What the future holds for Six Sigma?

Six Sigma has penetrated in the market in 1980s and it has already created a huge buzz for the manufacturing as well as service industry. Six Sigma has surpassed many other business management tools and has created its own niche in the business field. Though many naysayers are trying to tarnish the image and the usefulness of Six Sigma, still it’s future is very scintillating if you can use it wisely.

Six Sigma (process improvement) related computer keys.

Let’s take a look at some of the future promises of Six Sigma

Applications for both large and small organizations: Despite the widespread use and success of Six Sigma on the corporate giant level, the full potential of the program still has not been realized. This is because the process has not been fully utilized by medium and small-sized companies. Though the resources are present within these companies, still they are reluctant to achieve final certification due to a belief that Six Sigma was only meant for large companies. Smaller businesses need to realize that Six Sigma offers the same end results for any size of business, with the main difference being in the volume of business. So, in the future, it can be expected that more and more small organizations will adopt Six Sigma methodologies to improve their efficiency and performance.

Six Sigma holds a better prospect than other TQM: Six Sigma may appear similar to other quality management tools such as TQM or Kaizen Events, but in reality, it is quite different. Other quality management programs often reach a stage after which no further quality improvements can be made. On the other hand, Six Sigma is different as it focuses on taking quality improvement processes to the next level. So, it can be concluded that Six Sigma has the potential to outlast other quality management programs in the future. Thus, the scope and the future of Six Sigma are much bigger than other quality management programs as Six Sigma can be applied to any business process of an organization.

Six Sigma will firmly establish its effectiveness in the market: A lot of companies have observed a great success after Six Sigma implementation. Still, there are controversies over the overall effectiveness of Six Sigma and the opportunities. There are many top-level managers who claimed that the analytical and statistical tools used in Six Sigma only expose flaws in the execution, failing to account for processes which have numerous defects themselves. On the other hand, Six Sigma adherents claimed that Six Sigma has been highly successful as far as the stated goal of reducing all defects. Even Six Sigma has got more preference than TQM because it is seen as a way to provide continuous improvement rather than a one-shot process improvement initiative.

The future of Six Sigma is very bright and dazzling because it continues to be effective in improving processes and helping businesses to get a better ROI and customer satisfaction rating.

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