Research Article July 2017 © www.ermt.net All Rights Reserved Page | 188 International Journal of Emerging Research in Management &Technology ISSN: 2278-9359 (Volume-6, Issue-7) Six Sigma Approach to Quality and Productivity Improvement in an Institution for Higher Education Yatika Hasija * IT Department, PTU, Punjab, India Dr. Suman Kant Production Department, PEC, Punjab, India Amandeep Kaur Management Department, PTU, Punjab, India Abstract— uality has become a competitive weapon in both the manufacturing and the service sector. And from past few decades, service sector particularly education sector has been neglected in terms of quality improvement efforts or we can say that quality improvement strategies are not being implemented in the education sector. Day by day the number of educational institutes is increasing and most of them are being managed by private management. As profitability is their major concern, therefore the aspect of quality is being overlooked. Today the higher educational Institutions are exposed with global competition and facing a lot of problems such as low graduation rates, higher drop-out rate, less employability etc. Therefore educational organizations must adapt six sigma methodologies to improve the quality of higher education. Although the method of applying statistical process control in education industry is really challenging but in this thesis we take a primary step to search out a solution for the education sector so that they can improve the quality of higher education. Keywords— Six Sigma, Quality, higher educational institutes, service sector, DMAIC Approach, Internal Process Oriented System (IPOS) and Excellence of Performance System(EPS). I. INTRODUCTION Increased competition has motivated many senior managers in manufacturing organizations to evaluate their competitive strategies and manufacturing practices with the aim of improving organizational performance. Survival in a competitive environment has always been a challenge in the industrial scenario. In these days of globalization, liberalization and digitalization organizations find it difficult to survive unless they have competitive advantage. The empirical evidence suggests that, give services of high quality will surpass the competition benefits and market penetration rate. Quality Management has gained in popularity mainly because of increasing customer consciousness of quality and growing international competitive pressure with the increasing need to cater to the growing demands of the customers and to cope with intensifying competition. Quality orientation seems to be the appropriate strategy to remain competitive. The single most critical factor needed for the survival and growth of an organization is quality. This has become far more important in expanding global market place facing major challenges through competition among players within and through increased customer’s expectations. Companies providing quality p roducts and services have gained competitive edge and greater market share. Many management personnel think that ―Six Sigma‖ technique is applicable only to manufacturing industry and cannot be adapted to other areas, which is totally wrong. Wherever there are processes with a definitive output, six sigma can be adopted to improve the process to meet the customer requirement consistently. This can be restaurant, bank, hospital, airlines, railways etc. Service sector is the fastest growing sector of the Indian economy. Service sector is not only dominant sector in India’s GDP but also attracted significant foreign investment flows. And among the service industries; education sector is emerging as a major commercial activity in the nation. Globalization, growing competition among institutions, emergence of new technologies, changing socio-economic culture of nation and knowledge driven economies have created a scenario where quality in education has become a survival. Now the quality in educational organization is no more a desirable strategy – it has become a survival strategy. II. LITERATURE REVIEW Quality is a key component in achieving competitive advantage. The effective management of quality is the key to increased quality and enhanced competitive position in the current global environment. While firms such as Ritz- Carlton Hotel Company and Solctro Corporations enjoy their prosperity mainly due to their commitment towards Total Quality Management (TQM), some other firms like GE Capital, GE Fanuc, American Express, IBM, Citibank, and Motorola have been finding their own ways to prosperity through the Six Sigma way (Kuei and Madu 2003). Over the past few years, two approaches to process have gained wide spread acceptance. Six Sigma approach broadly applied across major corporations such as Motorola and General Electric, while others such as Lockheed Martin and Telecordia have focused on the Capability Maturity Model (Card 2000). Customer satisfaction is generally accepted as the basic principle underlying most of the discussions related to quality. The importance of customer satisfaction achieved through product and service quality has acknowledged as a major factor contributing to competitive advantage (Issac et. al. 2006; O’Brien 1991). Q