It is often said that companies work toward Six Sigma, that is 3.4 defect per million opportunities, to increase bottomline and to please customers. Satisfying customer requirements is always part of the grand plan. After all, it’s the customer who brings in the cash and repeat business.
This is exactly what Taiwan’s automobile industry is working on. According to a paper authored by Shui-Chuan Chen, associate professor of industrial engineering and management at the National Chin-Yi Institute of Technology; Kun-Cheng Chen, professor at the Institute of Production System Engineering and Management, National Chin-Yi Institute; and Tai-Chang Hsia, associate professor with the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Chienkuo Technology University, Changhua, Taiwan, R.O.C., at present, Taiwan’s automobile industry is in the product maturity stage—the market is saturated while the market scale has remained unchanged. Therefore, there is a need to establish an effective quality control performance and improvement models.
The system needs to start a mechanism of low-cost and high-processing speeds to be able to stay competitive in the highly demanding, and constantly changing environment. This will create a product of high customer satisfaction needed for the industry to survive.
Following the DMAIC model of Six Sigma, the study was able to measure the performance of the customer’s requirements. They created a questionnaire and “analyzed” the performance of the product quality mechanism, which is then transferred to a related product specification. Next, they used key elements found in the quality process, performed by related sectors, as a counterclosure for planning and “improvement.” Finally, they equipped management with a complete model of evaluation and improvement to help, define, measure, analyze, improve, and control the product quality mechanism quickly and effectively. A better customer satisfaction and business profit is achieved by creating a perfect product quality and service value through a timely and effective promotion of product design, manufacturing, and service quality.
