2015 International Conference on Technologies for Sustainable Development (ICTSD-2015), Feb.
04 – 06, 2015, Mumbai, India
Implementation of Six Sigma with ISO in the Indian
Textile Industry for Improvement in Performance
Sachidanand S. More1
1 2
Research Student,
BMIT, Solapur, India
ssmore81@gmail.com
Abstract— This paper discusses the implementation of quality
management systems (Six Sigma) along with ISO in the textile
industry of India. The literature indicates that Indian companies
are falling far behind in comparison to their international
competitors in the area of competitiveness like timely delivery,
consistency, reliability, innovation and quality. Adoption of
quality management systems with ISO can help the organisations
to improve competitiveness and performance. In this study data
is collected from twenty six textile companies which are member
of The Textile Association India (TAI), located in Solapur
district, Maharashtra. The findings indicate that only ISO 9000
Quality Management System is widely adopted by the sample
companies whereas the other model like Six Sigma is not given
importance.
Keywords—Six Sigma; ISO; QMS.
I. INTRODUCTION
The Textile industry in India occupies an important place
in the economy. After the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
regime it has to face cut throat competition in the international
market due to decentralized sector and also has the opportunity
in the world market. This industry is not performing up to the
mark in comparison to their competitors in the dimensions of
competitiveness like timely delivery, consistency, reliability,
innovation and quality [1].
N. Kavitha (2010) after research concluded that Indian
textile industry enjoys a rich heritage and the origin of textiles
in India traces back to the Indus valley Civilizations where
people used homespun cotton for weaving their clothes.
Rigveda, the earliest of the Veda contains the literary
information about textiles and it refers to weaving. Ramayana
and Mahabharata, the eminent Indian epics depict the existence
of wide variety of fabrics in ancient India. The contemporary
Indian textile not only reflects the splendid past but also cater
to the requirements of the modern times [2].
Annual Report of Ministry of Textiles, Government of India
(2009–10), indicated that the textile industry occupies a unique
place in our country. One of the earliest to come into existence
in India, it accounts for 14% of the total Industrial production
and is the second largest employment generator after
agriculture [3].
Vikram Utamsingh (2003) conducted a survey, and based on
results it can be said that India’s textile industry since its
beginning continues to be predominantly cotton based with
978-1-4799-8187-8/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
Dr. Maruti S. Pawar2
Principal
BMIT, Solapur, India
drmspbmit@gmail.com
about 65 percent of fabric consumption in the country being
accounted for by cotton [4].
TABLE I. INDIAN TEXTILE INDUSTRY
1200 medium to large scale
Size of the Industry
textile mills in India
Geographical TamilNadu, AndhraPradesh,
distribution Punjab, Karnataka, Maharashtra
16% per annum growth rate and
Output per annum
1000 Million kg per annum
Percentage in world
7% share in the global market
market
The industry is highly localised in Ahmedabad and Bombay
in the western part of the country though other canters exist
including Kanpur, Calcutta, Indore, Coimbatore, and Solapur.
A. Importance of Textile Industry in India
Like the other developing countries, the Textile industry in
India also occupies an important place in the economy as
shown below [3], [4].
• It contributes 4% to the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP),
• It accounts for 17% of total Exports,
• It is the largest employment provider after Agriculture
(82 million people direct & indirect),
• The market size of the Textile industry (exports &
domestic) is US$ 52 billion,
• It is expected to reach US$ 120 billion by 2014.
Globalisation is an inevitable phenomenon. It is no longer
an option, but a fact whether one likes it or not. Countries like
India have to manage their economies skilfully, to face the
global crosscurrents. Due to the World Trade Organisation
(WTO) regime, quota restrictions have been abolished and now
trade is governed by General Agreement on Trade and Tariff
(GATT) principles. Before the enforcement of the WTO
regime, quotas for the developing countries restricted the
textile trade. This was one of the reasons that countries like
India were unable to access larger markets. The results of the
dismantling of the quota regime have initiated open and stiff
competition in the international market.
 2015 International Conference on Technologies for Sustainable Development (ICTSD-2015), Feb. 04 – 06, 2015, Mumbai, India

provide independent confirmation that organizations meet the

Fig. 1. The world market share (Annual Report (2009–10)) requirements of ISO 9001. Over one million organizations
worldwide are independently certified, making ISO 9001 one
of the most widely used management tools in the world today.
Despite widespread use, the ISO certification process has been
criticized as being wasteful and not being useful for all
organizations.
C. Six Sigma
Six Sigma is a business performance improvement strategy
that aims to reduce the number of mistakes/defects to as low as
3.4 occasions per million opportunities by reducing variation.
Sigma (σ) is a measure of “variation about the average” in a
process which could be in manufacturing or service industry.
Six-sigma is a data-driven approach to process improvement.
Six-sigma was first time developed & introduced by Sir Bill
Smith in Motorola in 1987.
TABLE II. EXPORTS OF APPARELS IN 2012 The fundamental principle of Six Sigma is to ‘take an
organization to an improved level of sigma capability through
Country US $ Billion the rigorous application of statistical tools and techniques’. In
China 8,260.921 process improvement the goal of a Six Sigma project is to
Hong Kong 1,723.210 reduce the number of defects.
Italy 1,353.586 II. LITURETURE RIVIEW
Malaysia 1,255.069 This section is about the generic overview of Indian textile
Germany 669.130 industry, its competitiveness in the international market
Pakistan 618.830 followed by the discussion on the relationship of performance
with the implementation of quality concepts.
Thailand 597.758 Deming, Crosby and Juran who are the proponent of Total
USA 595.171 Quality Management (TQM) approach, advocated that the
India 522.463 companies could achieve higher levels of quality and
Annual Report (2009–10), Ministry of Textiles, Government of India
performance by implementation of quality management
philosophy [5]. For example, Deming (1986, p.1) asserts,
TABLE III. TABLE STYLES INDIA’S C OMPETITIVE POSITION IN STAGES OF “Productivity increases with improvement of quality. Low
TEXTILE MANUFACTURE quality means high cost and loss of competitive position”.
Similarly, Crosby (1980, p.1) states, “if you concentrate on
making quality certain, you can probably increase your profit
by an amount equal to 5% to 10% of your sales”. Hendricks
and Singhal (1999) provide empirical evidence from six
hundred quality award winning companies located in the USA
that TQM implementation has a positive effect on
organisational performance [5]. They indicate that the award
winning companies have a much better performance compared
to non-award winning companies, in terms of operating
income, total sales, total assets, return on sales and return on
assets. Similarly, Masakure, Henson and Cranfield (2009)
conducted research in the textile sector of developing
B. ISO countries; they claim that export performance is positively
associated with certification of ISO 9000. Martinez-Costa,
The ISO 9000 family of quality management systems Choi and Martinez (2009), Terziovski and Power (2007), and
standards is designed to help organizations ensure that they Curkovic and Pagell (1999) also reported that certification to
meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders while quality management systems enhances the organisational
meeting statutory and regulatory requirements related to a performance and competitiveness of the organisations [6].
product. ISO 9000 deals with the fundamentals of quality On the other hand, the review of literature indicates that very
management systems, including the eight management little effort has been made to investigate the implementation of
principles upon which the family of standards is based. ISO quality and excellence initiatives in the Indian textile sector.
9001 deals with the requirements that organizations wishing to Only a few studies like Mr. R.R. Gorakhia, (Director, TQM
meet the standard must fulfill. Third-party certification bodies Division, Textiles Committee, Ministry of Textiles;
 2015 International Conference on Technologies for Sustainable Development (ICTSD-2015), Feb. 04 – 06, 2015, Mumbai, India
Government of India) at Goski Industries, Banda Industries &
Venkataranga Textiles (2009) are available which give limited
information about the adoption of quality and excellence
concepts in textile industries of India[7], [8]. Furthermore, the
existing literature does not give any comprehensive
information about the use of quality and excellence
frameworks in India. Therefore, this article will investigate the
level of adoption of quality management and business
excellence systems and models in the Indian textile companies.
This will indirectly highlight the level of implementation of
quality and excellence concepts in the sample companies.
Fig. 2. Comparison of the Characteristics of Indian Textile Sector to the
other competitors in South Asia and China (M. Shafiq (2012))
Asian Development Bank conducted a survey conducted by
with the help of the Indian Council for Research International
Economic Relations (ICRIER) (2006 – 2007), for this study the
data was collected from interviews with buyers, representatives
of departmental stores, giant discount chains, branded
merchandisers and buying houses and intermediaries from all
over the world. They were asked to rate the textile products of
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka on ten key
dimensions of competitiveness. The findings of this study
indicate that Indian textile companies have an advantage over
their competitors in terms of price and scale. However, they are
not competitive enough on product dimensions like product
design, innovation, quality, and consistency and reliability [9].
Tari (2005) and M. Shafiq (2012) described that many firms
use models and frameworks of different quality and excellence
tools as a guide for the implementation of TQM or to carryout
self assessment of their quality management system [6].
Among these models and frameworks the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award model, EFQM excellence model,
Deming Application Prize, and ISO 9000 are the most
significant frameworks.
III. PROPOSED WORK
This study will be conducted in the context of textile
companies of India. The companies as population of this study
were taken from Maharashtra State of India. A self completion
questionnaire was sent to the sample companies. The quality
assurance managers were the respondents for this study. The
respondents from all the companies were asked whether they
had implemented or trying to implement any quality
management systems and models.
Based on the results obtained from the survey, decision is to
be taken whether ISO certification alone is sufficient for
improvement in productivity or not? If not then apply Six
Sigma strategy along with organisations existing ISO system.
The next step will be formulating an integrated system
compatible with existing ISO system that will be carried out for
harmony in implementation of Six Sigma strategy without
disturbing daily routines of production.
IV. REASERCH METHODOLOGY
In this study the use of Six Sigma which is a quality and
excellence tool considered as the proxy for the implementation
of quality and excellence along with organisations existing ISO
system.
Population and Sample Size
According to Berenson, Levine and Krehbiel (2009), when
the population of a study is located across a wide geographical
region, then cluster probability sampling is the best option to
get a representative sample, because it is cost effective in
comparison to simple random sampling. Thus as per results of
study carried out by M. Shafiq (2012), it is decided that all the
textile companies located in the province of Solapur City will
be considered as the sample for this study [6].
According to Saunders et al. (2009, p.219) if the population
size is 400, then the minimum sample size for confidence level
of 95% with margin of error ±5%, should be 196. In the current
study, the population size is 375 and the sample size is 210,
which is more than sufficient to achieve a confidence level of
95% with margin of error 5% [10]. The self completion
questionnaires were sent to the sample companies. The quality
assurance managers were the respondents for this study. The
respondents from all the companies were asked whether they
had implemented or were trying to implement any quality
management systems and models like Six Sigma.
V. RESULT
The graph in Figure 3 indicates the level of the
implementation of different management systems and models
in the sampled textile companies based on survey. This table
shows that seventy percent (70%) of the respondents have
replied that their companies have implemented or tried to
implement ISO 9001, eleven percent (11%) ISO 14000, six
percent (6%) SA 8000 (Social Accountability standard), six
percent (6%) the EFQM excellence model, one percent (1%)
MBNQA and Deming Prize and five percent (5%) Six Sigma.
 2015 International Conference on Technologies for Sustainable Development (ICTSD-2015), Feb. 04 – 06, 2015, Mumbai, India
Fig. 3. Extent of Implementation of Different Management Systems and
Standards
A much lower percentage of respondents mentioned that
their companies were interested in the implementation of
excellence or other advanced frameworks of improvement.
After ISO 9001, the sample companies seem interested in the
implementation of the environmental management standard
(ISO 14000) and the social accountability standard (SA 8000).
According to the perception of respondents, other models and
frameworks such as MBNQA, the EFQM excellence model
and Six Sigma were given the least importance by the sampled
textile companies. The high implementation of ISO 9001
indicates that the sampled companies are aware of the
importance of quality management however, they are not going
beyond the level of quality assurance to manage their
processes.
The sample companies seem highly interested in the
adoption of ISO 9001:2008 among the different systems and
standards. This finding is in accordance to the survey
conducted from December 2003 to December 2012 by
International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) [1].
According to that survey there was around a fourfold increase
in ISO 9000 certified companies in India between December
2003 and December 2012.
Fig. 4. Extent Growth of ISO 9000 Certification in India
The graph in Figure 4 indicates the increasing trend of
certified companies since December 2004, systems (Martinez-
Costa, Choi and Martinez, 2009; Terziovski and Power, 2007;
and Curkovic and Pagell, 1999) and excellence models like Six
Sigma (Hendricks and Singhal, 1999) helps the organisations
to achieve higher levels of performance and competitiveness
[8].
VI. discussion
Many other empirical studies in India and other parts of
the world indicate that implementation of quality management
Challenges involved in the implementation of Six Sigma in
technical textile sector are:
• Lack of knowledge about Six Sigma,
• Internal resistance from functional personnel to change,
• Cultural Barrier,
• Poor Six Sigma project selection,
• Lack of Resources.
The results of survey and literature studied indicate that if
the textile industry in India wants to improve their performance
and competitiveness in the international market, they need to
adopt the concepts of quality and excellence like Six Sigma.
REFERENCES
[1] Sachidanand S. More, Dr. Maruti S. Pawar (2013), ‘Performance
Improvement of Textile Sector by Implementing Quality Six Sigma
(QSS)’, International Journal of Application or Innovation in
Engineering & Management (IJAIEM), Volume 2, Issue 12, December
2013, Page 352 – 357.
[2] N. Kavitha (2010), ‘Textile industry in Indian scenario’,
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[3] Annual Report (2009–10), Ministry of Textiles, Government of India,
www.ministrtyoftextiles.gov.in
[4] Vikram Utamsingh (2003), ‘SWOT analysis of Indian Textile Industry,
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ISO 9000 Quality Management Standard: A Signaling Approach’, the
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[6] M. Shafiq (2012), Institute of Quality & Technology Management,
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