Six Sigma For Sustainability In Multinational Organizations

Abstract

The Six Sigma model provides various kinds of sustainability to companies in terms of quality enhancement, zero defect level, market share enhancement, optimal production level and financial returns.  Multinational companies are more orientated toward implementation of Six Sigma than small scale locally held companies.  Numerous larger companies have so far implemented Six Sigma including 3M, Caterpillar, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Amazon.com, DHL, SGL group, Dell, Ford Motor Company, DuPont, McGraw Hill Companies and HSBC group.  Implementation of Six Sigma requires considerable cost and effort in terms of human resource training and reformulation of business processes.  This study is an attempt to find what kind of sustainability motivates multinational companies to invest in Six Sigma.  Sustainability identified includes social sustainability, environmental sustainability, and economic sustainability.  With the aid of interviews, a constant comparison study is conducted in order to find the most prevalent type of sustainability offered by Six Sigma.  A sample is drawn from multinational companies which have already implemented Six Sigma in their operations.  The findings suggest that multinational companies implement Six Sigma in order to attain economic sustainability through various means such as market share, customer base, and social sustainability.