Int. J. Services and Operations Management, Vol. 11, No.

3, 2012 335

Literature snapshot on Six Sigma project selection

for future research

Muthuswamy Shanmugaraja* and

Muthuswamy Nataraj
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Government College of Technology,
Thadagam Road, Coimbatore – 641013, Tamilnadu, India
E-mail: raja8011@yahoo.co.in
E-mail: m_natanuragct.yahoo.com
*Corresponding author

Nallasamy Gunasekaran
Angel College of Engineering and Technology,
Angel Nagar, Dharapuram Main Road,
Tirupur – 641665, Tamilnadu, India
E-mail: guna_kct_cbe_tn_in.yahoo.com

Abstract: Six Sigma is regarded as a well-structured methodology for

improving the quality of processes and products. It helps achieve the
company’s strategic goal through the effective use of project-driven approach.
As Six Sigma is a project-driven methodology, it is essential to prioritise
projects which provide maximum financial benefits to the organisation.
Generating and prioritising the critical Six Sigma projects, however, are real
challenges in practice. A detailed literature review on Six Sigma research
reveals that project selection is an area of extreme importance for assuring
success of Six Sigma implementation, but that has been less researched in the
past. This paper provides both academics and practitioners with a useful
framework for pursuing rigorous Six Sigma project selection research through
snapshot review of published literatures.

Keywords: Six Sigma; quality; project selection; organisation; total quality

management; TQM; define measure, analyse, improve and control; DMAIC;
defects per million opportunities; DPMO.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Shanmugaraja, M.,

Nataraj, M. and Gunasekaran, N. (2012) ‘Literature snapshot on Six Sigma
project selection for future research’, Int. J. Services and Operations
Management, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp.335–357.

Biographical notes: Muthuswamy Shanmugaraja obtained his BE in

Mechanical Engineering and ME in Industrial Engineering. He is doing
research in quality management. He has been a Consultant Engineer in
automotive industry. He has published five papers in international journals. His
research interests include Six Sigma quality control and implementation,
quality function deployment, and combined methodologies for quality
assurance in any industries.

Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

336 M. Shanmugaraja et al.

Muthuswamy Nataraj obtained his BE (Mech.) in 1984 from Madurai Kamaraj

University, and ME in Engineering Design in 1991 and PhD in Product and
Process Design Optimisation in 2006 from the Bharathiar University, India. He
is currently a Faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at
Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, India. He is a life member of
the Indian Society of Mechanical Engineers (ISME). He has published several
papers in both international and national journals, presented 50 papers at
national conferences/international conference. He is awarded certificate of
merit in recognition of his research work by Indian Institute of Technology
Roorkee, India. His areas of research are product and process design
optimisation, and product development using design of experiments approach.

Nallasamy Gunasekaran obtained his BE and ME in Mechanical Engineering

Discipline and awarded Doctoral degree in year 2006. He has more than
20 years of teaching experience and published number of papers in various
international journals during the term. Presently, he is a Principal of Angel
College of Engineering and Technology, Tirupur, India.

1 Introduction

Six Sigma concept has been creating excitements in the field of total quality management
(TQM) during the last two decades (Aboelmaged, 2010). In many leading organisations,
Six Sigma has emerged as a key business improvement approach (McAdam and Hazlett,
2010) and has received considerable attention in global companies to generate maximum
business benefit (Aggogeri and Gentili, 2008) and competitive advantage (Yang and
Hsieh, 2009; Deshmukh and Lakhe, 2010). The main theme of Six Sigma is reducing
variability in process or product (Sambhe and Dalu, 2011; Natarajan et. al., 2011). It is a
well-established approach that seeks to identify and eliminate defects, mistakes, or
failures in business processes by focusing on those process performance characteristics
that are of critical importance to customers (Shanmugaraja et al., 2011). Sigma quality
level (SQL) offers an indicator of how often defects are likely to occur in the process
being reviewed (Ozcelik, 2010); the higher the sigma level the less likely it is that a
process will create defective parts (Schroeder et al., 2008). The sigma levels and
corresponding defect levels are derived from the normal probability distribution curve for
an organisational process (Gnanaraj et al., 2010). These levels are expressed in terms of
defects per million opportunities (DPMO): Sigma 2 level – 308,537 DPMO; Sigma 3
level – 66,807 DPMO; Sigma 4 level – 6,210 DPMO; Sigma 5 level – 233 DPMO, and
Sigma 6 level – 3.4 DPMO (Radhakrishnan and Sivakumaran, 2010). As a result, the
term ‘Six Sigma’ has developed as an aspiration quality measure for organisational
processes (Radhakrishna et al., 2008). The success of Six Sigma is mainly attributed to
the financial gains achieved as the result of its implementation (Hong and Huang, 2011).
This strategic approach consists of five basic phases: define, measure, analyse,
improve and control (Nonthaleerak and Hendry, 2008) as DMAIC which provides an
excellent framework for thinking about a problem in a linear way, where a team will
finish one phase and then smoothly and easily coast into the next (Büyüközkan and
Öztürkcan, 2010). Focussing on the customer needs, Six Sigma projects are formed, the
requirements and current performance are measured, the criteria and key variables that
affect the customer satisfaction are analysed, the process is improved, by monitoring and
 Literature snapshot on Six Sigma project selection for future research 337

checking the systems the process is controlled (Lee, 2010). In selecting the most viable
project, define phase is the critical step in DMAIC framework (Neves and Nakhai, 2011).
Since the success of Six Sigma programme hinges on project selection (Büyüközkan and
Öztürkcan, 2010), the identification of high-impact projects at the initial stage of
Six Sigma implementation will results in significant breakthroughs in a rapid timeframe
(Saghaei and Didehkhani, 2010). This can induce confidence in management as well as in
employees about the efficacy of the programme (Tsai and Chou, 2008), thus promoting
future investment and efforts in the initiative and thereby winning the hearts and minds of
everyone involved (Aggogeri and Gentili, 2008).
In this paper, literatures on Six Sigma research are collected and a comprehensive
review of these literatures is presented. The review covers nearly 575 journal articles
published in various leading journals. A special attention is given to review the literatures
which has discussed about the importance of Six Sigma project selection. To avoid never
ending revision, the articles published from the year 2000 to 2010 are collected for
review purpose. This paper is organised into four remaining sections. In Section 2, the
research methodology used in the study is described. Section 3 discusses about the
classification framework. In Section 4, Six Sigma articles are analysed and the published
project selection strategies are reported. In Section 5, conclusions are presented and the
future research scopes are discussed.

2 Research methodology

The literature has been witnessing the emergence of plenty of papers on Six Sigma.
Brady and Allen (2006) have appraised this trend and surveyed literature covering wide
aspects of researches on Six Sigma. Some more authors have also reviewed papers on
Six Sigma (Tannock et al., 2007). Hence, it was anticipated that an exhaustive survey on
literature on Six Sigma would not only consume enormous amount of time and money
but also would overlap with some of the earlier reviews to a larger extent. In this context,
it was decided to conduct the ‘literature snapshots’ by reviewing only the papers whose
titles contained the term ‘Six Sigma’. To obtain information and disseminate the highest
level of research findings, it is decided to review only peer-reviewed journal papers
because academics and practitioners alike most often use journals. Therefore, editorials,
news reports, book reviews, viewpoints, conference papers, masters and doctoral
dissertations, textbooks, and unpublished working papers were excluded. Accordingly
papers containing Six Sigma in their titles were collected from science direct
(address: http://www.scirus.com) and the databases maintained by emerald insight
(address: http://www.emerealdinsight.com), Springer (address: http://www.springer.com),
Inderscience (address: http://www.inderscience.com) publishers and Interscience
(address: http://www.interscience.wiley.com) publishers were gathered. These databases
provide online delivery systems with full text access to thousands of high quality articles
and journals that cover a wide range of social and applied science titles including
business and management disciplines, engineering, healthcare and computer science. The
search yielded 575 Six Sigma articles from 208 journals. Each article was carefully
reviewed and then the data was organised to produce a classification from several
perspectives. Although this research is not exhaustive, it serves as a comprehensive base
for an understanding of Six Sigma research.
338 M. Shanmugaraja et al.

2.1 List of articles

The list of articles was derived from a Science Citation Index (SCI) expanded search
spanning the time period from 2000 through 2010. The main descriptor used is
Six Sigma. The text of each article was reviewed in order to eliminate those that were
clearly not related to ‘Six Sigma’ improvement strategies. For example, articles were
removed that focused on detailed synthesis of chemicals and used the term Six Sigma in
an unrelated context. The list of journals that provided at least one relevant article is
shown in Table 1.
Table 1 List of journals with at least one article in the study

Business Process Management Journal Journal of Operations Management

Electronic Library and Information System Journal of European Industrial Training
Expert Systems with Applications Journal of Organisational Change
Management
IEEE Control Systems Magazine Journal of Organisational Excellence
IEEE Engineering Management Review Leadership in Health Services
IEEE Transactions on Magnetics Leadership and Organisation Development
Journal
International Journal of Health Care Quality Managerial Auditing Journal
Assurance
International Journal of Innovation and Managing Service Quality
Technology Management
International Journal of Logistics: Research and Management Science
Applications
International Journal of Operations and Measuring Business Excellence
Production Management
International Journal of Organisational Analysis Performance Improvement
International Journal of Production Economics Program: Electronic Library and
Information Systems
International Journal of Production Research Project Management Journal
International Journal of Productivity and Quality and Reliability Engineering
Performance Measurement International
International Journal of Quality and Quality Engineering
Productivity Management
International Journal of Quality and Reliability Technovation
Management
International Journal of Services and Operations The Journal of Operations Research Society
Management
International Journal of Six Sigma and TQM Magazine
Competitive Advantage
Journal of Manufacturing Technology The TQM Journal
Management
Journal of Multiple-Valued Logic and Soft Total Quality Management and Business
Computing Excellence
 Literature snapshot on Six Sigma project selection for future research 339

2.2 Classification frame work

Articles were classified using following descriptors as shown in Table 2. This framework
will provide guidelines for pursuing rigorous Six Sigma research by explaining the
chronological growth of Six Sigma, dominating research types, application areas in
Six Sigma and challenging themes of Six Sigma application. Articles discussed about
the concepts, tools, techniques and peoples are grouped under the descriptor
‘fundamental of Six Sigma’. Approximately, 27.8% of the reviewed articles were noticed
under this descriptor. Many authors have highlighted the basics of the concept
extensively in their articles to develop an easy understanding of the method. Those
authors also described ‘tools and techniques’ as core elements with examples being
process control and Pareto analysis. Some authors have focused their publication around
the peoples and practices used in implementation process. The industry wise applications
reported in publications are used to classify the relevant articles. Many articles made
explicit reference to either the manufacturing or service sector issues, while others
offered general contributions. Next classification is research approach used in the articles
as case studies, survey results, literature review, comparative analysis, or theoretical with
application.
Table 2 Descriptors used to classify articles

Descriptors Levels % of articles

Fundamental of Six Sigma Concepts, tools and techniques, people and 27.8
practices
Research approach Case study, comparative study, survey, 40.2
literature review, or theoretical with
applications
Industrial sector Manufacturing, service and others 8.8
Success factors and challenges All combination of 13 possible factors 23.2

Nearly 40.2% of the articles are found reporting the applications of the programme under
this group. It is found that 23.2% of articles investigated the factors contributing to the
success of Six Sigma implementations. The terminology used to describe the success
factors was standardised to correspond to the dimensions of quality management practice
as discussed by many authors. The application of Six Sigma in both manufacturing and
service sectors is presented by 8.8% of the articles.

3 Literature review

In this section, the characterisation of the database of articles using statistics derived
from the descriptors described in Table 2 is presented. Goals include the identification
of trends based on the subjects addressed. Then results relating to success factors
are discussed, including a tabulation of the success factors cited most often in the
literature. Finally, the present state of project selection in Six Sigma implementation is
discussed.
340 M. Shanmugaraja et al.

3.1 literature trend: distribution by year of publication

Figure 1 shows the distribution of 575 Six Sigma articles published over the period from
2000 to 2010. Up to the year 2003, the number of publications made in Six Sigma found
around 20 per year. The blooming years for Six Sigma research starts after the year 2003
since the number of journal articles has increased significantly from this year. However,
statistics shows a decline in 2007. But in the last three years, i.e., from 2008 to 2010, the
publication rate is appreciating and reached a maximum when compared with year 2005.
The overall trend indicates the increasing nature of article publication which in turn infers
the wide spread of Six Sigma ever before.

Figure 1 Distribution of articles by year of publication (see online version for colours)

3.2 Distribution by publication database

Being the highest paper publishers, Emerald insight publishers secured the first place as
they have published nearly 50% (287 articles). Inderscience publishers have published
nearly 35% of the articles (202 articles) during the review period to share the second
position. The rest of databases like Springer, Interscience, except science direct have
collectively contributed 13% (76 articles) to this review. As a least contributor, science
direct database have published ten articles regarding Six Sigma research during the said
period as shown in Figure 2.
 Literature snapshot on Six Sigma project selection for future research 341

Figure 2 Distribution of articles by publication database wise (see online version for colours)

3.3 Distribution of articles by journal

To reflect the close relationship between TQM and Six Sigma research, Total Quality
Management journals from Emerald insight database had the largest percentage
(244 articles, 42.4%) of Six Sigma articles. Among the leading journals published by
Inderscience publishers, International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage
(IJSSCA) had the second largest number of articles per journal (97 articles, 16.9%). Since
2004, the journal is devoted to advancing the understanding and practice of Six Sigma
research. Besides, the engineering perspective to quality deployment is noticeable in Six
Sigma articles since the third and fourth largest percentages of Six Sigma articles are in
Quality Engineering (84 articles, 14.6%) and Quality and Reliability Engineering
International (QREI) (45 articles, 7.8%). International Journal of Product Development
(IJPD) (34 articles, 5.9%) had the fifth position. International Journal of Quality and
Reliability Management (IJQRM) and International Journal of Production Research
(IJPR) share the sixth position (27 articles, 4.7% each). The seventh position is shared by
The Quality Management Journal (QMJ) and The Journal of Validation Technology
(TJVT) (24 articles, 4.2%). Other journals including International Journal of Services and
Operations Management (IJSOM), Measuring Business Excellence, Journal of
Organisational Excellence, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Expert
Systems Applications and Journal of Healthcare Management share the eighth largest
percentages of Six Sigma articles (20 articles, 3.5%) as shown in Figure 3.
342 M. Shanmugaraja et al.

Figure 3 Distribution of articles by journals (see online version for colours)

3.4 Distribution by themes

It is unavoidable to have an article that is relevant to more than one theme, so listing an
article under more than one theme was allowed. For example, an article may address
critical success factors for Six Sigma implementation but provide information on Six
Sigma tools and techniques. In such a case, a more weighted theme is chosen to classify
the article according to the author’s judgement. As discussed in Table 2, in this review
four themes were primarily considered to analyse literatures that include:
1 fundamentals of Six Sigma: concepts, tool used, techniques of implementation,
peoples engaged in deployment and practices used

2 research approach: concept papers, case study, comparative study, survey, literature
review, or theoretical with applications
3 industrial application: manufacturing and service
4 success factors and challenges for Six Sigma implementation.
From Figure 4, it is noticed that researchers are trying to report the case studies
presumably to convince the theorists and practitioners about the practical and business
significance of Six Sigma programme (231 articles). The next heavily published theme is
in Fundamentals of Six Sigma (160 articles). Evaluating Six Sigma in terms of challenges
and Success factors for implementation is the third largest proportion within Six Sigma
 Literature snapshot on Six Sigma project selection for future research 343

themes (133 articles). This is followed by the industrial sector wise application of
Six Sigma during the review period which share fourth place with 51 articles.

Figure 4 Distribution of articles by themes (see online version for colours)

4 Selection of Six Sigma projects

Many literatures have discussed about project selection either as a critical factor or as a
success factor for Six Sigma application. Some authors have also discussed about the
methodologies to select suitable project for Six Sigma implementation. Hence, in this
paper, the literature survey regarding project selection is discussed under three themes as:
1 challenges for Six Sigma
2 critical success factors for Six Sigma programme
3 project prioritisation in Six Sigma.
Each article was carefully reviewed and then organised to produce a classification based
on the theme on which it has been built. The most heavily published theme is Six Sigma
success factors (55 articles). Next is, challenges for Six Sigma implementation
(49 articles) and then is Six Sigma project selections (29 articles). An elaboration of the
cited themes is presented in the following subsections.
344 M. Shanmugaraja et al.

4.1 Six Sigma success factors

Table 3 provides a comprehensive list of authors whose had contributed intensively
towards the identification of key factors for success or failure of Six Sigma
implementation and they have commonly discussed about 13 factors being primarily
contributing success to Six Sigma programme. Those factors are:
1 organisational involvement and commitment
2 selection of projects
3 culture orientation
4 correlating business goal with Six Sigma implementation
5 coordination and team work
6 mode of communication
7 organisational structure and resource capacity
8 motivation, training and development
9 customer involved business culture
10 measurement system and information media
11 accountability and reward plans
12 underlying tools and techniques within Six Sigma
13 project monitoring and tracking skills.
Selection of projects is one among the factors which is heavily discussed by many
authors (Antony and Banuelas, 2002; Coronado and Antony, 2002; McAdam and Evans,
2004a; Antony et al., 2005; Nonthaleerak and Hendry, 2006; Chakrabarty and Tan, 2007;
Kumar, 2007; Pandey, 2007; Ho et al., 2008; Yang et al., 2008; Brun, 2010). McAdam
and Evans (2004a) have claimed that the Six Sigma programme is weak in understanding
customer needs and transforming these needs into projects. Antony (2004a) stated that
most of the projects fall behind schedule or fail due to a questionable linkage of these
projects to the organisation’s strategic business goals. An organisation becomes frustrated
with the Six Sigma initiatives if the projects do not deliver the expected bottom-line
results. This causes management to shift their attention and resources on other initiatives
(Szeto and Tsang, 2005; Hilton et al., 2008; Jenicke et al., 2008).
Brun (2010) have boiled that Six Sigma is not a magic bullet that solves problems
automatically by having some data entered into software and analysing the results. It
requires people who are good thinkers with creativity and strong analytical skills. A
project chosen for Six Sigma implementation can be the right project for the organisation
to work on and still be a failure because the wrong people were assigned to the project
(Shahabuddin, 2008). The personnel assigned the job of project identification and
selection should include managers who have been trained as Six Sigma champions, as
well as other key Six Sigma knowledge resources, such as master black belts (MBBs),
BBs, GBs, and yellow belts, who bring experience in determining the feasibility and
management of projects under consideration (Antony et al., 2008; Feng and Manuel,
2008; Yang et al., 2008).
 Literature snapshot on Six Sigma project selection for future research 345

Table 3 List of authors discussing about Six Sigma project selection themes

Theme Author(s)
Six Sigma Sanders and Hild, (2000), Antony et al. (2001), Antony and Banuelas, (2002)
Success Coronado and Antony, (2002), Feld and Stone (2002), Hammer (2002), Byrne,
factors (2003), Antony (2004a, 2004b, 2006, 2008), Antony and Fergusson (2004), Goh
and Xie (2004), McAdam and Evans (2004a, 2004b), McAdam and Lafferty
(2004), Senapati (2004), Snee (2004), Wessel and Burcher (2004), Antony et al.
(2005, 2007, 2008), Frings and Grant (2005), Hahn (2005), Knowles et al. (2005),
McAdam et al. (2005), Smith and Phadke (2005), Szeto and Tsang (2005), Buch
and Tolentino (2006a, 2006b), Goh et al. (2006), Kwak and Anbari (2006),
Laosirihongthong et al. (2006), Lee and Choi (2006), Linderman et al. (2006),
McClusky (2006), Nonthaleerak and Hendry (2006), Revere et al. (2006),
Chakrabarty and Tan (2007), Cheng (2007), Kumar (2007), Savolainen and
Haikonen (2007), Shanmugam (2007), Yeung (2007), Chung et al. (2008), Feng
and Manuel (2008), Hilton et al. (2008), Jenicke et al. (2008), Roger et al. (2008),
Schroeder et al. (2008), Shahabuddin (2008), Yang et al. (2008), Aboelmaged
(2010), Brun (2010), Lee (2010), Gnanaraj et al. (2010), McAdam and Hazlett
(2010)
Six Sigma Henderson and Evans (2000), Sanders and Hild (2000), Antony et al. (2001, 2007,
challenges 2008), Antony and Banuelas (2002), Feld and Stone (2002), Hammer (2002),
Antony (2004a, 2006, 2008), Antony and Fergusson (2004), Goh and Xie (2004),
McAdam and Evans (2004b), McAdam and Lafferty (2004), Senapati (2004),
Van Den Heuvel et al. (2004), Wessel (2004), Edgeman et al. (2005), Gijo and
Rao (2005), Gowen and Tallen (2005), Hahn (2005), Hensley and Dobie (2005),
McAdam et al. (2005), Smith and Phadke (2005), Szeto and Tsang (2005), Walters
(2005), Goh et al. (2006), Ho et al. (2006, 2008), Kumi and Morrow (2006), Kwak
and Anbari (2006), Lee and Choi (2006), McClusky (2006), Nonthaleerak and
Hendry (2006, 2008), Revere et al. (2006), Cheng (2007), Kumar (2007), Tang et
al. (2007), Taner et al. (2007), Yeung (2007), Aggogeri and Gentili (2008), Hilton
et al. (2008), Kumar et al. (2008), Jenicke et al. (2008), Liu et al. (2008), Roger et
al. (2008), Schroeder et al. (2008), Shahabuddin (2008), McAdam and Hazlett
(2010), Radhakrishnan and Sivakumaran (2010)

4.2 Six Sigma challenges

The commonly discussed challenges and limitations by the author listed in Table 4 are:
1 subjective judgement for selection of projects for Six Sigma deployment
2 project management and tracking skill of Six Sigma practitioners
3 the 1.5 sigma shift resulting in a 3.4 DPMO does not make sense in service processes
4 the impact of leadership styles on Six Sigma success needs more research
5 no unified standards have been accepted regarding the contents of belt training
6 the relationship between the cost of poor quality (COPQ) and the SQL is based on
experience not empirical research
7 the relationship between COPQ and its financial impact in SMEs needs further
research since SMEs are hardly considering quality costs
8 availability of quality data is still a great challenge in Six Sigma projects
346 M. Shanmugaraja et al.

9 in some cases, the solutions driven by Six Sigma are expensive and only a small part
of the solution is implemented at the end
10 the calculation of defect rates is based on the assumption of normality, while the
calculation of defect rates for non-normal situations is not yet properly addressed
11 owing to dynamic market demands, critical-to-quality characteristics (CTQs) should
be critically examined at all times and refined as necessary
12 training programmes usually do not address forecasting and time series methods.
Although Six Sigma is a powerful strategy and has impact on industry and service
sectors, Six Sigma still lacks in theoretical underpinning with other management theory
(Antony, 2008).
Table 4 Literatures discussing about Six Sigma project selection

Author(s) Name of the journal Year

Antony et al. IEEE Control Systems Magazine 2001
Antony and Banuelas Measuring Business Excellence 2002
Byrne Journal of Organisational Excellence 2003
Antony The TQM Magazine 2004b
Antony Managerial Auditing Journal 2004a
Hoerl International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive 2004
Advantage
Antony et al. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management 2005
Cook et al. Quality and Reliability Engineering International 2005
Montgomery et al. Quality and Reliability Engineering International 2005
O’Neill and Duvall Journal of Facilities Management 2005
Raisinghani et al. Industrial Management and Data Systems 2005
Antony Business Process Management Journal 2006
Banuelas et al. The TQM Magazine 2006
Brady and Allen Quality and Reliability Engineering International 2006
Craven et al. Journal of Organisational Excellence 2006
Kumi and Morrow Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems 2006
Kwak and Anbari Technovation 2006
Thomas and Barton Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management 2006
Antony et al. Leadership in Health Services 2007
Choo et al. Management Science 2007
Immaneni et al. Global Business and Organisational Excellence 2007
Jung and Lim Project Management Journal 2007
Kumar et al. The TQM Magazine 2007
Savolainen and The TQM Magazine 2007
Haikonen
Bonilla et al. International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive 2008
Advantage
 Literature snapshot on Six Sigma project selection for future research 347

Table 4 Literatures discussing about Six Sigma project selection (continued)

Author(s) Name of the journal Year

Chao and Chia Expert Systems with Applications 2008
Hu et al. International Journal of Production Research 2008
Kahraman and Journal of Multiple-Valued Logic and Soft Computing 2008
Büyüközkan
Kumar et al. International Journal of Production Economics 2008
Su and Chou Expert Systems with Applications 2008
Wright and Basu International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive 2008
Advantage
Kumar et al. Business Process Management Journal 2009
Yang and Hsieh Expert Systems with Applications 2009
Aboelmaged International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management 2010
Brun International Journal of Production Economics 2010
Büyüközkan and Expert Systems with Applications 2010
Öztürkcan
Gnanaraj et al. International Journal of Services and Operations 2010
Management
Lee International Journal of Economics and Business Research 2010
Ozcelik International Journal of Services and Operations 2010
Management
Radhakrishnan and International Journal of Advanced Operations Management 2010
Sivakumaran
Saghaei and Expert Systems with Applications 2010
Didehkhani
Deshmukh and International Journal of Productivity and Quality 2010
Lakhe Management

Hammer (2002) argued that Six Sigma has been the target of criticism and controversy in
the quality community characterising it as ‘TQM on steroid’. One of the main criticisms
is that subjective judgement of project identification (Goh and Xie, 2004). Organisations
must realise that Six Sigma is not the universal answer to all business issues, and it may
not be the most important management strategy that an organisations feels a sense of
urgency to understand and implement Six Sigma (McClusky, 2006). To ensure the
long-term sustainability of the Six Sigma method, organisations need to analyse and
identify suitable project to properly utilise Six Sigma principles, concepts, and tools
(Antony et al., 2007). Training is another important challenge in implementing Six Sigma
projects successfully and should be part of an integrated approach (Cheng, 2007).
Training should also cover both qualitative and quantitative measures and metrics,
leadership, and project management practices and skills (Kumar et al., 2008).
Organisations without a complete understanding of real challenges of Six Sigma projects
are likely to fail (Roger et al., 2008). Senior management’s strong commitment, support,
and leadership are essential to dealing with any cultural issues or differences related to
Six Sigma implementation. If the commitment and support of utilising various resources
do not exist, organisation should probably not consider adopting Six Sigma
(Shahabuddin, 2008).
348 M. Shanmugaraja et al.

4.3 Project selection in Six Sigma

Selection of Six Sigma projects has received substantial attention from authors listed in
Table 4 and they strongly advocate that the right selection of Six Sigma projects is one of
the most critical factors for the effective deployment of a Six Sigma programme. Antony
and Banuelas (2002) have coined project selection as one of the important key
ingredients for effective and successful implementation of Six Sigma programme. They
have also stressed for developing proper criteria for selecting right project to avoid
delayed result and a great deal of frustration. Antony (2004a) has indicated some project
selection criteria when a service organisation wants to implement Six Sigma
programmes. Those criteria include financing, customer satisfaction, cost, risks and
alignment of strategic business goals and objectives. If project selection is systematically
sloppy, the entire Six Sigma effort could fail. Antony (2004b) has indicated some project
selection criteria when a service organisation wants to implement Six Sigma
programmes. Those criteria include financing, customer satisfaction, cost, risks and
alignment of strategic business goals and objectives. If project selection is systematically
sloppy, the entire Six Sigma effort could fail.
Banuelas et al. (2006) have pointed to project selection criteria employed in UK
organisations based on the results of a survey study. These criteria include customer
satisfaction, financial benefits, top management commitment and the integration with the
company’s strategy. Also he has identified some tools; cost benefit analysis, cause and
effect matrix, brainstorming and Pareto analysis which are commonly employed in UK
organisations to identify and prioritise projects. Kumar et al. (2007) applied a DEA
model to derive the efficient Six Sigma projects. They identified inputs and outputs of the
Six Sigma projects, and then applying a basic DEA model, they derived the efficient
frontier of Six Sigma projects. Also, they carried out a sensitivity analysis to study the
impact of variation in projects’ inputs and outputs on project performance and to identify
the critical inputs and outputs. Moreover, Su and Chou (2008) employed three main steps
for selecting Six Sigma projects. Those steps are under-standing and analysing the voice
of customers (VOCs), drawing up the organisation’s business strategic policies and
deploying the possible Six Sigma projects based on the organisation’s business policies
and the VOCs.
Chao and Chia (2008) developed an approach for the creation and evaluation of
critical Six Sigma projects and ranking them based on identified criteria. They applied a
fuzzy AHP methodology for ranking projects. Kumar et al. (2008) developed a
mathematical programming methodology for selecting the best Six Sigma projects. They
used a non-linear binary model based on Taghuchi function to select the best projects.
Kahraman and Büyüközkan (2008) developed a weighted additive fuzzy goal
programming methodology for selecting the best suitable portfolio of projects in
Six Sigma. They used fuzzy AHP for deriving the importance weights of criteria such as
maximise financial benefits, maximise process capability, maximise customer
satisfaction, minimise cost, minimise project completion time and minimise risk. Yang
and Hsieh (2009) proposed to adopt national quality award criteria as the Six Sigma
project selection criteria, and proposes a hierarchical criteria evaluation process. The
strategic criteria are evaluated by the management team using a Delphi fuzzy multiple
criteria decision-making method. Then, the tactical sub-criteria which contain additional
operational issues are evaluated by the Six Sigma Champion.
 Literature snapshot on Six Sigma project selection for future research 349

Büyüközkan and Öztürkcan (2010) has developed a novel approach based on a

combined analytic network process (ANP) and Decision Making Trial and Evaluation
Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique to help companies determine critical Six Sigma
projects and identify the priority of these projects especially in logistics companies. First
of all the Six Sigma project evaluation dimension and components are determined.
DEMATEL approach is then applied to construct interrelations among criteria. The
weights of criteria are obtained through ANP. Saghaei and Didehkhani (2010) were
proposed a comprehensive methodology for the evaluation and selection of the Six Sigma
projects based on three main categories of criteria including business criteria,
technological and process criteria and financial criteria which contain eight sub-criteria.
For deriving the overall utility of projects, they have designed an adaptive neuro fuzzy
inference system which is capable to consider interrelations among criteria. In this
approach optimal portfolio of projects which should be implemented is obtained by
applying a fuzzy weighted additive goal programming model.

5 Conclusions

Our conclusions are based on the analysis of 575 Six Sigma articles that were published
in leading journals over a period from the years 2000 to 2010. Overall, it is observed that
Six Sigma research has attracted the attention of both practitioners and academics at all
times. In particular, research activities on Six Sigma have increased significantly after the
year 2003 which is confirmed with the publication trend that more than 92% of
Six Sigma articles were published between the years 2003 to 2010. The review has
observed that Six Sigma research is empirical in nature which reinforces the use of
real-world data. One of the most significant findings from this analysis has been the great
empirical focus on fundamental concepts of Six Sigma and its tools. Case study was the
dominant approach in Six Sigma research and this is may be due to the fact that quality
problems in manufacturing and service contexts are usually treated as a case in terms of
documentation and analysis. In addition, the lack of implementing Six Sigma tools and
methodologies across a wide range of processes or organisations makes the use of survey
approach impractical.
With respect to selection of Six Sigma projects, considerable attention has been noted
from many authors. Some of them have portrayed the project selection as one of the
critical features that decide the success and benefits of implementation. Some other
authors have made attempts to fortify this feature by using additional techniques like
AHP, fuzzy, and DEMETAL, etc. Many criteria’s have been formulated by these authors
to develop a systematic way for identifying and prioritising projects. Customer
satisfaction is one among the criteria’s that is invariably pointed by all authors. Other
criteria includes finance, risks top management commitment, integration with the
company’s strategy, and alignment of strategic business goals. But no method has
formulated by any author to satisfy all the criteria in a single attempt. Few authors have
suggested some tools for accomplishing said objective through Cost benefit analysis,
cause and effect matrix, brainstorming and Pareto analysis. In our opinion, regarding
selection of projects, it is a pretty simple equation, really well-selected and defined
improvement projects equal better, faster results. The converse equation is also simple;
poorly selected and defined projects equal delayed results and frustration. Our review has
developed the following keys for effective project selection:
350 M. Shanmugaraja et al.

1 Executive/leadership training
There is lot for leaders to learn when it comes to guiding a Six Sigma initiative.
Picking the right projects and defining them well is by no means easy. If Six Sigma
projects are ill defined, the impact is immediate. ‘Hence, it is imperative for senior
team to teach how to pick projects’.
2 Launching a reasonable number of projects
Too large a wave of projects can drown leader’s ability to track and guide them.
‘Too many projects scatter people’s attention and sap their ability to implement them
well’.
3 Scope projects properly
Our catch-phrase for a common mistake is ‘trying to solve world hunger’. Too
often, projects are assigned to teams that are major, complex issues. A team can
easily spend months trying to follow and measure all the various tendrils of an
issue, thereby frustrating the team and trying the leaders’ patience. Mantra like
‘meaningful and manageable’ may solve this issue. This means keeping the
assignments small and much focused. ‘Organisations should devote extra
attention to define meaningful and manageable projects’.
4 Focus on both efficiency and customer benefits
Normally, the executive groups working on Six Sigma, demands to know when and
where their efforts would yield quick strike and financial gains. For most business, it
is possible after cost cutting and efficiency improvements. This desire for big
financial savings from Six Sigma is a good thing, as long as it is balanced by an
‘understanding that short-term financial gains are only a part of the potential
benefits’.

6 Implications and future research directions

More intricacy is encountered in this research study because it is hard to confine to

specific discipline since the Six Sigma research is scattered across various journals from
various domains and fields. Although this review does not claim to be exhaustive, it does
provide reasonable insights into the state of the art in Six Sigma research. Based on the
overall review presented in this paper, it is identified that a number of research
implications and directions for future research as follows:
• A generic model is required to be developed to take Six Sigma into various disciples
and domains successfully. This is because the Six Sigma research will grow rapidly
in future covering various disciplines and domains.
• A comparative literature frame work is required to highlight the commonality of Six
Sigma tools so that it may enrich the application of the methodology both in
manufacturing as well as in service industries in future.
• Future research on Six Sigma myths along with case applications may be solicitude.
 Literature snapshot on Six Sigma project selection for future research 351

• There is a great potential for practicable application of survey approach in Six Sigma
research as a wide range of processes or organisations adopt Six Sigma tools and
methodologies.
• Since the combined use of analytical and empirical research techniques has the
potential to offer greater insights into research, it is desirable to see more papers
apply triangulation approach in Six Sigma research through the use of multiple data
collection methods.
• Researchers are encouraged to map the efforts of Six Sigma research in
manufacturing and service organisations to a proposed framework and then provide a
thorough analysis on each framework.
• Researchers and practitioners are encouraged to propose a standard Six Sigma
curriculum design with multidisciplinary orientation.
• Managing Six Sigma risks and crises is a new attractive topic for researchers.
• Mapping the organisational barriers to the success of Six Sigma may be studied in
future with real-time case applications.
In future, Six Sigma practitioners and academics may work on developing a model for
systematically analysing the possible projects to establish priority for implementing Six
Sigma. Moreover the model may be designed capable enough to align the company
vision to projects which might have greater influence on realisation of organisation goals.
Possibly, as of our knowledge, Six Sigma tool kit itself contains some wonderful tools
like quality function deployment (QFD), a well-known prioritisation tool may be
considered for developing above said model.

Acknowledgements

The authors are obliged to unknown reviewers of earlier version of this paper for
providing the authors the valuable comments and suggestions for improving the
manuscript.

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