Introduction
The essence of this paper is to discuss Six Sigma as a quality improvement process and methodology used in industry standards. The paper discusses the core concepts of the Six Sigma philosophy, the evolution of quality management and its influence on Six Sigma philosophy, differences and similarities between Six Sigma and Total Quality Management (TQM), and definitions of quality from an operations management perspective and customer perspective.
Core concepts of the Six Sigma philosophy
Six Sigma philosophy denotes to a quality methodology that offers businesses with tools to enhance their capability and processes. The methodology increases performance and decrease in any variations that leads to the reduction of defects and vast improvement in profits, quality products, and the morale of employees (Al-Ibrahim, 2014). The main concepts of Six Sigma are founded on the DMAIC methodology that stands for define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. Defining means that a firm identifies the purpose and extent of the processes to determine if they require quality improvement while measuring involves gathering information that describe the present situation using a data collection plan. It is essential to identify relevant process measures and collect enough baseline information, so that improvements carried out can be verified. The essence of the analysis step is to ascertain the main causes of problems in the processes, inefficiencies, and available opportunities that require improvement (Adina-Petruta & Roxana, 2014). After the analysis, the firm can design and initiate creative solutions to fix the quality problems and prevent them from happen again. At this point, the firm can use various techniques to find the root causes of the problems in their processes like brainstorming, and piloting improvement plans before its implementation (Adina-Petruta & Roxana, 2014). The last core part of Six Sigma is the control phase where necessary measure are implemented to ensure that benefits and gains got during the improvement stage are sustained, and prevented from sliding into the old ways of doing things in the firm.
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Evolution of Quality management and its influence on Six Sigma Philosophy
Quality management is an essential component to the overall success of a business since it affects all operations, right from employee performance to customer satisfaction. Quality management dates back to the middle Ages where apprentices were assessed by skilled workers to ensure that quality standards were sustained, and buyers get satisfied (Pepper & Spedding, 2009). While it has evolved over years with new methodologies, its end goals remain the same. Quality management emerged in the 1920s where the focus was on the products. Quality control of a product was determined through inspections but with time firms needed more changes and development. These changes were brought in the 1940 with industry leaders like Juran, Roming, and Deming among others. Consequently, the quality management evolved into total quality management (TQM) and spread to other parts of the world like Japan who developed various methodologies. It was on this basis that quality management tools like lean Six Sigma and total quality management among others developed. The lean philosophy developed by Toyota production philosophy is another example of how evolution of quality management impacted global firms (Pepper & Spedding, 2009). Many firms compete for quality management awards in the world but its objectives are similar to those in the Middle Ages and throughout history.
Differences and Similarities between Six Sigma and Total Quality Management
The Six Sigma is different from Total Quality Management in several ways. Firstly, it is relatively newer compared to total quality management and not its replacement. TQM focuses on delivering superior quality products while Six Sigma focuses better outcomes (Ozyasar, 2017). Secondly, total quality management focuses on the maintenance of existing quality standards but Six Sigma focuses on making small but necessary changes in the processes and systems to enhance high quality products and services. The Six Sigma focuses on how to improve quality by reducing and eventually preventing or eliminating defects from the system and processes (Anderson et al., 2006). Total Quality management is less complex compared to Six Sigma where TQM requires extensive training whereas Six Sigma involves trained people. Again, TQM concentrates on individual departments and specific quantitative objectives while Six Sigma’s main focus is the satisfaction of the customer. Both systems have similar origin and their theoretical perspectives are similar. They are also effective tools for quality management since their methodologies and procedures used in both systems are similar (Anderson et al., 2006).
Definitions of quality from operations management and customer perspectives
Operations management perceives the definition of quality differently from the consumers or customers. For operations management, quality is perceived as the effectiveness of the production process to conform to specifications needed by the design denoted as the quality of conformance (Knowles, 2011). Therefore, it implies that production processes need to ensure that products meet design specifications. From the operations management point of view, good quality products are those that conform to the design specifications and are well made while poor-quality products fail to meet these specifications.
On their part, customers or consumers perceive quality products based on companies and this informs their decision to buy such products or services. Therefore, quality should focus on meeting the consumer needs in the present and future (Mauch, 2010). It follows that quality from a customer’s perspective is determined by their needs or what they want and their willingness to pay for the products based on their prices.
References
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