HOSPITALITY SUPERVISION AND TRAINING

SKILLS ASSESSMENT 1A
MIRIAM MOLINA

E APPLICATION OF SIX SIGMA IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY BY JITHEN

INTRODUCTION
The aim of this report is to provide a critical evaluation of the article Barriers and
challenges in the application of Six Sigma in the hospitality industry written by
Kokkranikal, Antony, Kosgi and Losekoot and published in the International Journal
of Productivity and Performance Management known for publish and promote
current and emerging thought of productivity and performance management.
Firstly, a summary will be exposed. Secondly, it will be realized a critical approach of
the article. Finally, a conclusion of the aspects analysed in this report will be given.

SUMMARY
The article tries to identify the main barriers and challenges in the application of Six
Sigma in the hospitality industry. To start doing this, the authors gather key
information about Six Sigma from different authors to explain, clarify and highlight
the immense benefits that implementing this methodology can reach, focused in the
hospitality industry, to make way for a thorough study of the implementation of Six
Sigma in a hotel in Edinburgh.
The author of the case study analyses key literature related to quality initiatives in
the hospitality industry from different resources as well as she collects data through
interviews, observations and company documents which help to shed light into what
are the main problems encountered. The first conclusion she finds is that Six Sigma
was recently introduced in the hotel context, so it seems the crew in general do not
have a deep knowledge about the reasons and/or objectives that want to be reached
with Six Sigma implementation. The findings also show problems on where to get the
data from and if that is a right kind of data, being this a very important issue as is a
key aspect to implement Six Sigma properly. Besides, problems of time management
and motivation were found in the general organisation and in addition, general
resistance to change, although most noticeable from the managerial staff, inability
to define problem areas, lack of clarity about the projects and group consensus
which are derived from the dearth of a thoroughly explanation of the reasons and
power the implementation of Six Sigma will have for the company and consequently
and with particular emphasis for themselves. So the author points out the importance
and necessity of an adequate communication strategy across the hotel as well as
time management amendments.

CRITICAL APPROACH
This is a study in which the information found might be used in many other situations
as presents general issues of implementing new approaches in the hospitality industry
and even in any sector involving human resources. However, there are some
criticisms to be done.
First of all, is identify by the authors a small number of people participating in the
study and suggested to distribute a simple survey to reach more people and in
addition, it was just one hotel studied, so this might not be representative of the
hospitality industry. Also, after the interpretation of a comment made by senior
managers and the black belt which seemed to suggest that in the hotel it is used a
combination of the three approaches presented by Pande and Holpp (2002), the

author conclude that Six Sigma was relatively recently introduced in the hotel, since
she explain that this is the time when the managers believe there is a limit if any
single approach is adopted and this seems very subjective, as this situation can also
arise as a result of a bad implementation or execution of Six Sigma, wrong
understanding of the Six Sigma approaches or objectives, etc. it would have been
better to ask directly when they started to implement Six Sigma to confirm this
conclusion. Additionally, it is not highlighted as a core and specific issue that the
crew in general do not understand thoroughly the aims, benefits and power of Six
Sigma implementation, as this appears constantly in the article when it talks about
the wrong notions that the managers have on the approaches discussed above, due to
the black belt that talks about the aims of adopting Six Sigma as a strategy to
achieve corporate objectives, when that aim it is implicit, besides shown in the lack
of enthusiasm of the workers, dearth of consensus, scepticism, etc. Moreover, there
is another asserted evidence of a somewhat subjective way, where the author infers
lack of time based in not so clear comments about lack of time made by the black
belt, other respondents and a manager.

CONCLUSION
The authors have started an interesting research into Six Sigma implementation
problems as there is a dearth of information on the use of Six Sigma in the hospitality
industry. Nonetheless, different places to study are needed to build a representative
sample of the sector. However, the case study conducted was intensive, productive
and illuminating.

REFERENCES
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www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/journals.htm?id=ijppm
Kokkranikal, J., Antony, J., Kosgi, H. And Losekoot, E. (2012) Barriers and
challenges in the application of Six Sigma in the hospitality industry,
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 62,
No.3, 2013, pp. 317-322