The document discusses applying Lean Six Sigma methodology in the hospitality industry to improve processes and customer satisfaction. It provides examples of how Lean Six Sigma has been used in hotels to reduce costs, improve efficiency, enhance customer loyalty, and increase revenue. Starwood Hotels has successfully used Six Sigma since 2001 across its properties worldwide, delivering over $100 million in profits through Six Sigma programs. The document advocates that Lean Six Sigma can help hotels achieve 30% reductions in operating costs, 25% increases in sales revenue, and gain a competitive advantage through robust backend processes and guaranteed excellent service.

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Lean Six Sigma – a breakthrough methodology for business transformation in Hospitality
Introduction:
Lean Six Sigma is a hybrid methodology combining Lean and Six Sigma to enable a customer focused and data driven
approach towards process improvement by reducing waste. The improvement methodology enables to reduce product
or service failure rates to a negligible level (roughly 3.4 failures per million opportunities). Lean Six Sigma encompasses
all aspects of a business, including management, service delivery, design, production and customer satisfaction. Lean
Six Sigma companies typically spend less than 5 percent of their revenues addressing and repairing quality problems.
The 3 commandments of this philosophy are: -
 The Customer is the King
 In God we trust, all others bring data
 Variation is the enemy of all processes
Manufacturing, automobile, aviation, medical transcription, software, ITES, banks and even other financial institutions
are following this methodology.
The question then is why not Hotels?
If the first commandment of Six Sigma talks about the customer how can we leave out an industry which is the
epitome of customer service and thrives purely on achieving customer delight consistently.
The need of the hour is to welcome Six Sigma in this industry and utilize the skill to enhance employee
efficiency and customer satisfaction
Increasing competition from multiple players in this field and intensive work reaffirms the above
hypothesis.
In an industry where customer interactions occur on an hourly basis, each customer touch point is
critical for building personalized service credibility and developing customer affinity.

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Application of Lean Six Sigma in Hospitality: -
Hotel-wide
 Enhance Customer Loyalty
 Reduce Employee attrition
 Productivity/Efficiency Improvement
 Improve Work-life balance
 Reduce Billing errors/losses
 Developing better performance measures/ metrics
 Increase Revenue
 Reduce Cost
 Capture 'Voice of Customer' data
Front Office Operations/ Sales & Marketing
 Reduce wait time during peak check-in time
 Reduce wait time during peak check-out time
 Eliminate billing errors and improve accuracy
 Reduce No shows
 Increase Occupancy
 Optimal utilization of the current product mix (rooms) to increase revenue
 Increase customer delight at the Executive Club
 Reduce/eliminate loss calls (Operators area)
 Accuracy of information
Food and Beverage Service / Production
 To maintain optimal inventory
 Minimize wastage/pilferage
 Standardized output of Food and Beverage
 Reduce the time from order to service
 Optimal utilization of current product mix (F&B/Outlets) to increase revenue
Accommodation Operation (Housekeeping)
 Reduce the turnaround time of making/turning down a room
 Standardization of cleanliness across areas

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Purchase/Stores
 Reduce Inventory surplus
 Cost Benefit Analysis between cost of inventory and cost of storage of products where prices
vary seasonally
 Standardize the operating procedure of issuance to various departments
 Reduce the turnaround time of issuance to various departments
Human Resources/ Personnel
 Accuracy of payroll
 Documentation management
 Reduce the turnaround time of recruitment
 Reduce the turnaround time of relieving
 Increase the employee satisfaction rate
 Reduce employee attrition
Throughout the hotel industry, the gospel of excellence is the key ingredient to success. In search of
performance management excellence, Hilton Hotels corporation has implemented a Balanced Scorecard that
incorporates revenue maximization, operational effectiveness and brand management. The culture at Marriott
International, Inc prides itself on its reputation for superior customer service - 'people serving people'. Starwood hotels
and resorts worldwide Inc is the first hospitality company in the world to embrace Six Sigma since 2001 and extends
this best practice to all properties worldwide, including the Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel & Tower.
A case in hospitality
Barry S. Sternlicht, chairman and CEO, Starwood Hotels and Resorts had stated, "The launch of Six Sigma is
one of the most important strategic initiatives since the formation of our company," he continued. "It is our goal for
every Westin, Sheraton, W, Four Points by Sheraton, Starwood Vacation Ownership and St. Regis /Luxury Collection
guests to have a flawless experience during each and every visit. Six Sigma will help us reach that goal."
The Sheraton Miramar resort had the highest overall performance in 2004 in each of the five key metric
measurements including the Guest Satisfaction index. They were recognized as the Hotel of the Year in EAME (East
Africa and Middle East) region.
Starwood has run over 3000 projects worldwide to date in areas such as productivity, menu re-
design, resort concierge, email marketing and launching a worldwide sales initiative. Another of its chain

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of hotels, The Westin Turnberry resort in Scotland won the IQPC's 5th Annual European Six-Sigma summit in London
in April 2004. It won the European award in the category 'Design for Six Sigma' for a reservation project. Sheraton
Lagos Hotel & Tower having adopted Lean Six Sigma as the driving force for its business in 2003. Within this period it
had experienced improvement in every facet of the business from the product delivery to service delivery to guest and
employee satisfaction all of which impacted the bottom line positively.
Proof of the pudding...
Covidien, Dow Corning, and Hilton Worldwide Are 2015 AFP Pinnacle Award Finalists
Covidien, Dow Corning, and Hilton Worldwide are finalists for the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP)
2015 Pinnacle Award. Of the finalists, Dow Corning is up for “utilizing Lean Six Sigma techniques, value-stream
mapping and a return on human assets focus.” Dow Corning overhauled its manual, process-heavy currency trading
program and as a result of the overhaul, the organization cut nearly $5 million a year in costs. Dow Corning was
also able to re-allocate nearly 600 hours of labor to more value-adding activities!
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide
Instead of hiring consultants or ethnographers, a common first step for a new initiative, the hotel chain relied
on a seemingly stodgy process: Six Sigma. Last year, according to Starwood management, programs developed under
the famed management technique delivered more than $100 million in profit to its bottom line. As a result, the
White Plains (N.Y.) company is one of the world’s most profitable hotel operators: Its net margin is nearly 15%,
higher than those of rivals Hilton Hotels (HLT) and Marriott International (MAR), as well as the
industry average of 9%. “We have been driving our margin growth faster than our competitors,” says Ballotti. “When
people ask why, I point to Six Sigma.”
What’s in it for Hospitality ?
Reduce cost of operations by 30% (YoY) while scaling up to be world –class
Improve sales revenue by 25% (YoY) with less investment
Powerful re-branding supported by robust backend processes using Lean Six Sigma
Become one of the pioneers in hotel industry to achieve Process Excellence
Ability to guarantee service – first of its kind in the industry and gain a significant competitive
advantage
STRETCH 30 – “Strategic Re-engineering To Reach
Competitive Horizon”

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Minimum 30% improvement, irrespective of current level of process maturity
• Metrics driven organisation
• Roadmap assessment
• Cost of Quality modeling
• Kaizen for Quick hits and rapid
changes to standardization
• Analytics for opportunity
assessment
• Lean operations
• Six Sigma tools for enhanced
effectiveness
• BPR strategic tools / IT –
assisted re-engineering for
transformation
• Significant reduction in Cost
per FTE and Cost per
transaction
• Reduced customer complaints
and improved NPS
• Six sigma level of defects /
errors in Operations
• Improved Turn Around Times
• Enhanced productivity
• Transformational gains on all
key metrics
• World – class organisation
Our Senior Coach
A practicing professional with over two decades of experience in the field of Project management and
Operations Management with a specialization in Quality across Manufacturing, Information Technology and Services.
He has rich experience training & consulting various world class companies such as Alstom, Bosch, TVS group, Gamesa,
Michelin, Apollo Tyres, Hyundai, Nokia, Hewlett Packard, Standard Chartered, Mashreq Bank, Dubai Bank, Dubai
Islamic Bank and thousands of students and professionals through many public programs.
Earlier, he was leading the strategic agenda of Innovation and Digitization as Head of Business Excellence and
Group Change Delivery across fifty plus countries for Standard Chartered Scope International. In his earlier
assignments as Quality Leader in various multi-national corporations, he has deployed strategic change management
programs such as Lean, Six Sigma and Innovation for business transformation with a focus on analytics and customer-
centricity.
He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from Project Management Institute, US, certified Six
Sigma Master Black Belt (CSSMBB) from Indian Statistical Institute, Lean Master / Reengineering Customer Care
Name: K. Kalyanasundaram
Education: BE, PGDM, CSSMBB, CQP, MCQI, FCSIA, PMP
Experience: 20 years plus
Skills: Lean, Six Sigma, TQM, JIT, Statistics, Analytics, Customer
Service, ISO and Project / Program Management
Strengths: Focus, Includer, Strategic, Learner and Analytical –
Top 5 strengths from the Strengths Finder of Gallup
Organization

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Engineer from Renault Institute of Quality Management and Cegos, UK, certified Chartered Quality Professional (CQP)
and a Member of the Chartered Quality Institute (MCQI), UK. Fellow (FCSIA) Member of the Customer Service Institute
of America and a certified Assessor of Business Excellence from the Confederation of Indian Industry–Institute of
Quality.
Speaker at the various international forums including the American Society for Quality, 5th Annual Middle-east
Business Excellence Summit in Dubai, 2nd Gulf Quality conference in Doha, Qatar and the Madras Chapter of Indian
Institution of Industrial Engineering. Reviewer of papers for National Project Management Conference, India. Member
of the panel judges for various conferences / competitions such as International Quality Conference by National
Institution for Quality and Reliability and QIMPRO convention.
He is also a PhD Research scholar from Amrita School of Business with four international publications in the
field of Quality Management and Experimental Psychology.
Key expertise
 Lean Six Sigma
 Customer Service
 Analytics
 Program & Project Management
 Cost Optimization / Productivity
Improvements
 Innovation & Digitization
 Benchmarking
 Problem Solving EPS/ 8 D
 BPMS – Business Process Management
Systems
 Business Intelligence
 Performance Management / Metrics &
Measurement
 Risk Management
Major achievements:
 Mentored more than 100 hi-impact projects with over 25 million USD hard saves and significant improvement in
Total Customer Experience / Net Promoter Score across world class companies in UK, UAE & India.
 Trained more than 1500 Professionals with over 5000 hours of training in Project management, Lean and Six Sigma
across world class companies in India, UAE and UK.
 Pioneered the introduction of Work Measurement (Industrial engineering practices like MOST – Maynard Operation
Sequence Technique) and Hyper-specialization in the IT / ITES industry for Productivity / cost optimization
 Led the strategic agenda of Innovation and Digitization for Standard Chartered Scope International across fifty plus
countries
 Lean six Sigma efficiency improvement projects including maximization of Straight-through processing through
Innovation & Digitization leading to cost save of more than USD 25 million
 Lean Six Sigma projects on customer to customer TAT reduction of more than 50% on key products such as cards,
personal loans and savings account leading to an increase in Net Promoter Score from 30 to 45
 Seat Utilization improvement from 110% to 150% across locations through implementation of agile work place
solutions
 Use of latest trends in technology including Artificial Intelligence (virtual assistants) to eliminate manual
intervention in operations
 Winner of the Icons CEO award of the Global Shared Services Centre consecutively for 2 years (2012 and 2013)
 Introduction of an innovative concept of “Customer Consultant Award” for complaining customers
 Service Excellence enabled through implementation of CRM solution across the bank
 Uplifting Customer service champion and writing back specialist from Up your service college, Singapore