I am no longer surprised by the number of people who say, “I’m working on my Green Belt/Black Belt certification, but I’m not sure how to apply Six Sigma to [health care, telecom, hotels, food, transportation]—insert your service industry here. They just can’t seem to figure out how to translate manufacturing-oriented training and case studies to their industry. It’s not that difficult, but that’s what I do most of the time: help people translate the “map” used in manufacturing to their particular industry.

While manufacturing focuses on reducing variation (I call it “deviation” because it deviates from the customer’s requirements), services can best benefit by focusing on eliminating defects, mistakes, and errors in the service delivery process.

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