Supply Chain Management Case Study: Starwood Hotel

Shitsuke (Discipline)-

Self-discipline is useful for facilitating the adoption of the 5S by the employees as a concept directing their daily activities and additionally their recognition of the changes and the improvements required in their works. The nature of the hotel services and the intensity of the interaction with the customer cause high uncertainty and coping up with that situation is one of the most important tasks of the managers. The control of the employees is considerably difficult especially in the high interactive processes where uncertainty is more. The employees should assume the tasks such as to detect the possible failures, to solve them, and to carry out the necessary improvements while the process of service continues.

Depsite evidence of success, Starwood Hotels is the only hospitality organization to fully implement Lean and Six Sigma into all aspects of the operation. This calls to question why Lean and Six Sigma are not more prevalent in hospitality. The importance of setting up an infrastructure of trained leaders in Six Sigma may be a point of reluctance. Often times, the strongest people in an organization are tasked to lead the Six Sigma cause. The extensive training and additional responsibilities that these employees are imposed with may compromise the ability to do their original

The successes in hospitality have occurred in one department projects that were usually aimed at solving one problem. Research suggests that Lean and Six Sigma processes can be beneficial in improving many departments within a hotel to include house-keeping, food production, and transportation. Value stream mapping can be used to analyze almost any process within an organization and promotes various stake holders to come together and solve problems.

The lack of implementation and reluctance towards Lean and Six Sigma is due to the daunting task of changing the culture of the organization and the resource costs associated with training and setting up infrastructure. As a result, Lean and Six Sigma implementation may be more effective at a smaller organization, consisting of fewer properties. Larger organizations could implement in phases where a couple of properties or a geographic region launches Lean and Six Sigma. This would enable the organization to continuously improve the process of implementation along the way. This would reduce the chance of abandoning the programs altogether as a result of early project