APPLICATION AND VALIDATION OF DMAIC SIX SIGMA TOOL FOR ENHANCING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN A GOVERNMENT R&D ORGANIZATION

This study was carried out to explore and validate DMAIC six sigma tool to enhance the customer satisfaction in an ISO 9001: 2008 certified government R&D organization. The organization chosen for this study has implemented QMS since last six years with an aim of attaining 85% customer satisfaction. The deficiency in customer satisfaction by 8% has been observed after comprehensive data analysis of the customer feedback. The Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques have been applied followed by solution implementation and effectiveness assessment. The developed solution is found to be effective in enhancing the customer satisfaction by more than 85%. This has established that the designed LSS tools are suitable and effective in an R&D set-up for improving service quality and customer satisfaction. The results give feasible solutions to the emerging service oriented government R&D sector to enhance customer satisfaction. Limitation of the study is that the results are based on the limited inputs from one organization and the tools can vary depending upon the mandate and quality objectives.