Page 9 - Design for Six Sigma for Service (Six SIGMA Operational Methods)

PREFACE

Six Sigma is the fastest-growing business management system in industry
today. It has been credited with saving billions of dollars for companies over
the past 10 years. Developed by Motorola in the mid 1980s, the methodology
became well known only after Jack Welch from GE made it a central focus
of his business strategy in 1995. In the last few years, the Six Sigma
movement started spreading from manufacturing industries into various
service sectors, such as banking, insurance, hospitals, schools, and many
other service organizations. Many service organizations that implemented
Six Sigma reported huge successes.

One of the new developments in Six Sigma is Design for Six Sigma (DFSS).
DFSS is a systematic methodology that uses tools, training, and project
management discipline to optimize the design process of products, services,
and processes in order to achieve superior designs to maximize customer
value at Six Sigma quality levels. In contrast to regular Six Sigma, charac-
terized by DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, and control), which
emphasizes process improvement without fundamental design change,
DFSS emphasizes the importance of the design. DFSS contends that only
superior design can create products or services with high customer value,
low design vulnerability, and high quality. In recent years, DFSS is getting
more attention because of its perceived benefits.

Can DFSS be applied to the service industry? Based on the author’s
extensive research, the answer is a resounding yes.

The service industry exhibits some distinct features that are not found in the
manufacturing industry. Based on the work of Sasser, Olsen, and Wyckoff
(Sasser et al. 1978), these distinct features include:
1. Many services are intangible; they are not things like hardware.
2. Many services are perishable; they cannot be inventoried.
3. Services often produce heterogeneous output.
4. Services often involve simultaneous production and consumption.
However, no matter what type of service organizations they are, there are
three aspects of services that are detrimental to service quality and customer
satisfaction (Ramaswamy 1996):

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