Six Sigma fiascos: a failure in the consensus of perspective

In the mid-1980s, a process management program - Six Sigma – is developed to produce high-quality, zero-defect products by reducing process variations. The Six Sigma approach promises to offer significant improvements on overall firm performance as its primary focus points more toward the satisfaction of customers. As more companies worldwide attempt to implement the approach since its inception, several accounts on both its success and failure have been documented in the literature. Several scholars further attempted to examine the underlying premises as to how the methodology succeeded in one case and at the same time failed in another. Such efforts resulted in the identification of critical success and failure factors of the implementation of Six Sigma. At a wider scope, it can be noted, however, that the factors for success and failure lie in the lack of consensus among perspectives. It is, therefore, the goal of this paper to present a comprehensive review of the major pitfalls of Six Sigma as a concept and as a structured problem-solving methodology. Lastly, this paper presents the implications of such pitfalls as a way forward for Six Sigma including its ancillary methodologies.