Application of Six Sigma in small company

Six Sigma has been used by large companies to improve the performance of their manufacturing processes. However, the interest and the application of this methodology in small and medium size companies is something emerging, despite being little widespread in the literature. This article shows the applicability of Six Sigma in a small Brazilian company, explaining the application strategy and its impacts. The work presents a review about Six Sigma and DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) method, which had been mostly successful so far in large companies and is suitable for this case, and shows the particularities of small business that could have some impact in this application. Then, details of the application of Six Sigma with DMAIC in a small company of surface treatment of metal parts are discussed. The article shows the feasibility, applicability, and impact of Six Sigma in this small company, which achieved the reduction of rework in approximately 20% on the zincifying process.