Six Sigma management concepts are helping a non-governmental organization in India provide food to additional school children, according to a recent report in The Times of India.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation provides lunches to 1.4 million Indian children in more than 10,000 schools. The foundation recently implemented Six Sigma at its kitchen in Surat, a city of more than 2 million on the coast of the Arabia Sea.
Before the implementation, the kitchen was able to produce 175,000 flatbreads in seven hours. Six Sigma concepts now allow the kitchen to produce that amount in four hours, the Times reported. Improved efficiency has saved Akshaya Patra about 600,000 Rupees per month and, more importantly, has allowed it provide food to an additional 1,000 school children at no extra cost.
“In 2011, our head of operations introduced us to the concept of Six Sigma,” Tushar Dange, manager of the foundation’s Vadodara branch, told the paper. “We were trained and given adequate information on increasing productivity. We worked on our processes for five months and studied the data.”
Dange said the foundation plans to implement Six Sigma concepts in its kitchen at Vadodara within the next year.
