Evaluating management consultants for six sigma projects

This paper aims at evaluating the performance of management consultants for Six Sigma projects in service and manufacturing industries. An activity model is proposed for implementing Six Sigma projects. Four inputs (consultant fee, time spent, top management supported, and degree of difficulty) and two outputs (perceived satisfaction and financial performance) from a survey study by firms in Taiwan are used to estimate efficiency using data envelopment analysis. Four hypotheses: type of industry, company size, primary business activity and type of consultant are identified by soft systems methodology. We use a truncated regression model to investigate the relationship between efficiency scores and the variable of interest. Results support the larger organizations with more efficient implementations and the local management consultants with more efficient implementations. However, primary business activity and the type of industry are not significantly related to the efficiency of the Six Sigma project implementation.