International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management

A SWOT analysis on Six Sigma: some perspectives from leading academics and
practitioners
Jiju Antony
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Jiju Antony, (2012),"A SWOT analysis on Six Sigma: some perspectives from leading academics and
practitioners", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 61 Iss 6 pp. 691 -
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Jiju Antony, (2004),"Some pros and cons of six sigma: an academic perspective", The TQM Magazine, Vol.
16 Iss 4 pp. 303-306
Maneesh Kumar, Jiju Antony, Christian N. Madu, Douglas C. Montgomery, Sung H. Park, (2008),"Common
myths of Six Sigma demystified", International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 25 Iss
8 pp. 878-895
Ricardo Banuelas Coronado, Jiju Antony, (2002),"Critical success factors for the successful implementation
of six sigma projects in organisations", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 14 Iss 2 pp. 92-99

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REFLECTIVE PRACTICE A SWOT

analysis on
A SWOT analysis on Six Sigma: Six Sigma
some perspectives from leading
academics and practitioners 691
Jiju Antony Received 11 July 2011
Department of Design, Manufacture & Engineering Management, Accepted 11 July 2011
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
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Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats of Six Sigma based on the perspectives of leading academics and practitioners.
Design/methodology/approach The approach taken was to collate opinions from a number of
leading academics and practitioners from different countries. It was also important to ensure that all
participants in the study had a good knowledge and expertise in the field of Six Sigma.
Findings The key findings are presented in the paper.
Research limitations/implications The viewpoints expressed in the paper are based on leading
experts from both academic and industrial communities. Due to limited time constraints, the number
of people who participated in the study was relatively small.
Originality/value The paper provides an excellent resource for many researchers and practitioners
equally who are engaged in research and applications of the most powerful business process
improvement methodology we have witnessed for several years.
Keywords Six Sigma, Quality programmes, SWOT analysis, Process excellence, Strategy
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Six Sigma as a business strategy is gaining ever increasing popularity within many
organisations world-wide including manufacturing, financial service companies,
health care providers and governmental agencies. Six Sigma, a trademark of
Motorola, was introduced nearly 25 years ago as a method to reduce manufacturing
defects. The concept behind Six Sigma was developed by Bill Smith, an engineer,
within Motorola as a powerful methodology to improve the reliability of products
by reducing excessive variation which results in defects in manufacturing
processes. Six Sigma is a systematic, project-oriented, statistically based approach
for removing defects from products, processes and transactions. Bill Smith was
quite successful with his idea of integrating hard-nosed applied statistical methods
into the powerful engineering processes which essentially laid out the foundation
of Six Sigma. It has been estimated that Motorola reduced defects on semiconductor
devices by up to 94 per cent between 1987 and 1993. Today Six Sigma has been a
powerful business strategy for improving business performance in many world-class
corporations by improving quality, reducing costs and creating value for the enterprise
and customers. International Journal of Productivity
SWOT analysis is a strategic-level analysis and stands for strengths, weaknesses, and Performance Management
Vol. 61 No. 6, 2012
opportunities and threats. It is a method of analysing a business, its resources and its pp. 691-698
environment. Strengths and weaknesses are positive and negative internal factors r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1741-0401
whereas opportunities and threats are external factors. Strengths typically represent DOI 10.1108/17410401211249229
 IJPPM the internal strong points of an organisation and these are the things companies do
61,6 well over their competitors so that they would find it difficult to emulate. Weaknesses
are the weak points of an organisation. Weaknesses are the factors which do not meet
the standards we feel they should meet. Opportunities are presented by the
environment within which our organisation operates. Opportunities may arise from
market, competition, industry/government and technology. Threats are those factors
692 which can put in danger the survival of the organisation, if they are recognised on
time they can become opportunities. A panel of academic experts and practitioners
were chosen to discuss the topic a SWOT analysis on Six Sigma. The people who
have participated in this panel discussion include the leading practitioners and
academics in the field.
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Professor T.N. Goh, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Strengths of Six Sigma
. Customer focus in a typical Six Sigma programme, the aim is to build what the
customers want as reflected by what is known as critical-to-quality
characteristics.
. Data-driven and statistical approach to problem solving Six Sigma is well rooted
in mathematics and statistics. Six Sigma adopts a systematic quantitative
approach that overcomes the difficulties associated with the abstract guidelines
in TQM.
. Well-designed project team structure Six Sigma methodology is usually carried
out on a project-by-project basis. Approved projects are usually carried by Six
Sigma experts (known as Green Belts or Black Belts) and performance is
measured and judged in terms of monetary returns.
Weaknesses of Six Sigma
. High investment a significant investment is required to train employees as
Yellow Belts, Green Belts, Black Belts and Master Black Belts. This model is not
applicable in the context of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with a
turnover of few million pounds.
. No uniform accepted standards there are no uniform standards and procedures
in place so far and every training provider determines its own course contents
for training programmes. This creates a lot of confusion across a large number of
companies as to who provides the best Six Sigma training programme and
criteria for selection of candidates for the training.
Opportunities of Six Sigma
. Fast development of IT and data mining technology advanced IT and data
mining techniques greatly enhance the applicability of Six Sigma because
modern technologies make data analysis no longer a complicated, tedious
task.
. Highly competitive market and demanding customer manufacturers of the
twenty-first century are not competing locally but globally. Six Sigma
demands higher quality and reliability products which is no longer a conscious
choice of the organisation but a stringent requirement of the market for
survival.
 Threats of Six Sigma A SWOT
. Resistance to change managers in many organisations rely mainly on their analysis on
intuition rather than resort to statistical tools that derive information from Six Sigma
available data. Such attitude reflects the culture of the organisation which can be
detrimental to the success of the initiative.
. Fluctuating economic conditions in times of good economic conditions, 693
companies can invest on process excellence initiatives such as Six Sigma.
However when the economic conditions are not healthy, investment on Six Sigma
can be quite challenging.
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Professor S.K. Neogy, Indian Statistical Institute, India

Strengths of Six Sigma
. Six Sigma combines the right people, right tools and the right projects for its
success;
. emphasises the use of quantitative and disciplined approach to process
improvement; and
. places value in terms of understanding and satisfying customer needs.
Weaknesses of Six Sigma
. As Six Sigma is a top-down management approach, it requires sustained and
long-term commitment to achieve the quality goals within a pre-set time
framework.
. The development of Six Sigma culture in any organisation requires change of
mindset for employees and hence a long-term commitment and clear vision is
required from senior leaders and everyone in the business.
Opportunities of Six Sigma
. As Six Sigma is a very powerful approach for solving problems with unknown
solutions, it can be equally applicable in all processes whether it is
manufacturing, service or transactional.
. Implementation of Six Sigma makes a highest quality producer as the lowest
cost producer.
Threats of Six Sigma
. Lack of management commitment could be one of the top reasons for Six Sigma
not taking off in a big way.

Dr Phil Rowe, Master Black Belt, Burton Group, UK

Strengths of Six Sigma
. good track record for companies who have taken it seriously;
. much literature exists these days to support benefits of Six Sigma;
. standardisation of methodology and tools; and
. good computer packages exist to assist in analysis.
 IJPPM Weaknesses of Six Sigma
61,6 . requires heavy infrastructural investment (money, time, etc.);
. can be viewed as elitist by those not involved;
. requires a good level of statistical knowledge to apply the quantitative tools
correctly; and
694 . projects tend to be medium/long term and it requires a good deal of project
management expertise to keep it on track.

Opportunities of Six Sigma

. Lots of benchmarking opportunities to ensure lessons learned from other
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companies implementations are heeded.

. People selling Six Sigma should be far more insistent on helping with
infrastructural development and with hands-on project support; selling a
training course is not good for the image of Six Sigma in the long term.

Threats of Six Sigma

. can be seen as cumbersome;
. misuse through inadequate project selection and scoping can lead to a
sledgehammer to crack a nut approach, leading to a reputation of taking too
long;
. control phase usually poorly implemented; and
. on-line training whilst this is an option, there is no substitute for hands-on
training and support for Six Sigma projects.

Dr Johannes Freiesleben, Credit Suisse, Switzerland

Strengths of Six Sigma
. quantitative analysis of the problem and its impact on the process performance;
and
. clear focus on production quality.

Weaknesses of Six Sigma

. lack of focus on the quality of design; and
. high start up costs.

Opportunities of Six Sigma

. applications of Six Sigma within supply chain is not fully explored; and
. integration of Six Sigma with other quality improvement frameworks.
Threats of Six Sigma
. Misuse and abuse of the Six Sigma label and poorly executed projects tend
to diminish the confidence of business leaders in Six Sigma and associated
frameworks.
 Alessandro Laureani, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Google, Ireland A SWOT
Strengths of Six Sigma analysis on
. data driven methodology; and Six Sigma
. integration of tools within a powerful framework.
Weaknesses of Six Sigma
. time consuming;
695
. no validation of a 1.5 sigma shift for all types of processes; and
. might require some level of organisational maturity around the process.
Opportunities of Six Sigma
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. integration of Six Sigma with innovation; and

. broadening the topic Six Sigma with Lean thinking.
Threats of Six Sigma
. could be highly inefficient if process environments are highly disorganised;
and
. insufficient patience for the implementation.

Professor Sung Park, Seoul National University, Korea

Strengths of Six Sigma
. Six Sigma uses a belt system for systematic education system which is desirable
for human resource management.
. Effective project management is the core strength of Six Sigma.
Weaknesses of Six Sigma
. speed, talk time and customer value are not much dealt with; and
. overall management philosophy is not much emphasised.
Opportunities of Six Sigma
. Besides manufacturing companies and service industries, there is a
growing interest in the applications of Six Sigma within public sector
companies.
Threats of Six Sigma
. since the history of Six Sigma is more than 20 years, many organisations may
seek new management initiatives; and
. since corporate social responsibility will be much emphasised in the near future,
companies may lose their interest in Six Sigma.

Professor Jiju Antony, University of Strathclyde, UK

Strengths of Six Sigma
. six Sigma focuses on business needs as defined by the customer;
 IJPPM . good infrastructure to address quality and process-related problems which are
61,6 strategically important to the business;
. six Sigma offers a complementary tool set which, together with each other and
with other best management practices, offer a comprehensive means of
transforming a business from operational chaos at one extreme to operational
excellence at the other;
696 . implementation of Six Sigma creates a new environment that naturally promotes
the creation of continuous improvement efforts;
. the emphasis on linking performance metrics associated with proposed solutions
to financial measures is a plus. Using such measures enhances support from top
management and garners support from various constituencies within the
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organisation;
. changes organizational paradigms; and
promotes customer focus;
measurement is the key;
variability is the enemy;
act on facts; and
empowers employees and teams.
. the most important strength of Six Sigma is undoubtedly the unyielding
statistical thinking in all problem solving and process improvement
efforts.

Weaknesses of Six Sigma

. weaknesses are human in the sense that people can become so enamoured with
Six Sigma that they attempt to apply it to everything more or less like the old
saying when the only tool one has is a hammer, all problems LOOK like nails
and we all know that all problems ARE NOT nails;
. with Six Sigma, business processes are viewed in terms of their event-to-event
variation but are not seen in the broader context of their relationship to the
overall operation of the business (perhaps systems thinking can be used here to
rectify this limitation);
. the statistical definition of Six Sigma is 3.4 defects per million opportunities. In
service processes, a defect may be defined as anything which does not meet
customer needs or expectations. It would be illogical to assume all defects are
equally bad when we calculate the sigma capability level of a process. For
example, a defect in a hospital could be a wrong admission procedure, wrong
drug prescription, wrong diagnosis, unacceptable waiting time to provide
a service to patients, lack of training required by a staff member, unwillingness
to help patients when they have specific queries, etc.;
. six Sigma can easily digress into a bureaucratic exercise if the focus is on such
things as the number of trained Black Belts and Green Belts, number of projects
completed, etc. instead of bottom-line savings;
. the relationship between cost of poor quality and process Sigma quality level
requires more justification; and
 . the savings generated from Six Sigma belts in the context of SMEs requires more A SWOT
justification. There is a lack of research carried out around this topic and analysis on
therefore sets the foundation for future research.
Six Sigma
Opportunities of Six Sigma
. Six Sigma s not very well developed in many developing nations such as
Brazil, India, Thailand, Malaysia and China. I think Six Sigma will continue to 697
grow in these countries and we are yet to see the best-n-class practices from such
countries.
. Although we have witnessed a large number of applications of Six Sigma in
manufacturing, we have not yet seen many applications in public sector
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organisations, in particular healthcare sector, government bodies, police force

and education sector.
. Due to the growing importance of customer-supplier relationship, the
importance of Six Sigma for enhancing the supply-chain performance has
increased over the past three to four years.
. The application of Six Sigma in the context of SMEs is in its infancy. There
are opportunities to develop a roadmap for the development and deployment of
Six Sigma in SMEs. There is lack of research on the Six Sigma infrastructure
required for the implementation as well as the type of training required and the
savings to be generated from the execution of projects.
Threats of Six Sigma
. non-standardisation of training and certification process for Six Sigma across
the globe;
. lack of courses on Six Sigma in academic institutions across Europe and other
parts of the world is a big concern;
. very few empirical studies have been carried out on Six Sigma topics apart
from the applications of Six Sigma in various industrial sectors especially in
manufacturing and services;
. lack of collaboration between industrial and academic worlds on Six Sigma-
related topics; and
. lack of visionary leadership in many organisations can be very problematic for
the sustainability of the Six Sigma initiative.

Further reading
Antony, J. (2004), Some pros and cons of Six Sigma: an academic perspective, The TQM
Magazine, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 303-6.
Antony, J. (2007), Six Sigma: a strategy for supporting innovation in pursuit of business
excellence invited paper, International Journal of Technology Management, Vol. 37
Nos 1/2, pp. 8-12.
Antony, J. (2008), What is the role of academic institutions for the future development of Six
Sigma, International Journal of Productivity & Performance Management, Vol. 57 No. 1,
pp. 107-10.
 IJPPM Linderman, K., Schroeder, R.G., Zaheer, S. and Choo, A.S. (2003), Six Sigma: a goal-theoretic
perspective, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 193-203.
61,6
Snee, R. (2004), Six Sigma: the evolution of 100 years of business improvement methodology,
International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 4-20.

About the author

698 Jiju Antony, Director of the Centre for Research in Six Sigma and Process Improvement
(CRISSPE) and Director of Knowledge Exchange within Strathclyde Institute for Operations
Management in his ten year research career, has published more than 200 refereed journal and
conference papers and five textbooks in the area of Reliability Engineering, Design of
Experiments, Taguchi Methods, Six Sigma, Total Quality Management and Statistical Process
Control. He successfully launched the (first) International Journal of Lean Six Sigma in April
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2010 and has been invited several times as a keynote speaker to national conferences on Six
Sigma in China, South Africa, Netherlands, India, Greece, New Zealand, South Africa and
Poland. He has also chaired the First, Second and Third International Conferences on Six Sigma
and First and Second International Workshops on Design for Six Sigma. His recent work
includes collaborations with organisations such as Thales Optronics Ltd, Scottish Power, Rolls-
Royce, Tata Motors, Bosch, Nokia, GE Domestic Appliances, Scottish Widow, 3 M, Land Rover,
GE Power Systems, NHS Ayr and Aaran, Kwit Fit Financial Services, Clydesdale Bank, etc. in
the development of Six Sigma, Lean and Continuous Improvement programmes within these
organisations. He is on the Editorial Board of over eight international journals and a regular
reviewer of five leading international journals in quality, operations and production
management. Jiju Antony can be contacted at: jiju.antony@strath.ac.uk

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