The Effectiveness Of Six-Sigma In The Hospitality Industry

Mahmoud S. Abou Kamar [2014]: According to Mahmoud, in the present scenario, the hotel industry needs to continuously ramp up its operations by improving the quality of its products and service and devise competitive strategies to reduce operation costs and increase capacity. In order to improve their operations and enhance their performance, hotels across the world are actively engaged in a wide variety of quality improvement initiatives such as TQM and Six-Sigma. After initial success in manufacturing organizations, Six-Sigma has gradually gained widespread application in service organizations, including hotels and lodging. Mahmoud’s study attempts to assess the effectiveness of Six-Sigma and examine its impacts on various performance measures

Lancaster [2011]: According to Justin, hospitality firms big and small are looking at ways to keep costs low and to become more efficient just to stay afloat in this very challenging economy. Cutting costs in labour has been a popular topic in all industries during times of economic downturn. This is a particularly slippery slope in the hospitality industry where service may be compromised through cutting costs. Quality service is scrutinized by the customer in hospitality more than ever due to the fact that customers are fewer and are spending less. In areas of resort saturation like Las Vegas, the customer has so many options; they simply will not tolerate poor service like they may have in the past. In spite of economic conditions, hospitality firms must be able to cut costs and still provide a quality product. A proven, effective way to do this in other industries has been to 3 adopt the principles of Lean and Six Sigma. This paper explores Lean and Six Sigma and how they have been successful in the hospitality industry. Hospitality giants like Starwood Hotels and Caesars Entertainment have implemented Lean and Six Sigma, but smaller firms could benefit from the programs as well. The roots of Lean and Six Sigma are in industries that are heavy on producing and manufacturing items. Due to the deep manufacturing roots, there are pre-conceived notions by some that Lean and Six Sigma cannot work in the service industries. The challenges and pitfalls of the

Seven value mapping streams were assessed, namely: Process activity mapping, Supply chain response matrix, Production variety funnel, Quality filter mapping, Demand amplification mapping, Decision point analysis, and Physical structure with particular reference guest reservation and reception, and to hotel procurement systems. It was found hotels do apply value mapping techniques, and similarities were found in hotel operations regardless of location. They suggested that every value stream mapping technique (except production variety funnel and supply chain response matrix), can have a high impact on detecting and eliminating waste both upstream and downstream the value chain. They concluded the study by discussing managerial and research