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Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) is aiming at a Six Sigma certification, a perfection-oriented capability improvement process originally developed by Motorola and adopted by corporates as a management strategy. Pilot projects are on to make the KSEB a Six Sigma company by the end of the 11th Five Year Plan, Power Minister A K Balan said. Simply put, Six Sigma aims at pinpointing and removing defects in a mechanism. For instance, in the KSEB’s case, the defects could be shortfalls in the allotment of new service connections. Internationally, a Six Sigma level means 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). In a nutshell, the idea is to improve performance to achieve that level.

Experts in the Six Sigma process are awarded degrees such as green belt and black belt, a familiar feature in martial arts. The KSEB has launched a pilot programme in twelve selected electrical sections across the state to test its Six Sigma potential.

The sections are Vellayambalam, Karunagappally, Kattanam, Ettumanoor, Tiruvalla, Chendamangalam, Kaloor, Alathur, Sultanpetta, Wadakkancherry, Kozhikode Central and Kanhangad. According to the Power Minister’s office, four specific areas will undergo testing at the 12 section offices.

These are: delay in attending to complaints; high rate of interruption in supply; high rate of transformer failure; delay in providing service connections. “A six-month study is on, involving a set of procedures,” an official in the Power Minister’s office said.

“First you have to fix the standard of performance and the variations (defects) in it. After mitigation measures are devised and introduced, performance standards have to be fixed afresh and the variations calculated,” he said.