I have been interviewing people from the construction industry for my thesis to see whether six sigma can be implemented in construction industry or not. All the companies I interviewed are using ISO 9001:2008. When I explain six sigma and how it works, they always say that it is similar to ISO 9001:2008, the question here what the difference is and if they are similar, why it is not used in the construction industry.

your answers are highly appreciated

 

Anwar,

ISO talks about standardization of processes and procedures in different department of an organization. Example a company may be carrying out different functions like marketing, production to name a few. Now what ISO does is take different functions and apply one standard across all verticals so that the company follows a standardized procedure for carrying out different activities. ISO is also used as a brand building tool to attract new customers as it puts a company in good ground given the fact that they are ISO certified. 

Coming to Six Sigma, it is basically a process where you can resolve a recuring issue with the help of statistics and other principles. 

Hope that helps but do let me know if you need any other help.

Take care,

Rahul

Dear Mr. Rahul

Thank you soooo much for this useful information. I had an interview today with one company and the QC manger had a knowledge in Six sigma. He said that Six Sigma can be applicable to the construction industry, but it costs a lot of money to train people, it can be chosen to be a process improvement tool only at the time the company is established. also he added that Six Sigma is not as famous as ISO 9001, therefore people prefer to choose something that is well-known and the government support rather than implementing a system where not many people is aware of.

Would you agree on the above? Do you think that Six Sigma can be a successful tool to implement in the construction industry?

you help is highly appreciated

Anwar

 

Dear

i want to show this in new and simple way that is six sigma is a data driven methodology in which by analyzing data we can easily validate our claim at our desire confidence limit or as per customer acceptance risk.

But in ISO we can only standardization of processes and procedures in which we should work but how much defect in our product we cant calculate.

Well the QC manager is right but only to an extent. In a sense that a company in a nascent stage would not like to invest money in training people on Six Sigma. But it also depends which training partner it chooses as different centers have different fee model ranging from 8000 per head to 30000 per head. Such is the difference in cost.

Six Sigma is an extremely successful tool in industries like manufacturing and construction. The very essence lies in the fact that using Six Sigma techniques cost can be reduced drastically thereby leveraging the profits. The same impact would be slightly difficult to register in a service industry. For e.g to show how much impact in terms of money or profit is made by reducing the turnaround time of a pizza joint. In industries like construction, everything you do will be associated with a cost so you job will be much easier to show the importance of Six Sigma.

Being said, application of Six Sigma also lies in the fact the work culture of the company, receptivity of the senior management and few other factors. However, you don't need to be formally trained on Six Sigma to reap its benefits. You can start small by picking some of the easy to understand techniques like 5 Why's, Cause & Effect and apply them in day to day situations.

Pretty long read but I hope it helps.

Regards,

Rahul

Both are backed by strong management principles. If you consider any one as the BIBLICAL approach to follow (with an eye on business sense all the time), big improvements can happen.

However, ISO 9001 many times suffers with practices of faking data for appeasing the external auditor. For such companies, maintaining ISO 9001 becomes Non Value Adding activity to quite an extent.

The bottom-line is - any sound management practice that is supported well by top management can lead to great results. Generally, top management finds it easy to support Six Sigma as it connects with business sense.

More views are welcome.