Sigma and Motorola Why the Pervasive Adoption

¶ … Sigma and Motorola

Why the Pervasive Adoption of Six Sigma Is Needed

The value of Six Sigma has been readily and thoroughly proven throughout all manufacturing industries and continues to be the foundation of supply chain, sourcing, production and post-sales support performance improvements. Each of these areas of manufacturing are easily quantified and provide ample evidence of the value of Six Sigma for reducing costs, time constraints and improving profitability (Davies, 2004). Yet the areas of services and the more intricate and complex aspects of healthcare, customer services deliver online and from call centers, and the use of Six Sigma in measuring professional services and educational performance are less commonplace but even more valuable. These non-manufacturing scenarios often have more complex cost structures associated with them, greater variability in cost management and a lack of consistency in implementation, all of which make them exceptionally difficult to manage to budgets (Antony, 2006). These factors are what Six Sigma in services capitalize on to deliver greater insights into how process areas can improve.

Using Six Sigma in Services-Based Industries

At the center of Six Sigma is the Design, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC) methodology which is a series of five steps to define the direction, goals and objectives of a Six Sigma project (Davies, 2004). This id the essence of a strong Six Sigma project because the Design phase of the methodology brings the customers' needs squarely into the center of a project. The role of Voice of the Customer (VoC) is even more critical in services-related industries as an entire project concentrates on measuring the distance between customer expectations and experiences (Antony, 2006). Analyzing which factors are responsible for the greatest differences between customers' experiences and expectations often determine the success or failure of a given Six Sigma project and the long-term successful modification of a given company's direction (Feng, Manuel, 2008).