The Contribution of Six Sigma towards the Improvement of People’s Equity–A Case Study of Manufacturing Industry at Mysore

Six Sigma framework has been traditionally applied to areas related to operations, design or manufacturing either for improvement of existing processes or design of new products thereby enhancing operational performance by focusing on reduction of process variations and bringing it within predetermined limits based on specified requirements, specifically keeping the end users or customer in focus. Various researches have shown that Six Sigma has also been implemented successfully in service industries, as Six Sigma offers a disciplined approach to improve service effectiveness as well as service efficiency. Irrespective of the fact that Six Sigma has been a success formula for the present day world; we need to understand that the core of the success is through a dedicated workforce. Most of the studies which highlighted the critical success factors validate that the involvement of the entire work force is also responsible for the success. Now the question arises in what way the implementation of Six Sigma has benefited the workforce? In reality very few efforts have been made to understand the contribution of Six Sigma on improving the people’s equity (working conditions, morale and motivation level, promotion, increment, attrition rate, pride in work, etc.). In this paper an effort has been made to study whether Six Sigma has really contributed in improving the people’s equity. This paper puts emphasis on the benefits gained by the work force mainly due to the implementation of Six Sigma. The expert opinions collected on various issues have been discussed in the context of present scenario to provide the readers an insight into the gains due to implementation of Six Sigma in terms of people’s equity