in a view of finance sector and applications of Six Sigma within the finance sector were

evaluated138.

Through their paper Dinesh Kumar Saini, Lingaraj A Hadiman, Poonam V Vaidya and

Sanad Al Maskari made an attempt to review the quality improvement efforts in the software

industry. Six Sigma implementation efforts in the software industry have been analyzed and

studied. In this paper a detailed analysis has been carried about the impact of development

environment. Process selection and process maturity also play an important role in the

software development environment. In this paper software quality models have been analyzed

and concept of Six Sigma in the software development industry139.

Pradip Thakker in his paper refers to the most prestigious and matured organization

the Mumbai’s dabbawalas. If we speak about Six Sigma in context of Indian industry the first

thing that comes to our mind is the Mumbai’s dabbawalas who for the past 120 years with

4,500 semiliterate members have been providing a quality door-to-door service to a large and

89

loyal customer base. How has MTBSA managed to survive through these tumultuous years?

The answer lies in a twin process that combines competitive collaboration between team

members with a high level of technical efficiency in logistics management. This article details

the process followed by dabbawalas in order to deliver the tiffin boxes to the respective

places within the stipulated time. In the dabbawalas' elegant logistics system, using 25 km of

public transport, 10 km of footwork and involving multiple transfer points, mistakes rarely

happen. According to a Forbes 1998 article, one mistake for every eight million deliveries is

the norm. How do they achieve virtual six-sigma quality with zero documentation? For one,

the system limits the routing and sorting to a few central points. Secondly, a simple colour

code determines not only packet routing but packet prioritising as lunches transfer from train

to bicycle to foot 140.

This article by Stefan Thomke and Mona Sinha describes the Mumbai-based

Dabbawala organization, which achieves very high service performance 6 Sigma equivalent

or better) with a low-cost and very simple operating system. The case explores all aspects of

their system mission, information management, material flows, human resource system,

processes, etc.) and the challenges that the Dabbawala organization faces in a rapidly

changing environment. An outside consultant proposes the introduction of new technologies

and management systems, while the leading logistics companies e.g., FedEx) come to

Mumbai to learn about the Dabbawala system 141.

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