The Six Sigma Approach

The six sigma approaches includes Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. It is simply a method that can be used by an organization to solve the problems they would encounter. It is best used to make sure that a company that is losing control has the ability to regain its control. Here is an example of a situation that would use the five step plan to regain its normal control.
A car wash company has lately faced a severe drop in the number of clients incurring much loss. The first step the company needs to do is to define the problem. The problem is that the number of customers’ who obtain their services from the company has gone down.
The impact is that there has been much loss incurred in the company. After identifying the problem, the second step is to Measure the performance of the company. Gathering of data and summarizing it is an important factor to be considered during this point. This involves getting the exact numbers of the drastic drop. At this stage, the company’s team needs to move towards process mapping, validation and data gathering. This is done through gathering data from employees through asking questions. After measuring, the next step is to analyze the current performance so that the problem can be isolated (Kwak & Anbari, 2006).
The company’s team moves on to analyze the root cause of the problem. Due to the data collected and the responses they from the questions asked the root cause of the problem is identified. There was invisibility due to poor lighting system hence the customers moved to a better company or they were not able to locate the company. After the root cause is identified the next step is to improve on the cause. The company then looks for a vendor who will fix the lighting issues. The last step is control. This process is meant to make sure that the target has been met. Repairing the lighting issues makes everything back to normal and the company is able to regain back its clients (Kwak & Anbari, 2006).
There are several challenges that can be encountered when using this approach in the car wash company. One of the problems encountered is lack of good response hence giving a wrong reason for the client’s change of the company. Once the company gets the wrong reasons for the problem they are encountering, they would solve the wrong issues and hence the clients’ will not return even after the issue is solved. The other challenge is that, all those five approaches depend on each other. If the problem has not been identified all the other processes will be invalid and hence the sigma approach would not be effective (Kwak & Anbari, 2006).

References
Kwak, Y. H., & Anbari, F. T. (2006). Benefits, obstacles, and future of six sigma approach. Technovation, 26(5), 708-715.