In  today’s  competitive  business  environment,  a  six  sigma  quality  output  from  a conversion  process  of  raw  materials  to  products  can  be  obtained  by  not  only  focusing  on equipment / machines and materials but also on the production-worker who manages the other two  elements.  Since  the  major  asset  of  most  Indian  manufacturing  SMEs  is  the  production-worker who will have a  hands-on  role in turning out the desired quality output, a more focus is required on this element. A production-worker at work is affected by a set of factors that needs to be  addressed  to  strengthen  the  overall  effectiveness  of  the  worker  for  a  near  six  sigma  level output.   In  this  paper,  an  attempt  is  made  to  examine  the  influence  of  various  factors  on  the production-worker  by  formulating  and  testing  hypotheses.  The data  for  this  analysis  were collected  from  production-workers  of  Small  and  Medium-sized  Manufacturing  Enterprises (SMMEs) in north Karnataka through a questionnaire survey. It was found from the study that overall worker effectiveness (OWE) of a production-worker is influenced by three main factors, viz. personal, technical, and external or environmental.  The results show that personal and technical factors have a significant influence on the overall effectiveness of production-worker and hence on the level of output from him/her.

Keywords:

Production-worker, Overall worker effectiveness, Six sigma level output, SMMEs.