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The National Institute of Business Management (NIBM) has been in the forefront in introducing modern techniques in quality and productivity for public and private sector organisations during the last three decades in Sri Lanka. The productivity and quality division of NIBM had been upgraded with many facilities to make it a national resource centre for Sri Lankan organisations.

NIBM chairman P. G. Rupasinghe, explaining the efforts taken by NIBM during the last three decades to improve the levels of quality and productivity of public and private sector organisations in Sri Lanka said as a result of its activities NIBM was named the National productivity organisation in 1968 by the Apo-Japan. He said that in 1993 the NIBM launched the National Productivity Awards and a productivity quiz program on an annual basis.

At present the demand for implementing productivity and quality enhancement practices in business organisations is growing as the productivity and quality factor has become the key driving force to face challenges faced by industries.

The NIBM chairman holds an MBA from PIM and has wide experience in development strategies, savings and branch banking and consultancy. Rupasinghe said that NIBM promotes the Six Sigma methodology in the island.

The first National Six Sigma conference was held in 2004 and the third annual National Six Sigma conference was held in Colombo recently. Prof. Park Sung Hyun of the Department of Statistics of Seoul National University Korea, Sean Shao principal consultant, Business Excellence Centre PSB Corporation Singapore and D. M. A. Kulasooriya Director Senior Consultant NIBM participated as resource persons.

"Six Sigma has evolved over the years. It is more than just a quality system such as TQM or ISO. It is a way of doing business. As Geoff Tennant, describes in his book Six Sigma - SPC and TQM in manufacturing and services, Six Sigma is many things and it would perhaps be easier to list all the things that Six Sigma quality is not. Six Sigma can be seen as a vision, a philosophy, a symbol, a metric, a goal, a methodology and we could not agree more," the chairman said.

"Some organisations such as Solectron Toyota and General Electric have adopted the quality program and goal of Six Sigma, which means eliminating defects to the level of 1 per 3.4 per million opportunities or a process that is 99.99966 per cent defect free.

Five Sigma is 233 defects per million and Four Sigma is 6,210 per million. Most firms operate at the Four Sigma level. A key theme in the Six Sigma program is the reduction of waste. Toyota trains all employees to seek opportunities to reduce waste in seven areas, called Toyota's Seven Waste - over production, waste of time on hand, waste in transportation, waste of processing itself, waste of stock in hand, waste of movement and waste of making defective products, the chairman said.

The NIBM offers numerous courses by providing opportunities in management, and IT education also in Sri Lanka.

Its program aim at sectors which have a high employability and demand in the island and overseas as well.

(L.S.A.W.)

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