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Quality
Comparing the quality management
management practices practices
in UK SMEs
1153
Maneesh Kumar
Strathclyde Institute for Operations Management, Received 5 May 2008
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, and Revised 23 June 2008
Accepted 17 July 2008
Jiju Antony
Centre for Research in Six Sigma and Process Excellence (CRISSPE),
Strathclyde Institute for Operations Management,
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

Abstract
Purpose – The last two decades have witnessed an explosion of research into the area of quality
initiatives (QI) such as ISO, total quality management, lean, Kaizen and its application within small
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, very few empirical studies have reported the
application of Six Sigma in SMEs; the reasons may be attributed to several myths associated with Six
Sigma. The purpose of this paper is to assess the current status of QI in the UK manufacturing SMEs
and report the differences in the quality management practices of Six Sigma SMEs against the ISO
certified firms.
Design/methodology/approach – A survey-based approach was adopted to understand the
established quality management practices in the UK SMEs. A short survey instrument was designed
by reviewing the literature on quality improvement initiatives in SMEs. A sample of 500
manufacturing SMEs across UK was selected through stratified random sampling technique.
Findings – A response rate of 12.7 per cent was achieved and included respondents at senior
management and middle management level across the manufacturing industry in the UK. Data analysis
on the history of quality initiatives (QI) in SMEs indicated towards the trend that ISO may be the
foundation or building block before embarking on lean or Six Sigma. Differences in quality management
practices such as customer focused measures and method of knowledge transfer to employees, were
observed in Six Sigma and ISO certified SMEs. The main reasons cited for not implementing Six Sigma
in SMEs were lack of knowledge or understanding of the system and limited resources. A significant
difference in the performance of Six Sigma/lean firms against ISO certified companies were observed
with respect to the strategic and operational measures of organizational performance.
Research limitations/implications – The limited response rate from the survey in the UK
manufacturing SMEs will affect the generalizability of study to entire SME population. To negate the
limitations of this study, a multiple multi-level case studies will be conducted in SMEs in the next
phase of doctoral research. Future study should focus on performing a global survey on quality
management practices in SMEs.
Originality/value – The novelty of the paper lies in conducting a comparative study on the quality
management practices in Six Sigma and non-Six Sigma UK SMEs and measuring its impact on the
performance of the firm. This study will facilitate in demystifying the myth that Six Sigma is only Industrial Management & Data
applicable in large organizations. Systems
Vol. 108 No. 9, 2008
Keywords Small to medium-sized enterprises, Six Sigma, International standards, Surveys, pp. 1153-1166
Critical success factors, Performance management q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-5577
Paper type Research paper DOI 10.1108/02635570810914865
IMDS 1. Introduction
108,9 This research is a part of doctoral work to investigate into the application of Six Sigma
within the UK manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Six Sigma is
a well-established approach that seeks to identify and eliminate defects, mistakes or
failures in business processes or systems by focusing on those process performance
characteristics that are of critical importance to customers (Snee, 2004). This approach to
1154 reducing defects has made substantial impact on many large organisations, resulting in
enhancement of performance and a vast improvement in business profits, employee
morale, quality of products and customer loyalty (Snee, 2004; Antony et al., 2005; Kumar
et al., 2006). In spite of a number of Six Sigma success stories in large organisations,
many SMEs are yet to be convinced of the benefits from the introduction, development,
implementation and deployment of Six Sigma (Kumar, 2007).
Continuous improvement (CI) programs like Six Sigma do not appear to be easily
understood or interpreted by SMEs, which may be a significant contributor to its low
implementation. More holistic quality management initiatives, such as total quality
management (TQM), also appear to exhibit low implementation rates (Ghobadian and
Gallear, 1996; Van der Weile and Brown, 1998). It is suspected that the poor adoption of
quality management initiatives in SMEs is due to multiple and complex reasons, not just
the often stated impediments of cost, time and relative impacts (Gome, 1996). There is
also evidence to suggest that quality management programs are not being taken up by
SMEs for several reasons, as cited in literature (Husband, 1997; Husband and Mandal,
1999; Yusof and Aspinwall, 1999; Thomas and Webb, 2003; Antony et al., 2008) viz:
.
Difficult to distinguish between different quality programmes like Six Sigma,
TQM, ISO, EFQM and the system that suits best to their needs. SMEs are unclear
about the advantages (due to lack of knowledge) that one system has over other.
.
SMEs believe that their existing culture and system, such as ISO 9000 is
sufficient to meet their business needs.
.
There is very little evidence of success of Six Sigma in SMEs context. SMEs
believe that this program is another fad, fantasy or flavour of the month like
TQM and BPR.
.
SMEs have a misconception that Six Sigma involves lots of statistics, which is
beyond their domain.

The rational for selecting SMEs as a subject matter of investigation is two-fold. First,
SMEs constitute the bulk of enterprise with the major contribution to private sector
output and employment in all economies of the world (Lin Yeb-Yun, 1999; Antony et al.,
2005; Kumar, 2007). Secondly, due to growing importance of supply chain issues and
pressure from original equipment manufacturers to improve the quality of product or
service have forced SMEs to embark on initiatives like Six Sigma (Antony et al., 2005,
2008). SMEs view quality system such as ISO 9000 as the destination of the achievement
of quality. In fact, quality improvement is always meant to be a journey rather than a
destination. It is imperative for SMEs to understand the application of process
improvement strategies from their larger counterparts and continuously strive for
process excellence by implementing initiatives like lean and Six Sigma. CI initiatives like
Six Sigma can be applied where there is a problem, irrespective of type or size of business
(Brue, 2006). Six Sigma can act as a catalyst for changing SMEs in the quest for business
excellence by mobilising their intellectual capital, provided there is total commitment. Quality
A recent study has revealed that strong leadership and undying commitment from
top-level management are critical to the success of Six Sigma in SMEs (Kumar and
management
Antony, 2008). This study clearly indicates that there are significant differences in the practices
performance of Six Sigma against non-Six Sigma SMEs.The purpose of this research is
to identify SMEs that are implementing Six Sigma (also includes companies
implementing lean) and perform a comparative analysis with ISO-certified 1155
organizations (also includes SMEs implementing TQM, Kaizen, and having
certification such as investors in people (IIP)) with respect to the quality management
practices existing within SMEs. Criteria used to capture the information on quality
practices are: voice of customer; training; company’s strategic objective; critical success
factors (CSFs) of implementation; performance measures used; and barriers to
implementation. The study aims to identify differences in quality management practices
and organizational performance, if it exists, between Six Sigma and ISO certified
organizations. The research also demystifies the myth that Six Sigma is applicable only
in large organizations.
2. Research design
The objective of the study is to assess the status of Six Sigma implementation in the UK
SMEs and compare the quality management practices within Six Sigma and ISO certified
firms. Given the nature of research, a survey-based seemed appropriate. Surveys have
been used in gathering data and information for a long time. Kerlinger (1986) suggests that
survey research is typified by the collection of data from a population, or some sample
drawn from it, to assess the relative incidence, distribution and interrelationships of
naturally occurring phenomena. Survey research is the method of gathering data from
respondents thought to be representative of some population, using an instrument
composed of closed structure or open-ended items (Easterby-Smith et al., 2003; Saunders
et al., 2003; Fowler, 2002). Survey has been an important data collection method for
researchers in quality management area to statistically validate their hypothesis or
research questions.
A survey-based approach is used in this research to identify and understand the CI
initiatives widely practised in SMEs. A survey instrument was designed with the purpose
of identifying Six Sigma and non-Six Sigma companies within the UK and understands
their business practices. The survey questionnaire was developed based on questionnaire
used in the published literature of leading Six Sigma practitioners and academics (Antony
and Banuelas, 2002; Ghobadian and Gallear, 1996; Lee and Oakes, 1995; Snee, 2004; Wessel
and Burcher, 2004; Yusof and Aspinwall, 1999; Antony et al., 2005, 2008; Kumar, 2007) and
by means of a brainstorming session with a number of quality professionals within the
UK, who are familiar with the Six Sigma and other quality management philosophies like
TQM. Primary data collection method used to achieve the research objectives was postal
questionnaires with the self-addressed return envelop targeted to managing directors,
operations director, quality manager, and production engineers within the sample.
The database of 500 manufacturing SMEs was generated based on the random
sampling of populated database existing within FAME and D&B. After sending
three reminders to sample companies, 75 questionnaires were returned with only
64 completed and valid responses. This resulted in the response rate of 12.8 per cent.
Among the 64 responding SMEs, 49 firms (76.56 per cent) are local, 14 (21.88 per cent)
firms are part of MNC and one being a joint venture company. Geographically, majority
IMDS of the SMEs are located UK wide (43 or 67.1 per cent). Some of these companies are
108,9 also part of MNC, operating at different locations within UK and having diversified
businesses such as automotive, aerospace, telecommunication, etc. to name a few.
The distribution of 64 manufacturing firms is presented in Table I.
It can be gauged from the table that the sample is representative of different kind of
manufacturing companies ranging from aerospace, automotive, electronics and
1156 semiconductors to food, paper and plastic manufacturing industry.

3. Findings from the survey

3.1 History of QI in SMEs
The respondents were asked to list the QI implemented in the past or currently
deploying it across the business functions. As depicted in Table II, majority of
the SMEs had ISO certification in place followed by implementation of lean, IIP and
six sigma.
From the analysis, it was found that 12.5 per cent of the responding companies do
not have any kind of quality improvement methodology or system in place (seven of
these firms belong to small-size category and one to medium-sized category). Further
analysis of data on the existence of quality department in small and medium-sized
firms revealed that 13 participating companies do not have any quality department in

Industry specialization Count

Automotive 2
Textiles 2
Chemical 2
Aerospace 3
Electrical 3
Pharmaceuticals 3
Printing/paper 5
Mechanical 6
Table I. Food 7
Industry specialization of Electronics and semiconductor 7
sample firms Others 24

Quality initiatives undertaken Count Percentage

Six Sigma 10 15.6

TQM 5 7.8
Lean 17 26.5
Kaizen 7 10.9
BPR 1 1.6
Theory of constraints 1 1.6
ISO 9000 49 76.6
Investors in people (IIP) 10 15.9
Table II. European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) 0 0
History of quality Others 9 14.3
initiatives in SMEs No initiatives undertaken 8 12.5
place, as shown in Figure 1. Seven out of 16 small firm and 6 out of 48 medium-sized Quality
firms either do not have the quality department in place or quality was the management
responsibility of production department. This result is in consensus with findings from
the literature (Ghobadian and Gallear, 1996; Yusof and Aspinwall, 2000; Thomas and practices
Webb, 2003; Antony et al., 2005) that employees within SME environment are
multi-tasking and capable enough to carry two to three responsibilities at the same
time. This may be on the reasons that a production engineer or the operations manager 1157
may also be delegated the responsibility of quality department. However, it is
interesting to observe that majority of the small firms as compared to the
medium-sized firms are struggling to have a separate department for quality control
due to scarcity of resources.
As the firm grows into medium-size, the structure becomes more formal and
delegation of responsibility is more visible in medium-sized companies.
Small business owners even struggled in comparison to medium-sized firm to form
team for problem solving for their critical business processes. The detailed information
is presented in the Figure 2. More than 50 per cent of the SMEs conducted review
meetings either once a week or only when the problem occurred in the business
processes.
Majority of the respondents in the other category were implementing British Retail
Consortium (BRC) certification, especially within the food industry. No SMEs in the
sample have implemented the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM)
assessment model, which further confirms the argument in the literature that EFQM is
not suitable for SMEs. The model is bureaucratic and time consuming, making it

No. of Employees
60
50-249
10-49

50

40
Count

42
30 65.62%

20

6
10 9.38%

9
7
10.94%
14.06% Figure 1.
0 Existence of quality
No Yes departments in small and
medium-sized firms
Quality Department existence
IMDS 50
No. of Employees
108,9 50-249
10-49

40

1158
30
33
Count

51.56%

20

15
23.44%
10
11
17.19%
5
7.81%
Figure 2. 0
Existence of problem No Yes
solving teams in SMEs
Team for problem solving

difficult for SMEs to allocate scarce resources for its implementation and follow-up.
Majority of the sample firms that have embarked on the bandwagon of lean and Six
Sigma had gone through the route of ISO certification in the past. Further in-depth
analysis revealed that out of 49 certified ISO firms, 17 of the firms have implemented
lean and 10 of the 17 lean firms have gone down the route of Six Sigma. This gives an
indication that ISO may be the foundation or building block before embracing lean and
Six Sigma. This is an area of further research.

3.2 Company strategic objectives

The respondents were asked to shortlist three largest factors out of seven alternatives
available, which define the company strategic objective(s). The alternatives available
were profitability, flexibility, quality, market share, innovation, cost and other
category. The results from the analysis are presented in Figure 3. The three most
important factors cited by the sample firms that helped them in deciding their strategic
objectives are profitability, quality, and cost. Market share and innovation is not
considered as important by the senior management team to link with strategic
business goals. It is imperative for the firms to be innovative in order to sustain the
competition and their existence in the global market. However, the result reveals that
innovation is rated in the second last position, which further confirms the fact that
SMEs exist in the fire-fighting mode, struggling for their existence.
Analysis of the strategic objectives revealed that profit, quality, and cost is
considered as the top three objectives irrespective of the size of the firm or type of
 Quality
57
management
profit 30.32% practices
50
quality 26.60%
1159
Company Strategic Objective

32
Cost 17.02%

18
flexibility 9.57%

15
market share 7.98%

12
Innovation 6.38%

other 4
2.13%
Figure 3.
Factors defining the
strategic objective(s) of the
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
firm
Frequency

QI implemented. Top three strategic objectives, as depicted in the figure, for the ISO
certified firms exactly matches with firms implementing lean/Six Sigma.

3.3 Customer focused measures in the firm

The respondents were asked to state criteria used to capture and measure the voice of
the customers. Respondents were given the option of multiple answers in order to
capture all the measures existing within SMEs to understand the customer issues and
problems. Majority of the firms (89.1 per cent) used customer complaints as a medium
to understand the critical business issues followed by criteria such as delivery time
(60.9 per cent) and customer survey (59.4 per cent). A comparative analysis of Six
Sigma/lean SMEs against ISO certified firms are performed across the listed factors, as
presented in the Table III. Similar results are reported for Six Sigma and ISO certified
firms with respect to capturing voice of customers. Percentage of Six Sigma firms
using delivery time as a measure differ significantly from ISO certified firms
(82.6 per cent for Six Sigma firms against 48.8 per cent for ISO firms).
The respondents were also asked to cite the three most important criteria that
helped the firm to win customer loyalty. This question was designed to gauge the
importance that the company gives to its customers and try to win their loyalty.
The criteria used to win orders were divided into seven categories and the results from
the analysis shows that manufacturing quality, product reliability, and on-time
delivery of the final product are the three most important criteria that SMEs focuses on
to win customer orders. Criteria used to win customer loyalty were also tested against
IMDS
Percentage usage of measures
108,9 Factors for comparison Six Sigma/lean SMEs ISO certified SMEsa All sample SMEs

Measures to capture voice of customer

Surveys 69.9 53.7 89.1
Delivery time 82.6 48.8 60.9
1160 Customer complaints 91.3 87.8 59.4
Sales data 43.5 43.9 46.9
Repeat business 43.5 48.8 43.8
Others 34.8 17.1 23.4
Criteria that helped company to win customer loyalty
Manufacturing quality 90.9 80.5 84.1
Product reliability 68.2 68.3 68.3
Delivery lead time 27.3 31.7 30.2
On-time delivery 72.7 43.9 54.0
Wide product range 13.6 26.8 22.2
Table III. Price 18.2 41.5 33.3
Measures used to capture Others 13.6 4.9 7.9
voice of customers and
win customers loyalty Note: aNot including SMEs that are implementing lean/Six Sigma after ISO certification

the size of the firm (small and medium sized firms) that identified manufacturing
quality, product reliability, and on-time delivery as the three most important factors
irrespective of the size of the firm. The criterion of on-time delivery was also considered
as important measure to capture the voice of customers. Similar findings were reported
for Six Sigma/lean firms and ISO certified SMEs, as depicted in Table III.

3.4 Methods of knowledge transfer to employees

The detail of approaches existing within SMEs for training and knowledge transfer
(KT) to their staff is presented in Table IV. Majority of the SMEs provides in-house
training to their employees as compared to seeking external help of consultants. They
also resided on internet, books/research articles, and self-education as a medium to
train themselves or their shop-floor employees.
A further analysis revealed that Six Sigma SMEs prefer to take external consultants
help or attend conferences and workshops for enhancing their knowledge as compared

Percentage usage of measures

Factors for comparison Six Sigma/lean SMEs ISO certified SMEsa All sample SMEs

Mechanism for knowledge sharing and transfer

In-house training 95.7 92.7 93.8
Conferences 26.1 12.2 17.2
External consultants 43.5 24.4 31.3
Internet 13.0 14.6 14.1
Self-education 17.4 19.5 18.8
Book/research articles 13.0 7.3 9.4
Table IV. Other methods 4.3 12.2
Methods of knowledge
transfer to employees Note: aNot including SMEs that are implementing lean/Six Sigma after ISO certification
to employees in ISO certified firms. However, the main source of knowledge sharing Quality
and transfer in Six Sigma and ISO certified firms is through in-house training of
employees.
management
practices
3.5 Reasons for not implementing Six Sigma in SMEs
It is important to understand the perception of Six Sigma and factors hindering its
implementation from the SMEs perspective. Firms were asked to state the reasons for 1161
not implementing Six Sigma as an initiative to drive CI effort within their firms.
As depicted in the Table V, majority of the firms were discouraged to implement Six
Sigma due to lack of knowledge of the system to kick off the initiative. This was
followed by other reasons such as lack of resources, not sure if relevant, never heard,
and cost issues.
In the SMEs literature, the most common reason cited for not embarking on CI
initiatives like TQM, lean or Six Sigma is the availability of resources, commitment
from the top management to invest in the required resources for successful
implementation, and considering ISO certification as a destination to CI efforts. This
study further enriches the literature by providing in-depth information on the reasons
for not implementing six sigma.

3.6 CSFs to implementation

The concept of identifying and applying CSFs to business problems is not a
revolutionary new field of work (Caralli, 2004). It dates back to the original concept of
success factors, as a basis for determining the information needs of managers, proposed
by Daniel (1961) and popularized by Rockart (1979). CSFs are those factors which are
critical to the success of any organisation, in the sense that, if objectives associated
with the factors are not achieved, the organisation will fail – perhaps catastrophically
so (Rockart, 1979).
The respondents were asked to rate the importance of CSFs within the company, with
1 corresponding to “not important at all” and 5 as “very important”. In order to find the
gap between the importance of CSFs and its actual practice in company, similar rating
scale (1 represents “very poor practice” and 5 corresponds to “very good practice”) was
used to measure the extent of implementation of CSFs within the firms. Comparison of
CSFs between Six Sigma/lean companies against ISO certified companies, details
provided in Table VI, revealed that there is no significant difference in terms of
importance of the CSFs in Six Sigma and ISO certified companies. SMEs implementing

Reasons for not implementing Six Sigma Count

Lack of knowledge of system to kick off 12

Not sure if relevant 9
Availability of resources 8
Never heard 7
Cost issue 7
Other competing initiatives 6
ISO is accepted and necessary 5 Table V.
Leadership desire 5 Reasons for not
Suitable for large company 3 implementing Six Sigma
Bureaucratic 2 in SMEs
IMDS
Six Sigma/lean ISO certified
108,9 company company
Critical success factors Na Importance Nb Importance

Mgmt involvement and commitment 17 4.88 32 4.67

Communication 17 4.82 32 4.67
1162 Link QI to employee 17 4.44 32 4.43
Cultural change 17 4.41 32 4.37
Education and training 17 4.47 32 4.20
Link QI to customer 17 4.38 32 4.17
Project selection 17 4.25 32 4.23
Link QI to business 17 4.06 32 4.10
Link QI to supplier 17 4.00 32 4.23
Project mgmt skill 17 4.00 32 4.10
Org infrastructure 17 3.71 32 3.97
Table VI. Vision and plan 17 3.94 32 3.83
Comparison of CSFs IT and innovation 17 3.56 32 3.93
between Six Sigma/lean
against ISO certified Notes: aThis sample includes companies implementing lean or Six Sigma only; bthis sample includes
SMEs companies having ISO certification or IIP or TQM, or Kaizen

ISO perceives the importance of these CSFs in a similar way as lean and Six Sigma
implementing SMEs. In order to find the gap between the importance of CSFs and its
actual practice in company, similar rating scale (1 represents “very poor practice” and
5 corresponds to “very good practice”) was used to measure the extent of implementation
of CSFs within the firms.
On the contrary, in practice within the company, each of these variables was found
to be less applicable with mean practice value less than four for all factors, as shown in
Table VII.
A t-test was performed to identify whether the mean value for importance and
actual practice of CSFs are statistically different from each other. The result of the
analysis shows that each factor is statistically significant in terms of application and

Critical success factors Importance Practice GAP Sig.a

Mgmt involvement and commitment 4.73 3.97 0.76 0.000

Communication 4.70 3.59 1.11 0.000
Link QI to employee 4.44 3.36 1.08 0.000
Cultural change 4.38 3.19 1.19 0.000
Education and training 4.27 3.27 1.00 0.000
Link QI to customer 4.22 3.36 0.86 0.000
Project selection 4.19 3.22 0.97 0.000
Link QI to business 4.14 3.28 0.86 0.000
Link QI to supplier 4.14 2.97 1.17 0.000
Project mgmt skill 4.03 3.17 0.86 0.000
Org infrastructure 3.97 3.57 0.40 0.003
Vision and plan 3.97 3.46 0.51 0.003
Table VII. IT and innovation 3.83 3.17 0.66 0.002
Gap analysis of CSFs of
quality practices in SMEs Note: aTest performed at 5 per cent sig. Level
perceived importance of CSFs within SMEs. It can be inferred from Table VII that even Quality
though the company has got the quality systems or initiatives in place, still there is a management
huge gap in the level of importance and practice of CSFs, which may result in the poor
organisational performance of the company. From the Tables VI and VII, it was found practices
that management involvement and commitment is considered the most important
factor and vision and plan statement and IT and Innovation received the lowest mean
value of importance in both Six Sigma and ISO certified firms. 1163
3.7 Impeding factors in implementation of QI in SMEs
Companies were asked to identify the top five inhibiting factors that were felt to be
barriers to quality initiative implementation (Table VIII). The results of the analysis
show that about 71.2 per cent percent of the responding firms stated that lack of
resources was one of the impeding factors to the successful introduction of a QI in the
UK SME. Lack of resources covered a large number of aspects including financial
resources, human resources, time, etc. This was followed by lack of knowledge, poor
training/coaching, internal resistance, poor employee participation, etc.
Lack of resources is the most common impeding factors, as cited in the SMEs
literature on CI initiatives that deters the progress of any change management
programme in SMEs. However, it was surprising that lack of top management
commitment is not considered within top five impeding factors. This result is different
from other researchers work on impeding factors such as Antony et al., 2005, 2008;
Kumar, 2007.

3.8 Performance of Six Sigma and ISO certified SMEs: a comparison

The respondents were asked to rate the benefits that QI had brought to their
organisations since implementation using a Likert scale of 1-5, where 1 ¼ negative
benefit, 3 ¼ some benefit and 5 ¼ crucial. The table shows the degree of
improvement realised on 1-5 scale after the implementation of QI. Score across each
of the performance indicator reflects the improvement made by the SME after
implementing the QI. Table IX summarises the key benefits gained from the
implementation of Six Sigma and is compared against the performance of ISO certified
companies with respect to variables mentioned in Table IX.
Testing the mean performance of Six Sigma/lean organization against ISO certified
firm revealed the significant differences in performance of ISO certified SMEs as

Barriers to implementation of QI Count Percentage

Availability of resources 42 71.2

Lack of knowledge 35 59.3
Lack of training 33 55.9
Internal resistance 32 54.2
Poor employee participation 27 45.8
Inadequate process control techniques 24 40.7
Changing business focus 21 35.6 Table VIII.
Lack of top mgmt commitment 18 30.5 Barriers to
Poor delegation of authority 17 28.8 implementation of quality
Poor supplier involvement 16 27.1 improvement initiatives
Poor project selection 5 8.9 in SMEs
IMDS compared to a firm implementing Six Sigma. Six Sigma firms are performing much
108,9 better on the operational metrics like reduction in scrap rate, cycle time, delivery time
and increase in productivity. Even in the strategic measures of organizational
performance, i.e. reduction in cost, increased profitability and increase sales, Six Sigma
and lean firm out classes ISO certified SMEs.

1164 4. Conclusion
It is a myth that Six Sigma works only in large companies. Six Sigma has evolved into
a business strategy in many large organisations and its importance in SMEs is
growing everyday, as depicted from the survey results. This is among very few studies
that have identified the differences in performance and other quality management
practices between Six Sigma and ISO certified firms. The novelty of the paper lies in
conducting a comparative study on the quality practices of Six Sigma and ISO certified
SMEs and drawing out value lesson for the academics, consultants, researchers and
practitioners of CI initiatives like lean and six sigma.
Majority of the small firms as compared to middle-sized firms struggled to have a
quality department in place or form a team for problem solving. The reason may be
attributed to its informal structure and resolving problem based on the individual gut
feeling. SMEs implementing Six Sigma or having ISO certification resided on
customers complaints as the primary method to capture voice of customers. However,
Six Sigma SMEs seek the help of external consultants more often for training their
employees as compared to ISO certified firms, where in-house training was the main
source of knowledge transfer. The analysis of the survey findings revealed that factors
critical to success of QI are equal in importance, irrespective of type of initiatives
implemented by the firm. Any quality initiative should also be linked to employees in
terms of training, making resources available and establishing good communication
with them. The operational and strategic performance metrics of SMEs implementing
Six Sigma differs significantly from ISO certified companies. This gives an indication
that Six Sigma is beneficial for all type of firm, irrespective of the size of the firm.
The focus of the study is only on the UK manufacturing SMEs and also excludes
micro enterprises, limiting the generalizability of the findings to manufacturing sector
only. Considering the low response rate in the first phase of doctoral research, it was
decided to perform a multi-level multiple exploratory case studies within Six Sigma and

SS/lean org. ISO certified org.

Performance measures Mean SD Mean SD Sig. value

Reduction in scrap rate 3.52 0.829 2.82 0.872 0.000

Reduction in cycle time 3.38 0.875 2.80 0.940 0.003
Reduction in delivery time 3.24 0.872 2.84 0.926 0.002
Increase in productivity 3.79 0.726 2.84 0.746 0.000
Reduction of cost 3.50 0.777 2.88 0.752 0.000
Table IX. Increased profitability 3.40 0.770 2.35 0.797 0.000
Performance measures of Increased sales 3.50 0.900 3.04 0.889 0.003
Six Sigma against ISO Reduction of customer complaints 3.65 0.950 3.07 0.961 0.003
certified SMEs Reduction of employee complaints 3.27 1.072 3.00 1.087 0.024
ISO certified organizations identified from the survey response. The findings and Quality
discussion of multiple case studies conducted is beyond the scope of this paper. The management
case-study research would enable to perform an in-depth cross case analysis and
identify the significant differences existing in the quality management practices of Six practices
Sigma and ISO certified SMEs. Future study should focus on performing a global survey
on quality management practices in SMEs and understand the impact of culture on
successful implementation of Six Sigma in SMEs. The global study will also facilitate in 1165
establishing the best-in-class practice of Six Sigma for the “little guy”, i.e. SMEs.

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Corresponding author
Maneesh Kumar can be contacted at: maneesh28@gmail.com

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