Case example of the use of Six Sigma and Kaizen projects in policing services

Article
Teaching Public Administration
Case example of the use
2020, Vol. 38(3) 333–345
ª The Author(s) 2020
of Six Sigma and Kaizen
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0144739420921932
projects in policing services
journals.sagepub.com/home/tpa
Mohammed Saleh Alosani
Dubai Police Head Quarters, United Arab Emirates
Abstract
This paper aims to elaborate on the use of Six Sigma and Kaizen in policing services.
Two case examples are discussed, followed by a review of the key implications
obtained from the projects. In optimising the quality of policing services to the com-
munity, the police agencies in the UAE are faced with numerous challenges. This paper
aims to provide further evidence of the use and applicability of Six Sigma and Kaizen in
the policing field and to propose the direction for future studies. Based on the study
results, it is proposed that the methodologies from Six Sigma and Kaizen are adopted in
policing services to achieve an improvement in all aspects of their environment,
including the process of service delivery, service effectiveness and efficiency, and the
reduction of operational costs. This study is considered one of the few that have
reported the use and benefits of these methods in policing services. Specifically, the
findings have provided implications to the general arguments on the effectiveness of Six
Sigma and Kaizen and their applicability in police agencies under the public sector,
leading to further contributions which fill the research gap. Moreover, this study offers
significant value for practitioners and managers in the organisations under the public
sector to exert continuous improvement in the provision of services or products and
organisational performance.
Keywords
Six Sigma, Kaizen, policing services, Dubai Police.
Introduction
The provision of quality policing services is an essential factor in assessing the effec-
tiveness of public organisations. Recently, significant efforts have been made in public
Corresponding author:
Mohammed Saleh Alosani, Dubai Police Headquarters, Al Nahda Street, P.O.Box 11483, Dubai, United Arab
Emirates.
Email: alosani@gmail.com; Tel: þ97146099073

---

334
Teaching Public Administration 38(3)
organisations to improve their services. In this case, the improvement needs to be made
in terms of the effectiveness and efficiency of the process of service delivery, including
the reduction of redundancy and waste of the resources (Garc´ıa-Navarro et al., 2019).
The improved quality of products and processes is one of the most imperative modern
business strategies (Haerizadeh and Sunder 2019).
The development and implementation of effective improvement tools are funda-
mental in the long-term success of organisations (Gijo et al., 2014). This is the same case
for organisations’ ability to deliver high-quality services at a low cost. Accordingly, Six
Sigma and Kaizen are contemporary quality excellence approaches which facilitate
organisations in achieving their objectives. According to Haerizadeh and Sunder (2019),
Kaizen emphasises on swift processes of improvement through the elimination of waste
and the enhancement of flow, while Six Sigma focuses on robust quality improvements
by reducing process variation and defects.
The applications of Six Sigma and Kaizen have been proven effective in the manu-
facturing and service sectors (Pepper and Spedding, 2010). To be specific, it was proven
in previous studies and various empirical papers and case studies that these methods are
effective in the fields of information technology, education, hospitality, tourism, avia-
tion, banking, healthcare, etc. However, limited and immature applications in the
aforementioned fields still persist (Al-Aoma et al., 2017; Alsyouf et al., 2018; Small
et al., 2017), particularly in policing services (Antony et al., 2019; Doss, 2014; Patyal
and Maddulety, 2015). Furthermore, Antony et al. (2019) reported that the lack of
exploration in the application of Six Sigma and Kaizen in policing services dates back
many years. Although several studies indicated that these approaches and their benefits
have been applied in policing (Antony et al., 2019; Barton, 2013), this implementation
has only been performed by a few police agencies. Therefore, scholars have recently
identified this matter as an important research area (Antony et al., 2019). In line with this
thinking, this article presents a case example to highlight the applicability of Six Sigma
and Kaizen in policing services towards the development of a quality excellence culture.
There has been less focus on the application of Six Sigma and Kaizen in the policing
area in the academic field. This could be seen from the insignificant explorations on this
matter (Antony et al., 2019; Barton, 2013), where most of them were conceptual con-
tributions which only focused on the methods’ applicability in policing services and their
adoption into individual services (Antony et al., 2019). Accordingly, this article ela-
borates on two case examples of the applications of Kaizen and Six Sigma, followed by
an exploration of the benefits and improvements achieved within Dubai Police units. The
importance of these methods in police agencies and the public sector in general will also
be discussed.
Dubai Police overview
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a federal government, leading to high level of
authority to be placed under the emirates. The local police in every emirate possess the
power to control everything inside it. Known as Dubai Police Head Quarters, Dubai
Police is a police agency in the Emirate of Dubai. It is among the police agencies directed

---

Alosani
335
by HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is the vice president, prime
minister of the UAE, and the ruler of Dubai. Established on 1 June 1956, the organi-
sational structure consists of 21 general departments and 11 police stations, employing
24,000 in total (Abdulla et al., 2008; Busanad, 2016; Chu, 2017; EFQM, 2018). It covers
an area of 4114 square kilometres and serves a population of 2.8 million individuals in
the Emirate of Dubai.
The mission and vision of Dubai Police aims towards an improved quality of life as it
operates with constitutional rights to implement laws and maintain the safety and
security of the community and all residents of the country (Dubai Police, 2019). Besides
setting high performance standards, it specifies highly defined descriptions of its duties,
tasks and jurisdictions. Similar to all government entities in Dubai, Dubai Police is
responsible for the provision of the optimum services for the community.
Dubai Police is seen as one of the most advanced agencies in the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) region (Elnaghi et al., 2018) with remarkable improvement in its per-
formance. However, this performance is yet to be satisfactory when the government’s
ambitious plans and its past years’ results are taken into account. Therefore, the con-
tinuous implementation of methods to address the issues and conflicts in Dubai Police’s
process of service delivery would enhance its organisational performance (Chaurasia
et al., 2019).
The organisational performance of Dubai Police could be improved in terms of its
service delivery processes. In this case, Six Sigma and Kaizen are the most popular
methods used for continuous improvement of the organisation (Bhuiyan and Baghel,
2005; Elnathan et al., 1996; Galli, 2019; Luo et al., 2017; Prabhakar, 2017; Spector,
2006). These methods could improve the business processes of organisations, con-
tributing to an enhanced organisational performance in various areas, such as the quality
of product and service, business cost, cycle time, market penetration, customer satis-
faction (Scott et al., 2009) and a sustained organisational competitive advantage (Antony
et al., 2005; Da Silva et al., 2019; Larsson et al., 2017).
Literature Review
The public sector is a vital factor in a country’s economy (Rodgers and Antony, 2019).
The government entities constitute the largest part of this sector. The provision of ser-
vices to the community is the key role of the government (Ginanjar and Syah, 2019), and
the services are mainly controlled and monitored by various principles which rely on
...