The Six Sigma approach has in the past been predominantly used to improve manufacturing processes. However, Six Sigma is now increasingly applied to a wide variety of nonmanufacturing operations also. This is an important development—there are potentially more benefits to be achieved in those areas than in traditional manufacturing, where decades of good work have already paid off. The key to understand how Six Sigma can be applied more broadly is to recognize that nonmanufacturing operations are also processes; they process inputs from suppliers and provide outputs to customers. Consider, for example, accounting. A company's accounting department receives numbers and other information from internal suppliers (departments), processes the data and provides weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports (products) to customers (key managers). The accuracy of these reports, their clarity and timeliness, are primary quality characteristics. Any quality problem concerning the reports can have serious adverse consequences, often much more so than similar quality problems on the factory floor.
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