World class manufacturing and "Six Sigma": Their application to SMEs, as well as to services

The present work starts with the observation of the current international crisis that has not spared the business world, affecting mainly the industrial sector. Thus, companies are now more than ever called upon to ensure their competitiveness by meeting some critical success factors that are not only related to quality and product innovation, but also to the production efficiency which can be achieved through minimizing both production and delivery costs. The difficulty of combining the fulfilment of these objectives which seem to be in contrast with each other, has led companies to experiment different management philosophies to find the most suitable to be adopted in the competitive scene in which they operate, and aimed at ensuring the best business performance in the medium-long term. As a result, the research aims, first, at investigating whether there are management philosophies that are able to meet these objectives, supported by operational approaches that are compatible with their basic criteria; secondly, it is meant to assess whether these models may cover the whole industrial sector rather than a single sector alone, as well as whether they can be used in both large companies and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) and, finally, whether they can be extended to service companies as well.