Six Sigma vs. Total Quality Management

Six Sigma vs. Total Quality Management

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a tool used by businesses and organizations to improve their abilities in undertaking diverse business processes (Salah & Rahim, 2019). Through Six Sigma tools, a company can effectively reduce defects by decreasing variation in the processes. In the process, companies can easily attain high employee motivation, which in turn improves their performance. Six Sigma process control ensures quality processes and hence quality products and services. The tools are used to control operations with perceptions t.hat an improvement in the process can be reflected in the outputs. Six Sigma employs the use of several tools to improve business processes.

The Six Sigma involves five steps to which its practitioners emphasize strict adherence. These are Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control (DMAIC). Through these steps, organizations can solve defects in products that seem to have no specified solution. Organizations may have Six Sigma practitioners, acting to implement the steps. These people will first define the specific production process that exhibits defects. They will them measure performance for the associated process to establish how defective it is, with comparison to the optimal state of the process. Statistical tools can be used to point out the inputs that could be resulting in the defects. They then analyze each input to estimate whether or not they are the cause for the faults. After they have identified the actual cause, the practitioners can improve the performance of the process by fixing the defects. Finally, controls are introduced to the process Patyal & Maddulety, 2015). The effectiveness of these controls is well measured to ensure that the process does not suffer the same defects in the future..

Different organizations have varied modes through which they can implement the Six Sigma tools in their business processes. The tools are mainly applied in business sections where variations are expected to happen. In that regard, employees in the specific sectors are taught the statistical tools used in Six Sigma and how they can apply them in their routine business processes. For success to be achieved, these organizations will need to clearly define the roles of the specific employees and their ability to incorporate the new tools in their processes. Six Sigma tools cannot be applied to every project. For that reason, some employees may resist the implementation of these tools.

Some organizations implement Six Sigma as an organizational infrastructure Ahmad et al., 2016). Practitioners are trained on how to select and apply the most appropriate statistical tools for a particular process or project. These training ensure process-specific solutions that can go a long way in improving the quality of the overall business processes. The management can also use the opportunity to promote communication within the organization on organizational goals. This strategy also incorporates Six Sigma as a corporate commitment that can be used to improve future processes.

Total Quality management

Total quality management is a type of control that emphasizes the critical role played by every team member towards ensuring high work standards in an organization’s processes (Kiran 2016). The strategy ensures that employees in every sector of the organization are well versed in the activities and procedures in their departments through continuous training. Through Total Quality Management, organizations ensure that every employee involved in the production processes is accountable for improving the quality of goods and services. Employees can quickly develop a culture of high quality production processes through training with a favorable implication on their performance. Employees are also likely to appreciate the efforts of management in ensuring they are well trained in respective departments.

Total quality management, as a tool in control, is usually conducted continuously in an organization. Through the process, the management identifies errors in the production processes and effectively conducts training on how the errors can be mitigated or eliminated. Equipping employees with appropriate training makes them well prepared to handle similar mistakes when and if they happen again during the production process. Total Quality Management emphasizes internal processes and their influence on the quality of an organization’s final products (Kiran 2016). The strategy is hence employed as a way to improve internal employee practices through process-specific training.

Six Sigma emphasizes that quality refers to the state where the least possible number of defects translate to the final product. Due to the nature of the approach, the tools employed through Six Sigma attempt to eliminate the errors as much as possible to ensure the least reflection in the final product or service. In Total Quality Management, quality is defined as the level at which the products or processes meet the predetermined company standards. Implementation of TQM does not require a lot of commitment as there is no specialized personnel employed to oversee the application, as it is the case with Six Sigma. However, both have similar goals of increasing profits and achieving customer satisfaction (Salah & Rahim, 2019). Most organizations are applying the Six Sigma as it is applicable in almost all types of businesses and organizations.

Similarities

Quality improvement

Both Six Sigma and Total Quality Management are focused on improving the quality of the final products and services in an organization. The main objective of organizations is to produce high quality goods and services. Most organizations advance ways through which they can continuously improve the quality of their outputs and hence appeal to their customers. Defects and errors in production processes are hindrances towards ensuring high quality production. Six Sigma advances the statistical tools intending to contribute to improved quality by correcting mistakes in business processes. On the other hand, Total Quality Management ensures improved quality by strengthening respective internal processes by emphasizing continuous training that aims to eliminate errors in business processes.

Solution-oriented

Mistakes are common in any process. In businesses and production practices, errors are more likely to occur. These could hinder the whole process while negatively implicating the quality of the final products and services. The Six Sigma uses statistical tools to contribute to improvement in business processes (Stamatis, 2016). These analytical applications are used to predict the likelihood of an error to occur during a production process. By predicting mistakes, organizations can improve their performance by limiting their occurrences. The tools also speed up production processes in organizations. Like Six Sigma, Total Quality Management also involves identifying errors in business production processes and advancing strategies to eliminate or reduce the defects (Hasan et al., 2018). The continuous employee training in Total Quality Management ensures that operations run smoothly with minimal chances of an error occurring.

Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a common goal among all businesses and organizations (Patyal & Maddulety, 2015). Goods and service industries have no differences in their quest from customer satisfaction. For this reason, organizations have to ensure a keen consideration to the quality of end products they produce for their markets. Both Six Sigma and Total Quality Management are tools employed to effectively improve and control the quality of goods and services provided by an organization. Both are driven by customer demands and feedbacks and consequently lead to slight or moderate changes in the production processes (Salah & Rahim, 2019). The improvement in business processes created by the two tools aims to ensure that the production processes have the highest value in the customers. Customers are given the most top priority in a business entity. The purchasing power of customers gives them the most upper control over the organizations themselves. By all means, organizations attempt to make any change that would seem to win or lure more customers. Six Sigma aims to eliminate any use of resources that doe not confer any value top the customers. Total Quality Management involves the training of employees to ensure they are committed to quality production and customer satisfaction.

Improved organizational operations

Costs and risks associated with production processes are a high point of concern to many companies in almost every industry. Risks cannot be avoided in most methods, and the best thing businesses and organizations can do is to advance means through which they can mitigate the same strategically. Six Sigma dramatically contributes to improving organizational processes through establishing causes of faults in business processes. By using these tools, the organization’s exposure to operational risks will be minimized by far reducing operational costs. Most organizations are adopting Total Quality Management to improve organizational processes by lowering operational costs while improving customer satisfaction (Patyal & Maddulety, 2015). TQM also enhances corporation between different departments in an organization, which contributes to effective service delivery through improved communications.

Both Total Quality Management and Six Sigma tools start by trying to identify the sources and causes of the defects and errors in the respective processes and systems (Salah & Rahim, 2019). With both also having an aim to improve the quality of the end products, they attempt to offer the best long lasting solutions that will permanently contribute to the course. For keen and precise identification of the defects and errors, the two tools try to look to the whole structure of the businesses and organization. From this perspective, the tools can clearly identify and correlate the functional ability of each portion to determine which of them is not well connected to the rest as a possible cause of the defect or error. Mistakes may be a result of an organization’s policies or schedules. Through the tools, organizations have the opportunity to discover and define them, consequently developing better solutions to mitigate them.

For successful implementation of either of the two programs, top organizational management teams need to support the initiatives (Patyal & Maddulety, 2015). These teams represent the first decision making stakeholders for any organization, and their commitment and support can assure effective implementation. At some stages of their application, employees need to engage in developing the best customer-oriented solution. According to Patyal and Maddulety (2015), larger firms have a better chance of benefiting from Total Quality Management than smaller firms.

Differences

The most notable difference between the two tools is that Six Sigma produces better results, while the Total Quality Management is committed to high quality products. By improving and controlling defects in business processes through the Six Sigma statistical tools, businesses can only achieve better results. Errors hinder productivity processes in many ways, including slowing down the speed of production. The administration of Six Sigma tools effectively solves this in business production activities. Total Quality Management involves continuous employee training on effective production processes. Through this, employees are continually informed on quality improvement measures that can contribute to the production of high quality goods and services.

Six Sigma is more focused on a specific defect in the process and system of production. In the process, the designated team of specialized practitioners investigates all the possible causes of an error, after which they provide permanent solutions for the defect. By mending the fault, the group of practitioners contributes to improved quality of the final products while at the same time achieving employee motivation. On the other hand, Total Quality Management is specifically concerned with the production process. The tool seeks internal improvements that can be made and integrated into the process. Through improving the processes, the tools assume that the possibility of errors occurring in such operations will be minimized. All members of the organization are involved through continuous training practices offered by the management.

The kind of changes introduced in the production process by each of the tools dramatically varies. For instance, Six Sigma involves the incorporation of numerous minor changes in the production systems and processes. These require the fixing and improvement of the defined defects in the systems and processes in an attempt to achieve better results. There is no development of new methods in the tools, as it is committed to making improvements to the current systems. On the other hand, Total Quality Management involves the designing and development of new systems and processes. Through continuous training, Total Quality Management can enhance the innovation of new means through which the quality of the goods and services can be improved. The training is also designed to incorporate the various customer feedbacks that may be handy in informing the management of the best new practices that will lead to customer satisfaction.

Total Quality Management aims to retain the quality standards of an organization, while Six Sigma focuses on introducing minor changes in the process that lead to high quality products. These small changes include the identification and provision of solutions to numerous causes of defects that may arise in the production process all along. Such improvements have no limitations as they are prone to happen at any time, and anytime they happen, they contribute to an increase in quality. Over time, the changes may have an accumulated effect of immense improvement of the products’ quality. There is hence no saturation point in the quality improvement using the Six Sigma tools. However, at some point, the Total Quality Management tools achieve a saturation point by attaining the standard quality. At this point, the TGM tools can only be used to ensure the organization maintains its quality standards for continued customer satisfaction.

Total Quality management processes involve improvement in organizational policies and protocols. Regulatory policies and procedures are binding in an institution, and hence any efforts to make improvements on them require the participation of all members. These improvements are mainly coordinated to ensure advances in the qualities of the products in an attempt to attain the highest possible quality standards. Six Sigma aims to reduce and eliminate defects in organizational policies and protocols. The tools are implemented to scrutinize an organization’s policies, systems, and processes. By identifying and removing errors n the systems and processes, the Six Sigma tools effectively contribute to the modifications of an organization’s policies. These modifications are aimed at helping to achieve better performance and improved quality.

Total Quality Management is easier to understand and implement in many organizations than Six Sigma. Six Sigma requires training of specialized teams of practitioners that will enhance its implementation in an organization (Furterer 2016). These skilled teams trained on Six Sigma are often classified and certified as “Green Belt” or “Black Belts” in accordance with their individual levels of understanding and experience in Six Sigma application. These specialists are the ones responsible for the processes of defining defects in business systems and developing appropriate improvement and control measures. Total Quality Management, on the other hand, does not require any specialized training. The TQM is usually conducted across the whole arrangement, involving all members of staff, from management to junior employees.

Total Quality Management is majorly focused on customer satisfaction. It gives emphasis to specific departments in an organization while targeting to achieve particular goals in the organization at large. After the goal has been fully realized, the tools need to be redefined to serve another purpose. However, with Six Sigma, a continuous sequence of improvements can be achieved in an organization (Stamatis, 2016). Once the tool has achieved its primary goal, the solutions established will still remain in a position to ensure they still serve the rest of the processes, including future prospects. Six Sigma puts in place solutions to defects and errors that can be relied on for a long time, which continually improving performance. The Six Sigma can hence achieve a positive change in organizational culture with a long lasting impact on employee motivation and performance.

Six Sigma programs are usually implemented on preplanned projects to enhance measurements like financial targets and benefits that can be achieved through the project (Stamatis, 2016). The exact measurements are provided through the five steps of Six Sigma, which enable organizations to measure the solutions against the specific defect or error qualitatively. On the other hand, Total Quality Management tools are implemented in cases where the actual financial gains to be accrued by the organization are not known. TQM employs a strategic measure through which the organization’s goals, mission, and vision can be achieved without an estimated financial gain to be as a result of the implementation of the programs.

Total Quality Management approach champions for a generalized improvement in the production process. Errors are collaboratively solved by members of the organization, and that is embedded in the culture of the organization. Six Sigma heavily relies on statistical data on processes and systems within the organization (Stamatis, 2016). Using these data, Six Sigma practitioners can establish where defects can be located in the processes. The Six Sigma also provides solutions to the mistakes and champions for minimizations of the errors to 3.4 errors per million of production cycles (Roberts, Wilson & Quezado, 2017). Statistical data is used to closely monitor the processes to ensure the defects are well controlled and no possibility of recurring.

Recommendations

As organizations shift to systems and processes that ensure better production and high quality goods and services, Six Sigma remains to be the most potent tool for quality control and management. The accuracy in detecting and eliminating defects in systems and processes makes the Six Sigma even better and reliable. Most organizations should aim to make necessary changes in their policies and procedures to ensure they meet the needs of their customers. Better results can only be achieved if the tools selected and implementation procedures used to produce the best motivation for employees. Employee motivation contributes to improved performances and an increase in quality. Six Sigma has demonstratively contributed to high employee morale by engaging them directly in the implementation plans. I would hence recommend the Six Sigma statistical tools to an organization that seeks to improve and control the quality of their final goods and services.

Statistical tools are also the most reliable means of detecting a defect. Organizations should focus on using these tools to advance any organizational change. Systems and processes often involve a large number of employees. For such a setting, coming up with a common problem to be associated with a defect in the system may be hard. Statistical tools are appropriate for such cases as they are scientifically proven to be efficient and reliable. They can easily predict defects and significantly contribute to the development of lasting solutions. Unlike the Total Quality Management systems, organizations using Six Sigma have no limits in improving the quality of their goods and services. I thus recommend Six Sigma as the most reliable means of detecting defects and errors in production processes, with limitless potential for quality improvement.

Six Sigma is also implemented by a team of specialized and certified professionals (Furterer, 2016). This makes the tools more corporate-related and classic compared to Total Quality Management, which principally can be conducted by any member of staff. Having a specialized team also makes the solutions offered by Six Sigma more process/product-specific. As such, the tools contribute to solving a specified defect in the system or process. Most organizations have issues with changing their policies and procedures. In some cases, the change in plans may be the only thing that can positively contribute to improvement in the product quality. With the Six Sigma, organizations can trust change implementations proposed by certified practitioners, since they are specifically training to enhance changes in defective policies and procedures.

Conclusions

Every organization and business commits to ensuring customer satisfaction through the provision of quality goods and services. As time changes, there may be a need for some alterations in the quality of the products and services to ensure they met the changing customer needs and specifications. In such attempts, organizations’ management can choose to use either Six Sigma or Total Quality Management tool. Both tools are informed by customer feedback and aim to achieve positive changes in business and production systems and processes. The two tools are, however, different on various grounds. For instance, as Six Sigma employs the use of a specialized team of practitioners, Total Quality Management requires no training. Where changes in policies and procedures are necessary for quality improvement and control, Six Sigma is the most appropriate tool to implement. Six Sigma is more accurate in detecting the specific causes of a defect in a system or process and advancing control measures to ensure the same does not happen again in the future.