Sometimes people ask us "Is Six Sigma only for manufacturing?"

Six Sigma can be applied to all areas. The methodology and tools used are not specific to manufacturing. Anywhere there is a product or process, there is bound to be variation. When, there is variation, there is bound to be defects and dissatisfied customers. When there is variation, Six Sigma can be used to minimize variation and thus improve customer satisfaction.

Six Sigma has been successfully applied to all types of industries: IT, ITES, BPO, KPO, Healthcare, Financial Sector, and other service industries.

I fully agree with this Suresh that the Six Sigam is not limited to only manufacturing but could be leveraged to anywhere. I agree with him completely that it could be applied to IT, Healthcare kind of industries as well.

Hi,

This is a late response to your post; but can you let me know where I could get some case studies on use of Six Sigma in a KPO environment (not a BPO)

Thanks, P.B.Mohan

Hi All,

 

I joined recently on this forum. I found this post interesting. Suresh and Velu said that six sigma is applicable to areas other than manufacturing as well, and P.B.Mohan has tried to push the envelope to see if there are any case studies available for KPO environment. I think this is an interesting question. I did not see any responses on this till now. I am getting the feeling that the applicability of six sigma in KPO environment has not been proven yet. The reason could be that unlike in BPO, the processes and services that are off-shored in KPO have a greater degree of ambiguity in it. There is also in many cases a lack of clarity of what the measurements for the process performance should be. But having said that it's probably only a matter of time and its a matter of working to actually customize the theory of six sigma to the practical aspects of delivering in a KPO environment. To me, it appears as if we should focus on the CTQ of customer satisfaction for the services delivered, and the CTP of on time receipt of good quality inputs, and on time delivery of good quality outputs. The specific definition of on-time and quality would depend on the nature of the process. Once a measurement system is in place, we can set targets for measurement and projects which help on a closing gap to target would be six sigma projects. These projects can then become examples for case-studies.I am currently leading the Continuous Improvement Program for an account, in an ITES company.

Hi,

Maybe you are right Sundar; just to keep the data complete, one gentleman (incidentally named after a title given to the first Prime Minister of independent India) replied privately on another BMSS forum mentioning that he may be willing to share a case study from his company; the bottom line still remains that till now I have not received a case study yet

Thanks,

P.B.Mohan

Every industry or enterprise consists of processes, Macro level process and Microm level processes. Every function in the organization consist of processes. This is true for manufacturing as well as non manufacturing industries.

The whole concept of six sigma is centered on Process Approach, Y = f(x), and this is what makes Six Sigma applicabilty universal in nature.

So fundamentally, six sigma is designed to handle all tuypes of processes. The difference lies in the way its applied and tools are used for different processes.

Thanks

Sanjay Bishnoi

MBB-Mumbai

Six Sigma is all about Process Improvement, Data Driven Decision Making and Problem Solving and these three aspects are present in all industries and functions.

Probably this makes Six Sigma universally applicable!

yes, Six Sigma can be used in all industries and functions...

I was fascinated to realize that six sigma could be used in HR, Healthcare etc...

If there exists a recurring problem, the best way out is to implement lean six sigma.. find the root cause, modify and improve it..