Influência da medição de desempenho nos projetos seis sigma : estudos de caso

Abstract

Six Sigma and performance measurement are subjects under investigation for practical and academic purposes. In this way, Six Sigma Program is a remarkable continuous improvement program with exceptional results in short term accomplished by Six Sigma Projects. Like others improvement approaches, some factors can influence the results of these projects. Beside this, the performance measurement plays an important role as a support to the continuous improvement program, acting as its inhibiting or enabling mechanism. In this sense, the performance measurement becomes a necessary condition to guarantee the success of Six Sigma Projects. Nevertheless, a bibliography review has shown the non-existence of detailed academic researches on these two topics, studied in the same work. Due to this, the objective of this thesis is to investigate the influence of the performance measurement on Six Sigma Projects with the intention of highlighting the factors found during the development of these projects. The explanatory multiple case studies has chosen as the research method for this work. In order to achieve the objective, a field research was conducted on five companies belong to different industrial sectors. The empirical evidences have shown that developments of Six Sigma Projects are influenced by different factors. Some of them were found in many companies. It was verified also that the development of Six Sigma Projects affects the performance measurement, better said, there is a reciprocal influence between Six Sigma Projects and performance measurement. Establishing relationships between financial and non-financial performance measures is an important issue to develop Six Sigma Projects, as observed, due to the financial orientation of Six Sigma Projects. It means that the factor mentioned above has a great impact over other ones that have also their influences on the development of Six Sigma Projects. At last, this thesis aimed a contribution to the academic as well as to practical purposes since knowledge about factors that rule the relationship between performance measurement and Six Sigma Projects can support the construction of a framework related to both aspects and, then, reinforcing the benefits of the Six Sigma Program.