Global views on integrating Six Sigma and ISO 9001 certification

Abstract

During the past three decades, ISO 9001 certifications have facilitated contemporary organisations to systematically achieve continual quality improvement. In the same period, Six Sigma has propelled organisations towards achieving zero defect manufacturing. Though these objectives are closely coinciding, the synergy of implementing ISO 9001 standard and Six Sigma has been eluding the contemporary organisations. This situation creates a need to globally view the development that has been occurring in the direction of integrating ISO 9001 certification and Six Sigma. This study reports a literature review conducted in this context. The result of this literature review indicated that, very little work on integrating Six Sigma and ISO 9001 standard has so far been carried out. Hence, it is concluded that the recent most version, namely ISO 9001:2008 standard is to be amended with the ideals of Six Sigma. In order to carry out this task, a roadmap is contributed in this paper. © 2012 Taylor & Francis.