Recent years are characterized by increasing awareness of the importance of the quality of both products and services, and the need to have ways to measure and evaluate it. One such way to measure quality was the Six Sigma concept, which focuses on achieving short-term goals to advance long-term ones. Enterprises using this concept are customer-oriented and use measurements focused on them to make better all levels of production continually. As a result, improved processes, both service and administrative, have a small number of defects.
- The Six Sigma concept established that high variation of a process leads to more defects. Each activity greatly affects the quality of the final product. Based on this, it is necessary to reduce variability and monitor each operation rather than its averages. For example, when choosing a resource supplier for production, it is crucial to select one with high-quality products rather than a few cheaper ones.
- The Six Sigma concept offers a stricter look at specific companies’ problems and thereby increases the quality of service. Nakhai and Neves (2009) provide an example of baggage loss by aviation companies to illustrate this contribution. Assuming that 19 bags were lost at someday and there were 8.750 passengers that day, the average percentage of baggage loss is 0,2 is small. However, the calculation using the sigma standard offers a look through the potentials per million, and the result is 1357 errors. Such numbers motivate to improve the service.
- Six Sigma involves continuous process improvement that contributes to better quality and understandable reporting. Based on this concept, projects are more strategic and use more different methodologies – fault analysis, experimental design, simulation.
- The concept identifies weaknesses and motivates company employees to work better. The Six Sigma belt system provides for the distribution of employees’ responsibilities according to their levels of knowledge. It helps to place overall responsibility for product quality on all employees and establish common goals.
Thus, the Six Sigma concept is popular as it is aimed at improving the quality of products. Such actions benefit both customers and manufacturers and other stakeholders. Although this philosophy focuses primarily on reducing waste, it also acts as a powerful motivational tool for enterprise employees. Six Sigma offers a more serious, tough, and responsible approach to work, and for this reason, not all companies can cope with it.
Reference
Nakhai, B., & Neves, J. S. (2009). The challenges of six sigma in improving the service quality. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 26(7), pp. 663-684.