386 Int. J. Process Management and Benchmarking, Vol. 3, No.

3, 2013

Six Sigma implementation through DMAIC: a case

study

K. Prabu*, J. Makesh, K. Naveen Raj and

S.R. Devadasan
Production Engineering Department,
PSG College of Technology,
Coimbatore-641004, India
E-mail: kprabu1991@gmail.com
E-mail: makesh617@gmail.com
E-mail: naveenrj22@gmail.com
E-mail: devadasan_srd@yahoo.com
*Corresponding author

R. Murugesh
Darshan Institute of Engineering and Technology,
Rajkot 363650, Gujarat, India
E-mail: drmurugesh_m@yahoo.com

Abstract: This paper reports a research in which the impact of implementing

define, measure, analyse, improve and control (DMAIC) phases of Six Sigma
concept was examined in the production of submersible pumps. During this
examination, the problem of overcoming ovality in a component called stage
casing was examined through the application of DMAIC phases of Six Sigma.
Conduct of design of experiment formed a core activity of this examination. At
the end of conducting this examination, two solutions for overcoming ovality
were evolved. One of those two solutions was implemented practically. The
calculations carried out during this examination revealed that, on the
implementation of these solutions, the Sigma level quality is prone to increase
from 3.90 to 3.97. This increase in Sigma level indicates that, the
implementation of DMAIC would aid small and medium size pumps
manufacturing companies to improve their operations so as to perform at Six
Sigma level quality.

Keywords: Six Sigma; define, measure, analyse, improve and control;

DMAIC; FMEA; Pareto analysis; project charter and DOE.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Prabu, K., Makesh, J.,
Raj, K.N., Devadasan, S.R. and Murugesh, R. (2013) ‘Six Sigma
implementation through DMAIC: a case study’, Int. J. Process Management
and Benchmarking, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp.386–400.

Biographical notes: K. Prabu received his Bachelor’s degree in Production

Engineering (Sandwich Programme) from PSG College of Technology,
Coimbatore, India. His area of research interests includes lean manufacturing
and Six Sigma.

Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

 Six Sigma implementation through DMAIC 387

J. Makesh received his Bachelor’s degree in Production Engineering (Sandwich

Programme) from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India. His area of
research interests includes lean manufacturing and Six Sigma.

K. Naveen Raj received his Bachelor’s degree in Production Engineering

(Sandwich Programme) from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India.
His area of research interests includes lean manufacturing and Six Sigma.

S.R. Devadasan is a Professor in the Production Engineering Department of

PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India. He holds a Bachelor’s degree
in Mechanical Engineering, a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering, a PhD
in Mechanical Engineering and a Doctor of Science (DSc) in Mechanical
Engineering. He has 23 years of teaching and research experience. He has
published over 100 papers in international journals. He is an editorial advisory
board member of the European Journal of Innovation Management. His
research interests include Six Sigma, total productive maintenance and lean
manufacturing.

R. Murugesh is the Principal of Darshan Institute of Engineering and

Technology, Rajkot, India. He has more than 20 years of experience in teaching
and research and has published 18 papers in various international journals. His
area of interest includes strategic productivity management, total productive
maintenance, MIS, web engineering and executive support systems.

1 Introduction

Manufacturing companies have been adopting numerous technologies and management

models to achieve zero defect manufacturing. The need of zero defect manufacturing is
increasingly realised globally for the purpose of reducing the manufacturing cost and
increasing profit. One of the ways of achieving zero defect manufacturing is
implementing a continuous quality improvement model. Of late, manufacturing
companies have been adopting Six Sigma as the continuous quality improvement model
for achieving zero defect manufacturing (Shafer and Moeller, 2012; Lin et al., 2013). Six
Sigma emerged in Motorola in the late 1980s (Black and Revere, 2006). After that, the
popularity of Six Sigma was enhanced by General Electric (GE) (Antony et al., 2012)
which reported achieving zero defect manufacturing on implementing it. During the early
years of emergence of the Six Sigma, it was widely implemented in manufacturing
companies. On realising its capability in facilitating financially beneficial results coupled
with achieving zero defect manufacturing, the Six Sigma has been applied in both
manufacturing and service sectors (Tjahjono et al., 2010; Miguel et al., 2012; Laureani
and Antony, 2012). Furthermore, Six Sigma applications have been reported in sales and
marketing also (Salzarulo et al., 2012). These developments indicate the proven
capability of Six Sigma (Arumugam et al., 2013).
Six Sigma is primarily encapsulated with two pillars which are known as DMAIC and
belt-based training system. DMAIC facilitates the companies to carry out Six Sigma
projects through five phases namely define, measure, analyse, improve and control (Goh
and Xie, 2003; Anand et al., 2007; Sahoo et al., 2008). On the other hand belt-based
training system facilitates the development of trained personnel with designations as
Champion, Master Black Belt, Black Belt and Green Belt (Zu et al., 2008). While
388 K. Prabu et al.

adopting DMAIC is affordable to all companies, implementing belt-based training system

is so expensive that its adoption is affordable only to companies with high financial
strength. This is due to the reason that, the original design of Six Sigma concept that
emanated in Motorola and GE stipulates the spending of high amount of money for
developing belt training system by appointing trainers and using costly infrastructure to
train Six Sigma project team members. This is not only unaffordable to small size
companies, but also, not economical from the point of view of the payback. In this
context, it is observed that, small size companies can benefit by adopting DMAIC
explicitly and belt-based system implicitly. In the context of this observation, this paper
reports a research in which DMAIC was applied in a pump manufacturing company
situated in Coimbatore City of India.
Coimbatore has been known for the functioning of many numbers of pumps
manufacturing companies. Majority of these companies situated in Coimbatore are small
in size. Due to the intensification of competition, these pumps manufacturing companies
are required to implement the Six Sigma without much investment to infuse high degree
of quality in the manufacturing pumps. As the pumps manufacturing companies situated
in Coimbatore are small in size, the volume of pumps produced by them is less. Hence,
these pumps manufacturing companies cannot afford to implement belt-based training
method. Hence, only DMAIC phase of Six Sigma can be implemented in these pumps
manufacturing companies. This derivation reveals the need of examining the practical
implications of applying DMAIC in pumps manufacturing companies. In this context, the
research reported in this paper was carried out.
In the research been reported in this paper, the production of submersible pumps was
considered as the pilot area for examining the practicality of applying DMAIC. The
reason for selecting submersible pump is that, these kinds of pump find as much as 80%
(prweb, 2013) of production in many pump manufacturing companies. During the
research reported in this paper, DMAIC was applied in a pumps manufacturing company
to avoid ovality in the face of one of the components called ‘Stage casing’ used in
companies manufacturing submersible pumps. The details of this research are presented
in the following four sections of this paper.
After this Introduction section, the papers surveyed and reviewed in connection with
the application of DMAIC phases of the Six Sigma are elaborated. In the third section,
the efforts made to apply DMAIC in the production of submersible pumps are elaborated.
This research paper is concluded in the fourth section by suggesting the scope for
pursuing further research in this direction.

2 Literature review

The world has witnessed wide applications of Six Sigma concept (Anand et al., 2007;
Desai et al., 2012; Chakraborty and Tan, 2012; Celano et al., 2012; Heavey and Murphy,
2012). The researchers who have studied the pace and trend of implementing Six Sigma
have explained the widespread applications of Six Sigma in different types of
organisations for achieving varied objectives (Lin et al., 2013; Nair et al., 2011; Sony and
Naik, 2012). Most of these researchers have advocated that DMAIC and belt-based
system of training form the integral unit of Six Sigma concept (Chakravorty, 2009).
Some authors have reported the high amount of time and money that are spent by the
companies on developing the belt-based training infrastructure towards implementing
 Six Sigma implementation through DMAIC 389

DMAIC. This kind of heavy investment may make Six Sigma implementation an
uneconomical venture in small and medium sized companies. Presumably on realising
this deficiency of Six Sigma concept, a few researchers started to explore the power of
implementing only DMAIC phases in organisations (Li et al., 2008; Taner et al., 2012).
On observing this trend, the literature review being reported here was carried out. During
this literature survey, only six research papers dealing exclusively with the application of
DMAIC phases could be located. The contributions of researches reported in these papers
are briefly described in this section.
Li et al. (2008) have applied DMAIC phases to improve the capability of surface
mount technology (SMT) in solder printing process. During the Define phase, the defects
encountered in SMT process were identified. Then ‘solder thickness’ was identified as
critical to quality characteristic. During the Measure phase, process capability indices
namely Cp and Cpk were used to measure the performance of SMT process. During the
analyse phase, the cause and effect diagram, Taguchi’s S/N ratio and ANOVA were used
to analyse the causes of the defect. During the Improve phase, two steps under the titles
‘reducing variation’ and ‘adjusting process mean’ were implemented to improve the SMT
solder printing process. It is recommended to use mean and range charts and gauges for
avoiding variations of solder thickness. On the whole, this project has exhibited that with
the aid of DMAIC phases, it is possible to improve the performance of the process.
Kumar and Sosnoski (2009) have applied DMAIC phases to implement Six Sigma
concept to reduce the amount of warp that occurred in a company by name Wilson Tools
during heat treatment of punches. During the Define phase, ‘Pareto analysis’ was
conducted to identify the problem occurred in the Wilson tools. One of the problems
identified was the warpage occurred in punches during heat treatment. Hence, the
objective was set to reduce this warpage. During measure phase, ‘Process capability
analysis’ was used to identify whether the process was capable or not. During analyse
phase, warp of the process was measured by choosing 100 punches and measuring the
same. Mean and standard deviation of warp were identified. Subsequently, ‘cause and
effect diagram’ was used to narrow down the scope of the project to improve the heat
treatment process. During the improve phase, process map and cause and effect diagram
were used to identify the action that will lead to the development of the warpage of
punches during the heat treatment process. One of the findings of this Improve phase is
that, hanging the punches in the fixture resulted in least amount of warp and variations. In
order to control the process, the use of histogram and control charts are recommended for
the usage. Finally, it is stated that, implementation of DMAIC phases has resulted in the
improvement of process and saving of a considerable amount of money.
Sahoo et al. (2008) have applied DMAIC phases to implement Six Sigma concept in
the case of producing forged components by employing radial forging. During the define
phase, it was identified that, development of residual stresses is the cause for affecting the
achievement of desired dimensions and surface quality. During the measure phase, 24
samples of forged components (sample size was five) were selected and the residual
stresses were calculated. During the Analyse phase, Taguchi’s design of experiments
(DOE) approach was used to identify factors contributing to the development of the
residual stresses. The finding was that, the inlet angle and friction coefficients were the
two factors playing major role in causing residual stress. During the Improve phase,
results obtained by conducting the previous phase were improved by conducting response
surface methodology (RSM). Consequently, these authors have found the values of the
parameters namely inlet angle, die land area and corner fillet that will minimise the
390 K. Prabu et al.

residual stresses. In order to control this process, the use of documentation and control
charts has been recommended.
Kumar et al. (2008) have appraised that, the DMAIC phases can be employed to
improve the service of the customers. These authors have described the benefits achieved
by implementing DMAIC phases in service oriented system. However, detailed
description under each phase of DMAIC has not been delineated. Rohini and Mallikarjun
(2011) have described the history of applying Six Sigma in healthcare industry. These
authors have reported the case of applying DMAIC in a hospital situation in India.
During the define phase, these authors have used project charter and high-level process
map to identify the problem. During the measure phase, data on servicing the customers
were ensemble. During the analyse phase, these data were analysed and causes of
deficiencies were depicted using cause and effect diagram. During the improve phase,
brainstorming session was conducted to evolve solution for overcoming the problem
identified. In order to control the process, supervisory activities were designed. These
authors have shown that, after implementing DMAIC phases, Sigma level performance
increased from 2.11 to 3.11 (in the case of first delay) and 3.4 (in the case of
cancellation).
On the whole, the case studies reported in the above research papers have established
the fact that, the implementation of DMAIC explicitly leads to the achievements of the
goals of implementing the Six Sigma concept (Suresh et al., 2012). This observation
implies that, Six Sigma level of quality can be achieved even without applying belt-based
training infrastructure which normally increases the investment. Although DMAIC is
found to be a promising approach of Six Sigma concept, it is yet to find application in
numerous industrial sectors. One of these sectors is those involving the manufacturing of
pumps. In the context of this observation, an implementation study was conducted to
examine the practical implications of applying DMAIC in the case of manufacturing
submersible pumps. The details of this implementation study are presented in the next
section.

3 Implementation study of DMAIC phases

The implementation study being reported here was carried out in a pumps manufacturing
company by name PSG Industrial Institute (hereafter referred to as PSG). PSG is situated
in Coimbatore City of India. In PSG, several types of pumps like centrifugal pumps,
reciprocating pumps and submersible pumps are manufactured. Among them, domestic
centrifugal pumps (known as monoblock) and submersible pumps are produced in large
volumes to meet the high demand of the customers. As mentioned earlier, during the
conduct of the implementation study being reported here, the production of submersible
pump was chosen as the scope for studying the practical implication of DMAIC. The
activities carried out in these phases are reported in the following five subsections.

3.1 Define phase

During the define phase, a component by name ‘stage casing’ was identified to have
potential for overcoming many defects. The photograph showing a casting and machined
unit of stage casing is shown in Figure 1.
 Six Sigma implementation through DMAIC 391

Figure 1 Photograph of casting and machined unit of stage casing (see online version for colours)

Subsequently, necessary data were gathered and supplier input process output and
customer (SIPOC) chart shown in Figure 2 was developed.

Figure 2 SIPOC chart

Then, the statistics on the casting and machined defects reported in the case of
manufacturing 750 stage casing units were gathered. By referring to this statistics, Pareto
chart shown in Figure 3 was drawn. As shown, casting defects and ovality play major
roles in producing defective stage casing components. The castings of stage casing are
supplied by the sister company of PSG. Hence, the competent personnel of the sister
company was informed about the occurrence of the casting defects in stage casing and
was requested to take action to overcome these casting defects. Then, ovality was chosen
as the candidate defect for overcoming the same by applying DMAIC phase.
Subsequently, project charter shown in Table 1 was developed. As shown, occurrence of
ovality after machining the stage casing was defined as the problem of the project.
392 K. Prabu et al.

Figure 3 Pareto chart (see online version for colours)

Table 1 Project charter

Project name:
Stage casing project
Problem/opportunity Scope and constraints
In PSG, stage casings are machined and • The scope of this project is to eliminate defect
assembled in submersible pumps. While without increase in cost using DMAIC phase of
machining some casings are scraped due Six Sigma.
to ovality.
• The constraints are
a Manufacturing cost must not increase after
implementation
b The solution to be proposed to PSG may or
may not be implemented
Goal Team members
To reduce the amount of rejection incurred • J. Makesh
in the manufacturing of stage casing and
increase the productivity by using DMAIC • K. Naveen Raj
phase of Six Sigma. • K. Prabu

3.2 Measure phase

During the conduct of this phase, the ovality in stage casing was inspected using a bore
dial indicator. The anvil of the bore dial indicator is pressed inside the bore and rotated
horizontally in clockwise direction. In the absence of ovality, the needle will move only
in the clockwise direction. In the case of ovality, the needle in the bore dial indicator will
deflect in the anti-clockwise direction. Thus, stage casing units were inspected using bore
 Six Sigma implementation through DMAIC 393

dial indicator for ovality. After each stage casing was inspected, the data was entered in a
check sheet. The data thus gathered are shown in Table 2.
Table 2 Statistics of defects reported in the manufacturing of stage casings

Total number of machined stage casing units inspected = 750

Number of Proportion of
Proportion of Cumulative
Name of the defects found in defects in
defects in frequency of
defects 750 units of cumulative
percentage defects
stage casing percentage
Casting defect 20 65 20 65
Ovality 5 16 25 81
Oversize of bore 2 6 27 87
Face out 2 7 29 94
Others 2 7 31 100

As shown in Table 2, out of 750 stage casing units inspected, 31 of them have been
rejected. Using this data, the sigma value was determined. The procedure followed to
determine the Sigma level is presented below:
Defects per unit (DPU) = Total number of stage casing units rejected
÷ Total number of stage casing units inspected
31 ÷ 750 = 0.0413
Since five defects were considered, the number of opportunities that cause the production
of defective stage casing units is five. Therefore,
Defects per opportunity (DPO) = DPU ÷ O

where O refers to the number of opportunities.

DPO = 0.0413 ÷ 5 = 0.00827
Now, Defects per million opportunities (DPMO) = DPO × 1,000,000 = 8,266.67.
From the Six Sigma conversion table (Park, 2003), it was found that Sigma value
against 8,266.67 DPMO in the case of producing the stage casing units in the research
being reported here is 3.90. Since, this value is quiet less than 6 Sigma, it was discernable
that opportunities exist to improve the Sigma level by overcoming defects in producing
stage casing units. In line to this observation, as mentioned earlier, in the research being
reported here, efforts were made to overcome ovality in the production of stage casing
units.

3.3 Analysis phase

During the conduct of analyse phase, in order to estimate the severity of ovality in
affecting the Sigma level quality of producing stage casings units, failure mode and
effects analysis (FMEA) was carried out. The FMEA table developed while conducting
this analysis is shown in Figure 4.
394 K. Prabu et al.

Figure 4 FMEA (see online version for colours)

As shown, the ovality dominated the defects while producing stage casing by exhibiting
highest risk priority number (RPN) of 252. This domination justified the selection of
ovality for overcoming the same to increase the Sigma level quality of producing stage
casing.
In order to identify the causes of getting ovality, several observations were made in
the work place where stage casing is machined. During each observation, the operators
were interviewed with the purpose of identifying the causes that lead to the ovality in
stage casing. These information and knowledge were used to draw the cause and effect
diagram shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 Cause and effect diagram (see online version for colours)
 Six Sigma implementation through DMAIC 395

As numerous causes are depicted in this cause and effect diagram, it was decided to
consider only the major causes to pursue further implementation study. By inspecting the
rejected stage casing units and subsequently discussing with the operator, following three
major causes were recognised for achieving the rest of Sigma level quality.
• tool wear
• chuck holding pressure
• high depth of cut.
After the identification of the above causes for further consideration, the Sigma level of
the quality was projected in the absence of ovality that happened due to the above three
causes. The calculations carried out in this regard are presented below:
Total number of defective stage casing unitsproduced = 31

Total number of defective stage casing units rejected due to ovality = 5

Number of defective stage casing units in the absence of ovality
= Total number ofdefective stage casing units produced
− Total number of defective stage casing units rejected due to ovality
= 31 − 5 = 26
Number of opportunities = 5

Hence,
DPU = 26 ÷ 750 = 0.034
DPO = DPU ÷ O = 0.034 ÷ 5 = 0.0069
DPMO = DPO × 1, 000, 000 = 6,933.33
Projected Sigma level = 3.97

Thus, on overcoming ovality, the Sigma level quality of producing stage casing units is
expected to increase from 3.90 to 3.97.

3.4 Improve phase

During the conduct of this phase, the theory was studied. Ovality occurs when differences
between major and minor axis emanate after machining. Ovality during machining occurs
due to reasons like high holding pressure, tool life, and depth of cut and uneven feed.
During the implementation study being reported here, out of these reasons, three of them
namely holding pressure, depth of cut and tool life were considered to design factorial
experimentation. After designing this experiment, the stage casing units were machined
by inputting the factors and levels of experiments. The details of this experiment and
ovality observed in each case are shown in Table 3.
As shown, ovality observed after conducting experiment numbers 1 and 2 is
0.01 millimetre (mm). This is the lowest ovality observed on conducting experiments
whose results are presented in Table 4. The factors and levels used during experiment
numbers 1 and 2 are tabulated in Table 3. As shown in Table 4, except the tool wear,
396 K. Prabu et al.

levels of two parameters namely chuck holding pressure and depth of cut remain the
same in the experiments through which least ovality could be obtained. In future,
operators may use the values of factors and levels indicated in these experiments to get
least ovality in stage casing units.
Table 3 Factorial DOE

Experiment Chuck holding

Depth of cut (mm) Tool wear (μm) Ovality (mm)
number pressure (bar)
1 12 2 15 0.01
2 12 2 16 0.01
3 12 3 15 0.04
4 12 3 16 0.03
5 13 2 15 0.02
6 13 2 16 0.02
7 13 3 15 0.04
8 13 3 16 0.03

Table 4 Values of factors and levels indicated in these experiments to get least ovality

Experiment Chuck holding

Depth of cut (mm) Tool wear (μm) Ovality (mm)
number pressure (bar)
1 12 2 15 0.01
2 12 2 16 0.01

Besides conducting experiments and deriving the best factors and levels for obtaining
least ovality, special devices were designed to prevent ovality in case of machining the
stage casing units. It was found that, stage casing units were held using three jaw chucks
over a very limited length of 5 mm. Because of the limited area of holding, the operators
applied high pressure for preventing the stage casing units from slipping away from the
chuck. This caused unevenness in applying holding pressure. In order to impart uniform
holding pressure, for the purpose of avoiding ovality while machining stage casing units,
an attachment was designed, fabricated and welded with the three jaws of chuck. This
attachment is shown in Figures 6 and 7. Because of this attachment, operators are now
applying uniform pressure and occurrence of ovality in stage casing units is prevented to
the considerable extent.

Figure 6 Attachment of fixture without stage casing (see online version for colours)
 Six Sigma implementation through DMAIC 397

Figure 7 Attachment of fixture with stage casing (see online version for colours)

In order to eliminate stage casing defects, the employment of non-destructive testing

(NDT) of cast units of stage casing on their arrival from foundry unit was suggested.
According to this suggestion, on arrival, all the castings of stage casings are required to
be subjected to NDT and defective castings particularly with blow holes need to be
stopped from entering into the machining phase. However, the issue of spending
considerable amount of money for buying NDT unit needs to be explored in future to
prevent the castings of stage casing to enter into the machining phase.

3.5 Control phase

While implementing the control phase, it is to be ensured that, the suggestions are
implemented and sustained. In order to ensure this aspect, the supervisors need to be
instructed to check whether the operators implement the suggestions. A separate
inspection room is to be created in which NDT facilities are installed and castings of
stage casing are continuously inspected. Inspectors are required to prevent the defective
casting from entering into machining phase. A separate bin is to be created to keep the
rejected castings of stage casing.

4 Conclusions

Right from the middle part of the twentieth century, the world began to witness the
emergence of continuous quality improvement approaches under different titles like
TQC, CWQC, and TQM (Breja et al., 2011; Nudurupati et al., 2011). All these
approaches are not specifically pointing out the goals that the companies have to attain
for achieving zero defect manufacturing. This deficiency has been overcome in the case
of Six Sigma approach which was first implemented in Motorola in 1980s (Yusr et al.,
2012). Later, GE implemented and practiced Six Sigma and propagated its essential
features (Swink and Jacobs, 2012).
The Six Sigma approach embraces two main activities. One is the execution of
project to solve quality failures by applying DMAIC phases (Easton and Rosenzweig,
2012). Other activity is the creation of belt-based training infrastructure by assigning
designations namely Champion, Master Black belt, Black belt and Green belt (Shafer and
Moeller, 2012). The process of creating belt-based training infrastructure has been
consuming a lot of money in organisations while implementing Six Sigma projects. This
398 K. Prabu et al.

created an impression that Six Sigma is an expensive approach which is not economical
to implement in small and medium size manufacturing companies for achieving
continuous quality improvement.
In order to overcome the economical hurdle of implementing Six Sigma, researchers
and practitioners began to apply only DMAIC approach for enabling the companies to
move towards achieving Six Sigma level quality (Rohini and Mallikarjun, 2011; Mast
and Lokkerbol, 2012; Antony et al., 2012). In line to this development, the research
reported in these papers was carried out. During this research, defects that occur in the
case of manufacturing the stage casing units were considered. After considering five
major defects, ovality was zeroed on to solve and increase the Sigma level quality of
machining stage casing. After consulting the operator and deriving the theoretical
knowledge from books, an experiment was designed and conducted. This experiment was
useful to identify the combination of factors and levels that could result in least ovality
while machining stage casing.
The conduct of DMAIC phases triggered to fabricate an attachment for holding stage
casing units in the three jaw chuck. Further, the use of NDT was suggested to prevent the
castings of stage casing with defects from entering into machining phase. Thus, DMAIC
was useful in zeroing on the most critical to quality defect and evolve solutions to prevent
the recurrence of these defects. The limitation of this research work is that, all the
solutions could not be actually implemented in PSG. However, the calculations carried
out in this research work indicated that on implementing the suggestions evolved during
the research, Six Sigma level of machining stage casing units was expected to improve
from 3.90 to 3.97. This value indicates that, more factors are required to be considered
and analysed to identify more solutions that would enable the achievement of Six Sigma
level quality in the case of machining stage casing units. The results of this analysis need
to be used in small and medium sized companies to prevent the occurrence of ovality
while machining stage casing. Overall, this research work has revealed the
implementation of DMAIC alone is prone to aid the manufacturing companies to move
towards achieving zero defect manufacturing by overcoming defects by carrying out the
Six Sigma projects.

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to Prof. A. Gunasekaran, Editor-in-Chief and the anonymous
reviewer whose expertise has been used to significantly improve the presentation of this
paper.

References
Anand, R.B., Shukla, S.K., Ghorpade, A., Tiwari, M.K. and Shankar, R. (2007) ‘Six Sigma-based
approach to optimize deep drawing operation variables’, International Journal of Production
Research, Vol. 45, Nos. 10/15, pp.2365–2385.
Antony, J., Bhuller, A.S., Kumar, M., Mendibil, K. and Montgomery, D.C. (2012) ‘Application of
Six Sigma DMAIC methodology in a transactional environment’, International Journal of
Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp.31–53.
 Six Sigma implementation through DMAIC 399

Arumugam, V., Antony, J. and Kumar, M. (2013) ‘Linking learning and knowledge creation to
project success in Six Sigma projects: an empirical investigation’, International Journal of
Production Economics, Vol. 141, No. 1, pp.388–402.
Black, K. and Revere, L. (2006) ‘Six Sigma arises from the ashes of TQM with a twist’,
International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 19, Nos. 2–3, pp.259–266.
Breja, S.K., Banwet, D.K. and Iyer, K.C. (2011) ‘Quality strategy for transformation: a case study’,
The TQM Journal, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp.5–20.
Celano, G., Costa, A., Fichera, S. and Tringali, G. (2012) ‘Linking Six Sigma to simulation: a new
roadmap to improve the quality of patient care’, International Journal of Health Care Quality
Assurance, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp.254–273.
Chakraborty, A. and Tan, K.C. (2012) ‘Case study analysis of Six Sigma implementation in service
organisations’, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp.992–1019.
Chakravorty, S.S. (2009) ‘Six Sigma programs: an implementation model’, International Journal
of Production Economics, Vol. 119, No. 1, pp.1–16.
Desai, D.A., Antony, J. and Patel, M.B. (2012) ‘An assessment of the critical success factors for
Six Sigma implementation in Indian industries’, International Journal of Productivity and
Performance Management, Vol. 61, No. 4, pp.426–444.
Easton, G.S. and Rosenzweig, E.D. (2012) ‘The role of experience in Six Sigma project success:
An empirical analysis of improvement projects’, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 30,
Nos. 7–8, pp.481–493.
Goh, T.N. and Xie, M. (2003) ‘Statistical control of a Six Sigma process’, Quality Engineering,
Vol. 15, No. 4, pp.587–592.
Heavey, C. and Murphy, E. (2012) ‘Integrating the balanced scorecard with Six Sigma’, The TQM
Journal, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp.108–122.
Kumar, S. and Sosnoski, M. (2009) ‘Reflective practice using DMAIC Six Sigma to systematically
improve shop floor production quality and costs’, International Journal of Productivity and
Performance Management, Vol. 58, No. 3, pp.254–273.
Kumar, U.D., Nowicki, D., Ramírez-Márquez, J.E. and Verma, D. (2008) ‘On the optimal selection
of process alternatives in a Six Sigma implementation’, International Journal of Production
Economics, Vol. 111, No. 2, pp.456–467.
Laureani, A. and Antony, J. (2012) ‘Standards for Lean Six Sigma certification’, International
Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 61, No. 1, pp.110–120.
Li, M.H.C., Al-Refaie, A. and Yang, C.Y. (2008) ‘DMAIC approach to improve the capability of
SMT solder printing process’, IEEE Transactions on Electronics Packaging Manufacturing,
Vol. 31, No. 2, pp.126–133.
Lin, C., Chen, F.F., Wan, H., Chen, Y.M. and Kuriger, G. (2013) ‘Continuous improvement of
knowledge management systems using Six Sigma methodology’, Robotics and
Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp.95–103.
Mast, J.D. and Lokkerbol, J. (2012) ‘An analysis of the Six Sigma DMAIC method from the
perspective of problem solving’, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 139,
No. 2, pp.604–614.
Miguel, C.A.P., Satolo, E., Andrietta, M.J. and Calarge, A.F. (2012) ‘Benchmarking the use of
tools and techniques in the Six Sigma programme based on a survey conducted in a
developing country’, Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 19, No. 6, pp.690–708.
Nair, A., Malhotra, M.K. and Ahire, S.L. (2011) ‘Toward a theory of managing context in Six
Sigma process-improvement projects: An action research investigation’, Journal of
Operations Management, Vol. 29, No. 5, pp.529–548.
Nudurupati, S.S., Bititci, U.S., Kumar, V. and Chan, F.T.S. (2011) ‘State of the art literature
review on performance measurement’, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Vol. 60, No. 2,
pp.279–290.
Park, S.H. (2003) Six Sigma for Quality and Productivity Promotion, Asian Productivity
Organisation, Japan.
400 K. Prabu et al.

prweb (2013) [online] http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/1/prweb10360815.htm (accessed 2

July 2013).
Rohini, R. and Mallikarjun, J. (2011) ‘Six Sigma: improving the quality of operation theatre’,
Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 25, pp.273–280.
Sahoo, A.K., Tiwari, M.K. and Mileham, A.R. (2008) ‘Six Sigma based approach to optimize
radial forging operation variables’, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Vol. 2,
No. 2, pp.125–136.
Salzarulo, P.A., Krehbiel, T.C., Mahar, S. and Emerson, L.S. (2012) ‘Six Sigma sales and
marketing: application to NCAA basketball’, American Journal of Business, Vol. 27, No. 2,
pp.113–132.
Schroeder, R.G., Linderman, K., Liedtke, C. and Choo, A.S. (2008) ‘Six Sigma: definition and
underlying theory’, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp.536–554.
Shafer, S.M. and Moeller, S.B. (2012) ‘The effects of Six Sigma on corporate performance: an
empirical investigation’, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 30, Nos. 7–8, pp.521–532.
Sony, M. and Naik, S. (2012) ‘Six Sigma, organizational learning and innovation: an integration
and empirical examination’, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management,
Vol. 29, No. 8, pp.915–936.
Suresh, S., Antony, J., Kumar, M. and Douglas, A. (2012) ‘Six Sigma and leadership: some
observations and agenda for future research’, The TQM Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp.231–247.
Swink, M. and Jacobs, B.W. (2012) ‘Six Sigma adoption: operating performance impacts
and contextual drivers of success’, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 30, No. 6,
pp.437–453.
Taner, M.T., Sezen, B. and Atwat, K.M. (2012) ‘Application of Six Sigma methodology to a
diagnostic imaging process’, International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance,
Vol. 25, No. 4, pp.274–290.
Tjahjono, B., Ball, P., Vitanov, V.I., Scorzafave, C., Nogueira, J., Calleja, J., Minguet, M.,
Narasimha, L., Rivas, A., Srivastava, A., Srivastava, S. and Yadav, A. (2010) ‘Six Sigma: a
literature review’, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp.216–233.
Yusr, M., Othman, A.R. and Mokhtar, S.S.M. (2012) ‘Assessing the relationship among Six Sigma,
absorptive capacity and innovation performance’, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences,
Vol. 65, pp.570–578.
Zu, X., Fredendall, L.D. and Douglas, T.J. (2008) ‘The evolving theory of quality management: the
role of Six Sigma’, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 26, No. 5, pp 630–650.