Application of Six Sigma in a Food Distribution SME to improve Supply Chain Management

Six Sigma is practiced by some service industries to indicate the effectiveness of DMAIC in improving the quality in this type of business. The application of Six Sigma along with other quality initiatives including Kaizen, TQM, ISO 9001 and Supply Chain Management in a food distribution SME needs to be studied thoroughly. The results of a questionnaire suggest that many of food distribution SMEs already carry out different works, projects or tasks associated with Six Sigma but are not aware of terminology or the potential impact of proper understanding and implementation. The intention is to analyse in much more detail the level of awareness within the management community and change agents in the food distribution industry and compare it with actual application of associated practices and works which are already being carried out. The results are important in the food distribution industry in developing clear management associations between Six Sigma and training, supervision and motivation. 1.0 Introduction Implementing quality initiatives in any business leads to improvements in the performance of the organisation through the generation of high quality products and services, and improved efficiency and competitiveness. K.Linderman stated that this is consistent with prior research that suggests the degree of implementation of quality practices is positively related to organizational performance (1). Hence, it is more meaningful to apply the quality initiatives in tangible industries including manufacturing businesses. The 'Customer' is typically the key source to justify the quality for any quality provider. Quality initiatives are the systematic tools which provide an environment for the organisation to fully embed the quality characteristics to its associated process or product. TQM, Six Sigma, Kaizen, ISO9001 and J.I.T are the key quality initiatives which were examined in this paper to justify their role in a specific service industry. There have been many different studies in implementing quality initiatives in the big UK manufacturing companies. However, it feels that small to medium-sized enterprises, usually called SMEs, which represent of the majority of the UK-based employment sources are yet to fully benefit from quality initiatives. Accordingly, there is no balanced application of quality initiatives within such SMEs. The degree of awareness, resource limitation and management commitment are the key factors to implement these quality initiatives in SMEs. For instance, J. Antony (2005) argued that many of the SMEs are not aware of Six Sigma and many do not have the resources to implement Six Sigma projects. …