Feature

The Six Sigma Syndrome

Six Sigma (6s) - a disciplined management methodology remains a mystical term in the corporate sector. The tool enables the organisation to continuously improve its work culture and processes. Saurabh Jaggi divulges ways of its implementation and benefits to the hospitality industry

Six Sigma (6s) - even after years of its existence and hundreds of articles splashed all over, remains one of the mysterious buzzwords in the corporate sector. The 6s team is an integral part of the quality set up in any organisation, aiming at establishing a continuous improvement culture.

Which brings me to an interesting and unusual question - What is 6s?

Is it a metric, a tool, a methodology or a discipline?

The answer is - all of the above.

Sigma is a Greek alphabet used to designate the distribution around the mean of any process.

History:

Six Sigma is a management tool developed by Motorola in the mid-1980s that helped it realise superior performance results in the organisation. GE, Allied Signals (now Honeywell), Ford, American Express, Chase JP Morgan followed suit and saved millions of dollars through this quality methodology. Mikel Harry who is also known as the Godfather of this methodology, though he did not invent it, is acknowledged as a leading authority in theory and practice. He is recognised for preaching and popularising it. While Dr Deming's theory of profound knowledge built management awareness and Dr Juran established the foundation of Quality Science, Dr Harry demonstrated how to transform theory into practice at companies like Motorola, GE and Allied Signal. The credit for assigning the name Six Sigma goes to a Motorola engineer named Bill Smith who worked with Harry at Motorola.

My past few years in this field taught me that it is a rigorous and disciplined data-driven approach to improve processes by reducing variation and eliminating defects from a product and/or service. It helps an organisation realise breakthrough achievements to do things faster, better and cheaper and most importantly aims at achieving and exceeding customer expectations. The bouquet of tools that are offered coupled with its approach make it different from the other methodologies that have been existing for some time. To put it in simple terms, it is a metric that indicates how well a process is performing. The higher the Sigma value, the better.

The 3 commandments of this philosophy are: -

• The Customer is the King
• In God only we trust, rest all gather data
• Variation is the enemy of all processes

Manufacturing, automobile, aviation, medical transcription, software, ITES, banks and even other financial institutions are following this methodology.

The question then is why not Hotels?

If the first commandment of Six Sigma talks about the customer, how can we leave out an industry which is the epitome of customer service and thrives purely on achieving customer delight consistently.

The call of the hour is to welcome Six Sigma in this industry and utilise the skill to enhance employee efficiency and customer satisfaction. Increasing competition from other organisations and intensive work reaffirms the above hypothesis.

In an industry where customer interactions occur on an hourly basis, each customer touch point is critical for building personalised service credibility and developing customer affinity.

Some of the areas/ processes where this approach may add value: -

Hotel-wide

• Enhance Customer Loyalty
• Reduce Employee attrition
• Productivity/Efficiency Improvement
• Improve Work-life balance
• Reduce Billing errors/losses
• Developing better performance measures/ metrics
• Increase Revenue
• Reduce Cost
• Capture 'Voice of Customer' data

Front Office Operations/ Sales & Marketing

• Reduce wait time during peak check-in time
• Reduce wait time during peak check-out time
• Eliminate billing errors and improve accuracy
• Reduce No shows
• Increase Occupancy
• Optimal utilisation of the current product mix (rooms) to increase revenue
• Increase customer delight at the Executive Club
• Reduce/eliminate loss calls (Operators area)
• Accuracy of information

Food and Beverage Service / Production

• To maintain optimal inventory
• Minimise wastage/pilferage
• Standardised output of Food and Beverage
• Reduce the time from order to service
• Optimal utilisation of current product mix (F&B/Outlets) to increase revenue

Accommodation Operation (Housekeeping)

• Reduce the turnaround time of making/turning down a room
• Standardisation of cleanliness across areas

Purchase/Stores

• Reduce Inventory surplus
• Cost Benefit Analysis between cost of inventory and cost of storage of products where prices vary seasonally
• Standardise the operating procedure of issuance to various departments
• Reduce the turnaround time of issuance to various departments

Human Resources/ Personnel

• Accuracy of payroll
• Documentation management
• Reduce the turnaround time of recruitment
• Reduce the turnaround time of relieving
• Increase the employee satisfaction rate

Throughout the hotel industry, the gospel of excellence is the key ingredient to success. In search of performance management excellence, Hilton Hotels corporation has implemented a Balanced Scorecard that incorporates revenue maximisation, operational effectiveness and brand management. The culture at Marriott International, Inc prides itself on its reputation for superior customer service - 'people serving people'. Starwood hotels and resorts worldwide Inc is the first hospitality company in the world to embrace Six Sigma since 2001 and extends this best practice to all properties worldwide, including the Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel & Tower.

Barry S. Sternlicht, chairman and CEO, Starwood Hotels and Resorts had stated, "The launch of Six Sigma is one of the most important strategic initiatives since the formation of our company," he continued. "It is our goal for every Westin, Sheraton, W, Four Points by Sheraton, Starwood Vacation Ownership and St. Regis /Luxury Collection guests to have a flawless experience during each and every visit. Six Sigma will help us reach that goal."

Starwood had also enlisted the expertise of the Six Sigma specialist and renowned author Peter Pande to assist with the launch. The Sheraton Miramar resort had the highest overall performance in 2004 in each of the five key metric measurements including the Guest Satisfaction index. They were recognised as the Hotel of the Year in EAME (East Africa and Middle East) region.

Starwood has run over 3000 projects worldwide to date in areas such as productivity, menu re-design, resort concierge, email marketing and launching a worldwide sales initiative. Another of its chain of hotels, The Westin Turnberry resort in Scotland won the IQPC's 5th Annual European Six-Sigma summit in London in April 2004. It won the European award in the category 'Design for Six Sigma' for a reservation project. Recently I read about the Sheraton Lagos Hotel & Tower having adopted 6s as the driving force for its business in 2003. Within this period it had experienced improvement in every facet of the business from the product delivery to service delivery to guest and employee satisfaction all of which impacted the bottom line positively. A major part of the credit for this transformation goes to Keith Ferrazi, a Harvard MBA and the youngest partner at Deloitte Consulting, joined the Starwood group as the chief marketing officer.

Leveraging the approach of the Starwood group, our leading hotel chains in India viz. Oberoi, Taj, Hyatt, Meridien, Intercontinental, ITC, Leela, Park etc can also benefit from this program. In order to enhance Customer Experience and Reduce Cost, all they need to do is welcome Six Sigma with open arms and make it a part of their culture.A number of Hotel Management graduates like me are today a part of the Six Sigma galaxy and we wait for the day when Six Sigma becomes a household name in the hotel fraternity - an industry which launched their careers, an industry which would remain their first love.

‘The writer is working at Prudential Process Management Services as a Senior Manager Quality and leads the six sigma initiative. He can be reached at saurabhjaggi@yahoo.com’