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Six sigma is a popular approach to drive out variability from processes using powerful statistical tools and techniques. Although originally introduced by Motorola in 1986 as a quality performance measurement, six sigma has evolved into a statistically oriented approach to process and product quality improvement. Many organisations have reported significant benefits as a result of six sigma project implementation, though not all are yet success stories. This paper reviews the literature related to the critical success factors for the effective implementation of six sigma projects in organisations.

Six Sigma is a business strategy and a systematic methodology, use of which leads to breakthrough in profitability through quantum gains in product/service quality, customer satisfaction and productivity. The concept of implementing Six Sigma processes was pioneered at Motorola in the 1980s and the objective was to reduce the number of defects to as low as 3.4 parts per million opportunities. For the effective implementation of Six Sigma projects in organisations, one must understand the critical success factors that will make the application successful. This paper presents the key ingredients, which are essential for Six Sigma implementation. These ingredients are generated from a pilot survey conducted in the UK manufacturing and service organisations.

The literature suggests that a key ingredient for the successful six sigma implementation is project prioritisation and selection. The purpose of this paper is to identify what criteria are considered for selecting six sigma projects and how six sigma projects are selected in organisations in the UK.

Using a survey as a method of investigation, respondents were asked what criteria are considered to select projects and how potential projects are identified, prioritised, selected and evaluated.

The results of the survey indicate that UK organisations tend to select projects based on criteria such as customer satisfaction, financial benefits, top management commitment and those projects integrated with the company's strategy. Several tools and techniques such as cost benefit analysis, cause and effect matrix, brainstorming, Pareto analysis are employed to identify and prioritise projects.

This paper is limited to the selection of six sigma in the UK. Further, empirical studies using larger sample sizes and greater geographical diversity may be helpful in validating the results of this study.

The identification of the most commonly used criteria to select six sigma projects can aid practitioners to select projects based on multiple criteria and using tools and techniques identified in this survey.

The provision of empirical data on the criteria used to select six sigma projects and how six sigma projects are selected.

Six sigma has been considered a business strategy that employs a well‐structured continuous improvement methodology to tackle process variability and drive out waste from the business processes using statistical tools and techniques. This paper first examines the differences and similarities of six‐sigma improvement methodology compared with the DFSS approach. This work illustrates the use of analytical hierarchy process (AHP), a multiple criteria decision‐making technique, for the evaluation of six‐sigma projects in order to determine when the six‐sigma approach becomes a priority over DFSS. The use of AHP to determine the transition from six sigma to design for six sigma represents a major challenge to many researchers today, as very little has been done on this subject.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) associated with the Six Sigma (SS) implementation in companies operating in Brazil.

The research was tested based on survey questionnaire responses from a sample of 45 Brazilian manufacturing and services companies that have implemented SS programmes. An exploratory factorial analysis (EFA) was conducted to statistically identify conclusions regarding CSFs in SS implementation.

Based on the survey of empirical data, the investigated individual CSFs were reduced in five main critical factor categories: data availability, prior infrastructure and training, goals and gains, implementation of the solution and resistance to change. They have been shown to be the extremely important factors for SS implementation in Brazilian companies.

This study helps SS managers focus on the most effective factors (best practices) in SS implementation. Consequently, this may guide a company’s resources allocation and efforts to guarantee a successful SS implementation.

Despite a vast body of literature in SS CSFs, this paper demonstrates those factors within a Brazilian context. Moreover, the tested content of this study fills the research gap by providing reliable and useful CSFs of SS implementation, which contributes to increase the external validity of the SS construct. On top of that, although the results reinforce the importance of well-known, traditional CSFs in SS implementation, they also identify contingent factors related to risk perception, which are barely mentioned in previous literature.

Organizations spend considerable time and money educating individuals on Six Sigma; however, existing literature does not examine Six Sigma adoption at the individual level or the factors that impact individual Six Sigma adoption. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of individual adoption of Six Sigma tools and methodology.

This paper used a single-site field study in a manufacturing organization to empirically test and refine a theory of the factors impacting Six Sigma adoption at the individual level.

Reaction to training, project management and project infrastructure were found to be significant input factors for individual Six Sigma adoption with an R² of 0.482, which indicates that about 48 per cent of the variation in Six Sigma adoption is explained by the input factors. All of the identified input factors were found to have a positive relationship with individual Six Sigma adoption, as well as positive correlations with each other.

This paper was not a controlled experiment or a longitudinal study, so it is not possible from the results of this research to prove causal relationships, although the literature supports a causal relationship between the input factors and outcome.

The findings of this paper will be useful to practicing organizations which seek to improve individual Six Sigma adoptions, as well as inform future Six Sigma adoption research.

Six Sigma adoption at the organizational level has been well documented in the existing literature. The successful adoption of Six Sigma in an organization is dependent, at least in part, to adoption Six Sigma at the individual level. A review of the existing literature indicates that there has been no research into individual adoption of Six Sigma tools and methodology.

The Six Sigma project aims at a continual reduction in process variation, eliminating defects or flaws in products and services, optimizing processes and reducing costs. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate improvements in customer service index (CSI), product cycle time and inventory turnover after implementation of a Six Sigma project.

This research focused on the value stream mapping of a company process, performed by a multidisciplinary team that implemented a pull production system, the standard operational procedure in machines that were process bottlenecks, and the kanban system.

After three months of implementation, the authors observed an 11.7 percent reduction in product cycle time, increase in customer service index (CSI) from 93.9 to 97 percent and increase in inventory turnovers from 4.9 to 9.

The project was in accordance with the competitive strategy of the company, which is focused on customer satisfaction and cost reduction.