News & Photos
CSPD Workshop Presents Six Sigma: Secrets to Process Improvement
By Julie Achilles
In the fall of 2008, STHM’s Center for Student Professional Development began building a series of topical business workshops for graduate students. “These are ideal for students to take advantage of, because in the next four or five years, they will be making decisions as business leaders for their companies,” said Greg DeShields, senior director of corporate relations for STHM.
On Dec. 2, 2008, CSPD hosted a seminar on “360 Degree Feedback,” a method that allows employees to receive feedback from bosses, co-workers and customers on their effectiveness and progress within an organization. More recently, on Feb. 9, 2009, CSPD presented a workshop on “Six Sigma,” a system of management that works to achieve consistency, longevity and near perfect results in production and customer requirements.
The 40 min. workshop was led by Gerard Dolan, ’95 Temple graduate and director of Six Sigma for the Four Points by Sheraton Philadelphia Airport. Six Sigma was developed by Motorola in 1987, and has since been used by many brand name companies including GE, American Express, JP Morgan, Fed Ex, CitiGroup, Johnson & Johnson, Ford and Vanguard.
Dolan, who is a certified black belt in Six Sigma, helped implement the program at the Vanguard Group and Starwood Hotels and Restorts, where he worked as director of Six Sigma for eight years. Introducing the program to the ten graduate students in attendance, Dolan explained, “It’s about working smarter. Six Sigma allows us to attack problems.”
The Six Sigma system is based on the normal distribution “bell curve.” Each standard deviation is equal to one sigma, the goal being to achieve six sigma altogether and, ideally, arrive at perfection by reducing variability. For example, out of every 300,000 reservations made at a hotel, 3,000 are lost at a 99 percent yield, but only one is lost with Six Sigma.
Although most hotels have departments devoted to quality control, Starwood is the only hospitality corporation that employs fulltime resources on process improvement. Dolan stressed that rigorous research on customer needs plays a large part in analyzing problems, and then incorporating and maintaining hands-on solutions. Customer service has been a reoccurring theme in many recent STHM programs, most notably in fall 2008’s Jonathan Tisch book signing of Chocolates on the Pillow Aren’t Enough: Reinventing the Customer Experience.
Projects that Dolan has been involved in with the Starwood include reducing workers compensation claim frequency and healthcare costs, simplifying and standardizing hotel menus, and optimizing hotel management structure. “Change management becomes a huge part of the process in Six Sigma,” said Dolan, explaining the importance of establishing new, more efficient habits in business.
The workshop was a success, generating several questions, comments and ideas from the audience. Yi Ye, a graduate research assistant at the National Laboratory for Tourism & eCommerce (NLTeC) at Temple, said, “I’m doing my Master’s thesis on branding and Six Sigma would be a very interesting concept to incorporate.” Sport and Recreation Administration graduate student Paulette Branson said, “The presentation was very informative. I knew about the concept of Six Sigma, but I didn’t know how to apply it. Now I have a good idea.”
After the presentation, DeShields urged the students to keep an eye out for upcoming programs. “CSPD is constantly working to create content-oriented workshops that teach the key components of business and management excellence.”