International Journal of Lean Six Sigma

Six Sigma in construction: a review of critical success factors

Siddra Qayyum Siddiqui Fahim Ullah Muhammad Jamaluddin Thaheem Hamza Farooq Gabriel
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Six Sigma in construction: a Six Sigma in

construction
review of critical success factors
Siddra Qayyum Siddiqui, Fahim Ullah and
Muhammad Jamaluddin Thaheem 171
Department of Construction Engineering and Management, National
University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan, and Received 9 November 2015
Revised 30 December 2015
Hamza Farooq Gabriel Accepted 15 January 2016
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National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan

Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims at collecting and reviewing the published literature on the Six Sigma in
construction along with its critical success factors (CSFs).
Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on literature review. Based on the keyword
and semantic search techniques, papers published on the topic of Six Sigma during 2000-2015 are
retrieved. Frequency analysis is performed to find out significance of identified CSFs, and zoning is
performed based on the product of frequency of appearance and parties affected by the CSFs.
Findings – A total of 69 CSFs are identified as published in the literature. Based on an inclusion
criterion of minimum 15 appearances, 22 CSFs are shortlisted for further analysis. Of these CSFs,
around 32 per cent fall into red zone (most critical), 50 per cent into yellow and 18 per cent into green zone
(least critical).
Research limitations/implications – This work is limited by partial identification of CSFs.
Though based on an extensive search, the retrieved CSFs may not be all the published ones. However,
more thorough search techniques can be applied to improve upon this work.
Practical implications – The findings can be used to facilitate the decision-making in the context of
project success.
Originality/value – This work is an original attempt at gathering Six Sigma CSFs applicable to
construction projects. It may be used for further research and development to help ensure project
quality and success.
Keywords Six Sigma, Construction industry, Systematic literature review, Critical success factors
Paper type Literature review

Introduction
The construction industry plays a substantial role in economies as a business sector as
well as in terms of employment provision. Attainment of acceptable levels of quality in
construction has been a problem over the years. As a result, significant amount of
resources both in terms of human resources and material are wasted each year. This
greater wastage is mainly the result of insufficient, inefficient or non-existent quality
management procedures (Stewart and Spencer, 2006). Six Sigma, starting with the Six
International Journal of Lean Six
Step process of Motorola back in 1998, has evolved to be an extension of quality Sigma
management techniques, especially total quality management (TQM). Kwak and Vol. 7 No. 2, 2016
pp. 171-186
Anbari (2006) defined it as “a business strategy that focuses on improving customer © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2040-4166
requirements understanding, business systems, productivity, and financial DOI 10.1108/IJLSS-11-2015-0045
 IJLSS performance”. Six Sigma has been transformed over the past 20 years. It is now a flexible
7,2 and adaptive business strategy, applicable to many aspects of business and
organizations. It has been applied over the time with great success and subsequently
ascribed definitions with respect to its literal, conceptual and practical uses. The
introduction of Six Sigma can be traced back to Carl Friedrich Gauss who introduced the
concept of normal curve in 1809, and in later 1920s, Walter Shewhart showed that three
172 sigma from the mean is a point where process requires correction. The term Six Sigma
was introduced by Motorola. Six Sigma has been used as a business initiative to produce
high-level results, improve work processes, expand all employees’ skills and change the
culture (Sandholm and Sorqvist, 2002). First well-publicized implementation of Six
Sigma was at General Electric (Henderson and Evans, 2000). Further, the works of
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Cheng (2008); Antony et al. (2008) and Sinha and Firka (2010) are notable Six Sigma case
studies.
Six Sigma has two key methods: DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and
control) and DFSS (design for Six Sigma) (Kwak and Anbari, 2006). DMAIC is for
existing processes which require significant improvement due to falling below expected
quality specification (Erdoğan and Canatan, 2015), and DFSS is a systematic
methodology for designing new products as per Six Sigma quality (Kwak and Anbari,
2006). Aimed at achieving minimum defects level, it utilizes tools, training and
measurements to enable the organization to design products and processes that meet
customer expectations at Six Sigma quality levels (Banuelas and Antony, 2003).
Six Sigma originally associated with manufacturing industry is increasingly
welcomed in construction industry due to the alarming under performance of
construction especially in developing countries. Along with that the increasing quality
demand is also stressing construction practitioners to think out of the box (Lee and Su,
2013). This is driving the research for implementation of Six Sigma in construction. In
the construction industry, the use of the Six Sigma principle for performance
assessments, particularly aimed at high quality and variability control, first appeared
when Buggie (2000) introduced the Six Sigma principle as one of the approaches to
augmenting productivity by reducing defects or errors engaged in the processes. Nave
(2002) explained how Six Sigma and lean principles can be combined and used in a
beneficial way to achieve outstanding performance. Six Sigma was also implemented in
construction sector to update the process of neutralizing chemical agents, in national
telecommunication projects to help enhance the administration of schedules and cost
(Moreton, 2003). Bechtel Corporation reported saving a handsome amount by using Six
Sigma program to identify and prevent rework and defects from design to construction
(Kwak and Anbari, 2006). For the construction sector, Six Sigma techniques are not
about being thorough or having all procedures and items at Six Sigma levels of
execution (Linderman et al., 2003), but they aim at improving the processes resulting
into cost reduction (Brue, 2002). Schonberger (2008) and Chakravorty (2009) have
pointed out that the target of Six Sigma is to create a higher supposed value of the
services of company in the eyes of customers. Abdelhamid (2003) also suggested a Six
Sigma principle application and research opportunities to reduce the variability in lean
construction. Cha and O’Connor (2005) described the Six Sigma principle as one of 44
modern tools for value management applicable to a construction project, based on the
identification efforts conducted by the Construction Industry Institute (CII). The HDB
(Housing and Development Board), Singapore’s case study suggests that the more
 important prerequisites to successful Six Sigma implementation include a very Six Sigma in
supportive management, commitment to quality, attaining customer satisfaction and construction
knowledgeable staff (Pheng and Hui, 2004). Antony et al. (2005) explained three main
issues in implementing Six Sigma in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) working in
construction business in UK: the external environment within which these SMEs
operate, the mode of delivery of construction projects and the nature of Six Sigma as a
quantitative approach to managing quality. Six Sigma was executed on the St Pancras 173
Station (London) project-extension of Channel Tunnel Rail Link to enhance the
construction of raised platform beams with the clear goal of classifying specific events
that were producing defects and delays (Stewart and Spencer, 2006). Many researchers
and project managers have attempted to improve project performance by applying new
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philosophies, such as lean principle, just-in-time (JIT), pull scheduling and last planner
(Sullivan, 2011). However, very little research has been conducted on setting definite
quantitative goals for performance improvement while considering the defect rate
involved in the construction operations which is easily achieved through Six Sigma.
Tchidi et al. (2012) showed that Six Sigma principles were feasible in construction
quality management. Recent research is focused on the possibilities of integrating lean
and Six Sigma (Assarlind and Aaboen, 2014). Not only the possibilities of integration are
considered but also critical success factors (CSFs) for productive implementation are
getting due attention of the researchers. These factors are critical to success of any
organization or process, and the organization or process may fail in their absence. The
awareness of CSFs and their role in project success monitoring is not new: Rockart
(1979) introduced the idea of incorporating CSFs for determining the information need of
managers and decision makers. Starting from the 12 requirements for success of Six
Sigma (Sandholm and Sorqvist, 2002) to the more recent case studies and resulting
CSFs, Six Sigma and its CSFs are making their way into construction. Motwani et al.
(2004) conducted the famous Dow chemicals’ case study mentioning its success story of
Six Sigma implementation in construction.
Antony et al. (2005) reports that Six Sigma gives business pioneers and officials the
procedure, strategies, apparatuses and systems to change the culture of organizations.
Further, in a study conducted for construction organizations for Turkey, involvement
and commitment of top management, linking quality initiatives to customer and linking
quality initiatives to supplier were found to be the most important CSFs for Six Sigma
implementation (Taner, 2013).
This study aims at identifying and ranking the significant Six Sigma CSFs for
construction projects as reported in the published literature. It gathers the key
ingredients from the existing literature on Six Sigma implementation in construction
industry and highlights their relative importance. It elucidates the CSFs which are
essential for the implementation of Six Sigma in construction projects. Thus, it is so
positioned that construction managers may be facilitated in the form of important
decision-making factors and their implications on project success.

Methodology
As scope of this paper is to review the published literature, Six Sigma papers published
between 2001-2015 were studied as first step to the systematic study and arrangement of
relevant literature. The lower limit to the study period is set to deliberate only the recent
trends in this area of research. “Science Direct”, “Google scholar” and “ASCE” libraries
 IJLSS were used for searching the related literature. The search process consisted of semantic
7,2 and keywords based techniques. Keywords such as Six Sigma, Six Sigma in
construction and CSFs of Six Sigma were used for relevant literature search. Moreover,
the search was further restricted to the areas of “engineering”, “management”,
“business”, “social sciences” and “decision sciences”.
As all the retrieved papers were not necessarily relevant to this work, unrelated
174 publications were discarded. As a result, a total of 98 relevant research publications
were studied. From these papers, a total of 69 factors were identified as shown in
Table II. From them, 22 factors were shortlisted having at least 15 appearances with the
help of a frequency analysis and the yearly appearance of the factors was also tabulated.
To understand the influence of identified factors, the parties they affect were also
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studied. Based on these analyses, zoning was done to segregate the more significant
factors from the less. The methodology of this paper is shown in Figure 1.
Various academic journals were consulted for selecting the papers. However, for the
sake of brevity, the ones with three or more relevant papers are cited here. Journal of
Construction Engineering and Management, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma,
Journal of Operations Management and The TQM Journal report most publications
followed by International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management and Procedia -
Social and Behavioral Sciences. As evident from the recent publications of these journals,
the issues like Six Sigma and their complexity are better discussed and understood by
these journals and their target audience. For some years, the relevant papers were not
found (NF) as reported in Table I.
The papers were further analyzed and classified as literature, case study, tools and
techniques and CSFs-based papers, as shown in Figure 2. The x-axis represents count of

Search Engine

Relevant Literature/
Journals Shortlisted

CSFs Identified

Frequency Analysis & Effect on Parties

Yearly Appearance

Figure 1.
Research
methodology Zoning
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Journal name 2001-2003 2004-2006 2007-2009 2010-2012 2013-2015 Count

Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 4 2 NF NF NF 6

International Journal of Lean Six Sigma NF NF NF 2 4 6
Journal of Operations Management NF 2 2 1 1 6
The TQM Magazine (Currently TQM Journal) 2 2 2 NF NF 6
International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management NF 1 1 2 NF 4
Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences NF NF NF 3 1 4
Business Process Management Journal NF 1 1 1 3
Journal of Management in Engineering NF NF 1 1 1 3
Total Quality Management & Business Excellence NF NF 2 1 NF 3

Table I.
175

List of journals
construction
Six Sigma in
 IJLSS
7,2 Tools and Techniques

CSFs

176
Case Study
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Literature
Figure 2.
Type of papers
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

the papers, whereas groups are represented on the y-axis. It is evident that nearly 42 per
cent of the studied papers focused on CSFs. These were further analyzed and studied.
Similarly the nature of the papers was also studied and classified as industrial or
academic based upon their authorship. The study revealed the ratio to be 47:51, i.e. 47
papers were of industrial origin, whereas 51 were of academic origin.
It must be noted that management research is ontological (Huff, 2000) and the
significance of problems and ways of solving them are subject to disagreements
pertaining to the diverse standards of their assessment (Whitley, 1984a). An attempt has
been made to make the review of the available data systematic and evidence-based in
light of Tranfield et al. (2003), yet the availability of practitioners in the field of Six Sigma
and their schedules of duty were sources of delays in the data authentication and timely
feedback to enrich the potential outcome of this research. To make the best of available
resources, six local Six Sigma experts, three field professionals from upper managerial
positions of industries and three researchers having expertise in field of Six Sigma were
engaged to review the process, make the research useful and usable and distinguish
reliable and unreliable data in accordance to Campbell et al. (2003).

Results
An extensive literature review from the previously mentioned journals yielded into a
total of 69 CSFs out of which 22 (shaded factors) were used for further analysis, as shown
in Table II. These factors had an appearance of 15 or more in the relevant papers studied.
Once the CSFs were identified, the next step was to arrange and organize them as per
their year of appearance. This not only helped in attaining the total frequency of the
CSFs but also understand their temporal evolution, as shown in Table III. The evolution
may help in understanding the focus of authors and journals during their years of
publication. By observing the table, it can be seen that project management skills and
commitment of top management have the highest frequency among the shortlisted
CSFs. Hence, for successful implementation of Six Sigma in construction industry, the
professionals need to acquire project management skills. As evident from
manufacturing industry, these skills play a huge role in project success and proper
utilization of related tools and techniques (Taner, 2013). Along with the skills,
commitment of top management for adopting new techniques is also important. The
 Sr. no. Factor Sr. no. Factor
Six Sigma in
construction
1 Employee empowerment (Taner, 2013) 36 Document management (Swami and Prasad,
2013)
2 Teamwork (Chakraborty and Kay 37 Harmony with current improvement
Chuan, 2013) programs (Kwak and Anbari, 2006)
3 Customer satisfaction (Cheng, 2007) 38 Business strategy/strategy integration
(Alsmadi et al., 2012) 177
4 Linking Six Sigma to business (Brady 39 Belt system/selecting key members/external
and Allen, 2006) consultants/specialized team (Jeyaraman
and Teo, 2010)
5 Linking Six Sigma to supplier (Antony 40 Company-wide commitment (Hilton et al.,
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and Banuelas, 2002) 2008)

6 Project management skills and 41 Social responsibility (Antony and Desai,
commitment of top management (Gamal 2009)
Aboelmaged, 2010)
7 Top management involvement (Kumar 42 A uniform language and terminology (de
et al., 2009) Carvalho et al., 2014)
8 Vision and planning (Swink and Jacobs, 43 Cross-functional teamwork and commitment
2012; Hong et al., 2015) of middle managers (Brady and Allen, 2006)
9 Safe environment (Hilton et al., 2008) 44 Selection of appropriate team members
(Buch and Tolentino, 2006)
10 Regular audits (Antony, 2004) 45 Goal and objective based approach/bottom
line focus (Kwak and Anbari, 2006)
11 Implementation of correct voice of 46 Incentive/reward/promotion system (Buch
customer (VOC) (Sullivan, 2011) and Tolentino, 2006)
12 Flexible operations (Kumar et al., 2009) 47 Resource allocation (Banuelas and Antony,
2002)
13 Strategic planning system (Swink and 48 Continuous improvement (Sandholm and
Jacobs, 2012) Sorqvist, 2002)
14 Linking Six Sigma to employer/employee 49 Benchmarking (Henderson and Evans, 2000)
empowerment/work force management
(Chakraborty and Kay Chuan, 2013
15 Rapid project completion (Antony, 2006) 50 Process management (Antony, 2006)
16 Establishment of the Six Sigma 51 Risk management (Mahanti and Antony,
framework/strategic initiative/establish a 2009)
need (Brady and Allen, 2006)
17 Deployment plan (Antony, 2006) 52 Quality information (Zu et al., 2008; Sabry,
2014)
18 Clear performance metric (Gamal 53 Linking Six Sigma to human resources.
Aboelmaged, 2010) (Gamal Aboelmaged, 2010)
19 Continuous improvement or adaptable 54 Data-driven culture/data from
system (Antony and Desai, 2009) measurements are easily obtainable (Sabry,
2014)
20 Follow-up/audits and communication of 55 Spirit of innovation (Tchidi et al., 2012)
success stories (Chakraborty and Kay
Chuan, 2013)
21 Sufficient knowledge of statistics (Hilton 56 Commitment to quality (Zu et al., 2008)
et al., 2008)
22 Knowledge and understanding of 57 Identify scope of the project governance
methods and its techniques (Antony, factors for public works (Hong et al., 2015)
2006) Table II.
(continued) CSFs of Six Sigma
 IJLSS Sr. no. Factor Sr. no. Factor
7,2
23 Implementation of a system to analyze, 58 Supply chain focus (Brady and Allen, 2006)
control and measure processes/charts
(quantifiable measure and results)
(Erdoğan and Canatan, 2015)
24 Education and training (Antony et al., 59 Manage controversy and confrontation
178 2005) (Byrne, 2003)
25 Communication (Hilton et al., 2008) 60 Integrating SS with the financial
infrastructure and accountability or
financial performance (Heckl et al., 2010)
26 Organizational infrastructure (Byrne, 61 Wholehearted support system (Hilton et al.,
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2003) 2008)
27 Information technology and innovation 62 Marketing process management (Kwak and
(Johnson and Swisher, 2003) Anbari, 2006)
28 Cultural change (Chakraborty and Kay 63 Ability to learn from past (Antony, 2006)
Chuan, 2013)
29 Project tracking and reviews (Alsmadi 64 Technical system or external support
et al., 2012) (Gamal Aboelmaged, 2010)
30 Project selection, prioritization and 65 Knowledge sharing and
evaluation/performance (Padhy and competence/knowledgeable staff (Brady and
Sahu, 2011) Allen, 2006)
31 Financial benefits (Zu et al., 2010; 66 Focus on product/service design (Buch and
Abderisak and Lindahl, 2015) Tolentino, 2006)
32 Attaching the success to financial 67 Attention given to both long and short-term
benefits (Abderisak and Lindahl, 2015) targets (Gamal Aboelmaged, 2010)
33 Zero defect mentality (Brady and Allen, 68 Adequate resources for implementing such
2006) system (Antony, 2006)
34 Personal lean Six Sigma experience of 69 Understanding tools and techniques within
top management (Kwak and Anbari, Six Sigma (Brady and Allen, 2006)
2006)
Table II. 35 Open organization (Taner, 2013)

committed top management in manufacturing has been instrumental in enhancing the

success (Banuelas and Antony, 2002). When it comes to construction industry, the
developed nations have seen better committed top management as evident by case
studies in the USA, UK, Australia and Turkey (Taner, 2013; Antony et al., 2008; Antony
et al., 2005). The construction industry of developing countries on the other hand, being
mainly influenced and controlled by less-educated people with no or lesser project
management knowledge and commitment, is not performing as expected (Stewart and
Spencer, 2006). And in the absence of Six Sigma and other reliable quality management
techniques, the situation can only worsen. Project management skills and commitment
of top management is followed by quality information, process management, linking Six
Sigma to business and project tracking and review.
The study also reveals that during 2001-2003 and before that, very less work has
been reported on Six Sigma in construction, and it seems to be enjoying considerable
attention lately. One of the reasons for this can be the performance of construction
industry, which is declining in developing countries and Six Sigma being one of the
reliable quality and performance enhancement methods seems to perfectly fit in the
scenario.
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Relative
Factors 2001-2003 2004-2006 2007-2009 2010-2012 2013-2015 Frequency frequency

Project management skills 5 10 12 14 23 64 0.103

Quality information 1 8 6 12 19 46 0.074
Process management 1 5 4 11 17 38 0.061
Linking Six Sigma to business 1 5 6 11 14 37 0.060
Project tracking and reviews 1 4 5 9 17 36 0.058
Project selection, prioritization and evaluation/performance NF 4 4 9 16 33 0.053
Continuous improvement NF 4 4 9 14 31 0.050
Financial benefits NF 3 2 8 16 29 0.047
Organizational infrastructure 1 4 3 7 13 28 0.045
Resource allocation NF 4 3 8 13 28 0.045
Teamwork NF 3 3 7 13 26 0.042
Customer satisfaction NF 4 3 8 11 26 0.042
Employee empowerment NF 5 3 6 9 23 0.037
Information technology and innovation NF NF 3 5 15 23 0.037
Communication NF 2 3 5 12 22 0.036
Education and training NF 3 3 6 8 20 0.032
Risk management NF 3 NF 5 12 20 0.032
Top management involvement NF 2 3 6 8 19 0.031
Vision and planning NF 1 3 7 8 19 0.031
Cultural change NF 3 3 5 7 18 0.029
Benchmarking 1 3 2 4 8 18 0.029
Linking Six Sigma to supplier NF 1 3 3 8 15 0.024

Table III.
179
construction
Six Sigma in

Frequency analysis
 IJLSS After the frequency analysis of the CSFs, an attempt is made to establish the effects of
7,2 Six Sigma on parties to construction project: client, contractor and user. Some factors
like vision and planning affect all the three parties directly, whereas factors like linking
Six Sigma to supplier affect only one party. This effect contributes to the criticality of
theses CSFs: the factor with direct effect on all the three parties is more critical when it
comes to decision-making and attention requirement as compared to the CSF with one
180 direct effect. Communication affects all the three parties directly (Sandholm and
Sorqvist, 2002). Without proper communication and coordination the failures and
success stories of one party will not be conveyed to the other, and as a result, the parties
will repeat the mistakes rather than learning from them (Jeyaraman and Teo, 2010).
Similarly teamwork has direct effect on the contactor and client. More the teamwork and
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partnering of the two parties, more and more sophisticated results become possible to be
obtained (Antony, 2006). Though this teamwork is instrumental to the project success
and has significant effect on the two parties, but the third party (user) is very less likely
to be affected by this CSF. Hence, it has no direct effect on the user. Finally process
management has direct effect on the contractor only, and the other two parties are not
affected by this CSF, as the processes are mainly headed and controlled by the
contractor (Assarlind and Aaboen, 2014). Table IV shows both the direct and indirect
effects of CSFs on the parties.
Once the effects of Six Sigma CSFs in construction are studied, in the next step as
shown in Table V, three zones were introduced for their classification: red, yellow and
green. The zoning was done based upon the relative per cent score. For attaining it, first,
relative frequency (Rf) of the factors was calculated as well as the relative portion of
parties affected (RPA). The product of Rf and RPA resulted into per cent score as shown
in equation (1):

Percent Score ⫽ Rf ⫻ RPA (1)

The relative value of these per cent scores was calculated out of 100 so as to get an idea
of the overall effect of the CSFs. Using these scores, the CSFs were divided into red,
yellow and green zones based upon their effect on project success. Red zone contains the
most significant CSFs having an effect of 5 per cent and above on the overall project
outcomes and success. These factors must be carefully incorporated for successful
implementation of Six Sigma in any construction project. Proper planning and
management techniques must be applied to these factors. Yellow zone contains the
factors having a relative per cent score between 3 and5. These factors demand adequate
provision so that they may be exploited to maximum benefit. Finally, the green zone
contains factors which are relatively less significant when implementing Six Sigma on
construction. Though their importance is in no way undermined, yet their lesser relative
per cent score makes them lesser impacting to overall project success.
A total of 7 out of 22 factors (31.8 per cent) ended up in the red zone, 11 (50 per cent)
in yellow zone, while 4 (18.2 per cent) ended up in the green zone.

Conclusion
Although a large number of studies have successfully addressed the concept of quality
in construction, the research on use of Six Sigma as a strategy for process improvement
in construction is limited. In comparison to the CSF body of knowledge in the area of
manufacturing, there is dearth of research in CSFs of Six Sigma in construction. To fill
 Client Contractor User
Six Sigma in
CSFs Direct Indirect Direct Indirect Direct Indirect construction
Employee empowerment ✓ ✓ ✓
Teamwork ✓ ✓ ✓
Customer satisfaction ✓ ✓ ✓
Linking Six Sigma to business ✓ ✓ ✓
Linking Six Sigma to supplier ✓ ✓ ✓
181
Project management skills and
commitment of top management ✓ ✓ ✓
Top management involvement ✓ ✓ ✓
✓ ✓ ✓
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Vision and planning

Education and training ✓ ✓ ✓
Communication ✓ ✓ ✓
Organizational infrastructure ✓ ✓ ✓
Information technology and innovation ✓ ✓ ✓
Cultural change ✓ ✓ ✓
Project tracking and reviews ✓ ✓ ✓
Project selection, prioritization and
evaluation/performance ✓ ✓ ✓
Financial benefits ✓ ✓ ✓
Resource allocation ✓ ✓ ✓
Continuous improvement ✓ ✓ ✓
Benchmarking ✓ ✓ ✓
Process management ✓ ✓ ✓ Table IV.
Risk management ✓ ✓ ✓ Effects of CSFs on
Quality information ✓ ✓ ✓ parties

this gap, this paper attempts to help in systematic arrangement of relevant available
literature based upon the trends of identified CSFs published during the period
2001-2015. The said literature has been studied from various angles, and an attempt has
been made to identify the factors that are critical to Six Sigma implementation in
construction. As a result, 22 CSFs are identified. The effects of these CSFs on three
parties to a construction project are studied and the results are compiled.
Based upon the frequency of the CSFs, they are divided into three zones
corresponding to their importance in literature and their effect on the parties: red, yellow
and green. The red zone is the most critical and the green zone is the least. The results
show that around 32 per cent CSFs fall into the red zone, 50 per cent into yellow and 18
per cent into green. Furthermore, factors like project management skills and
commitment of top management and quality information fall into very critical zone
pointing to the importance of proper consideration demanded by them.
The current study is the first step in wider analysis of the arrangement of available
literature on the Six Sigma in construction. It suggests theoretical clarity and specificity
on Six Sigma usage which provides practical evidence on CSFs. There are numerous
CSFs in ensuring the Six Sigma execution achievement, and each CSF is reliant on each
other with a specific end goal to make the Six Sigma program a success. Although some
CSFs identified as most critical need more concentration, they will eventually help
practitioners to better support their organizations, strategic direction and increasing
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7,2

CSFs
182
IJLSS

Table V.
Relative per cent
score and zoning of
Relative Parties
Frequency frequency affected Relative Per cent Relative
Factors (f) (Rf) (PA) PA (RPA) score per cent score Zone

Project management skills and commitment

of top management 64 0.103 3 1 0.103 16
Quality information 46 0.074 2 0.66 0.049 7.58
Linking Six Sigma to business 37 0.060 2 0.66 0.039 6.1
Project tracking and reviews 36 0.058 2 0.66 0.038 5.93
Communication 22 0.036 3 1 0.036 5.5
Project selection, prioritization and
evaluation/performance 33 0.053 2 0.66 0.035 5.44
Continuous improvement 31 0.050 2 0.66 0.033 5.11 Red
Financial benefits 29 0.047 2 0.66 0.031 4.78
Vision and planning 19 0.031 3 1 0.031 4.74
Teamwork 26 0.042 2 0.66 0.028 4.28
Customer satisfaction 26 0.042 2 0.66 0.028 4.28
Information technology and innovation 23 0.037 2 0.66 0.025 3.8
Education and training 20 0.032 2 0.66 0.021 3.3
Risk management 20 0.032 2 0.66 0.021 3.3
Top management involvement 19 0.031 2 0.66 0.020 3.13
Process management 38 0.061 1 0.33 0.020 3.13
Cultural change 18 0.029 2 0.66 0.019 3
Benchmarking 18 0.029 2 0.66 0.019 3 Yellow
Organizational infrastructure 28 0.045 1 0.33 0.015 2.31
Resource allocation 28 0.045 1 0.33 0.015 2.31
Employee empowerment 23 0.037 1 0.33 0.012 1.89
Linking Six Sigma to supplier 15 0.024 1 0.33 0.008 1.23 Green
 needs for coaching, mentoring and training. In other words, there is positive progress in Six Sigma in
adopting and practicing CSFs of Six Sigma implementation for improving business construction
operation and organizational performance, and its lack may lead to wastage of time,
effort and money.
Due to the limited application of Six Sigma in the construction industry, the CSFs
identification is not comprehensive. So this research mainly sought to document so far
identified CSFs in the industry. Though an extensive search was performed for Six 183
Sigma publications, the retrieved list of papers from selected journals may not be
exhaustive. Therefore, it is highlighted that the findings of this paper are solely based on
the data collected from specific sampling procedure.
To continue this knowledge-gathering exercise for facilitating the decision
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makers, further assessment is required. Also, more factors can be incorporated by

enhancing the searching criteria followed in this paper. It is recommended that
proper management techniques must be applied for achieving critical success, and
the effect of CSFs should be observed to help future decision makers learn from past
experiences. The major deliverable of this paper, the zoning, is an evolving
synthesis of existing knowledge. It can be further enhanced by adding more
dimensions such as expert opinion.
Further, the quantitative comparison of the benefits resulting from a Six Sigma
method to other tools and techniques can be a useful area. Keeping in mind the end goal
to get a more profound comprehension of Six Sigma execution in construction industry,
the scholastic analysts can plan to complete various semi-organized meetings with
representatives at distinctive levels to further rundown along the CSFs of Six Sigma
together with their significance. Furthermore, the impact of partnering on the Six Sigma
is another interesting area which is yet to be explored.
The proposed methodology appears as a first approach to set a conceptual
framework; in this perspective, future studies and research may work on the above
mentioned considerations to enrich the potential application of this methodology.

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International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 131 No. 1, pp. 158-164.

Corresponding author
Siddra Qayyum Siddiqui can be contacted at: siddra.cem5@nit.nust.edu.pk

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