Six sigma reflections in the direction of libraries: An organization outlook

Quality issues have always been quite challenging in service sector like library and in this context, derived from industrial applications, modern Quality Management Systems (QMS) can be extensively adapted and experimented within education system. Now the quality is no more a desirable strategy – it has become a survival strategy. A library is part of a service organization which delivers products personally to the customer. In industry, a company may look at defects in its final manufactured products where as in libraries services, a defect relates to falling "users satisfaction” and to develop the "quality" of the library. In this scenario, a Six Sigma approach can directly affect the needs if it is conducted wisely. Six Sigma is a powerful breakthrough improvement business strategy that enables companies to use simple but powerful statistical methods to define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) processes for achieving and sustaining operational excellence. Doing things rightly and keeping them consistent is the basic fundamental idea behind Six Sigma. In library, to improve quality and to provide right information to a right user at right time and to provide maximum users’ satisfaction, now it is the time to execute Six Sigma in libraries. This article is an effort to validate the exceedingly valuable role of managing practice like Six Sigma for libraries which are normally presumed to be in the domain of manufacturing and process industries. With this in mind, the present work has attempted to explore some aspects of Six Sigma in libraries.