Six Flags Corporation: Business Analysis

As an effort to ensure customers are satisfied, many businesses use quality management and provide the necessary levels of quality to exceed the needs of their customers. Continuous improvement is implemented frequently in order to improve products, services, or such processes and deal with key issues related to how goods and services are designed, created, and delivered. (OM, 2014) The purpose of this research paper is to provide a strategy for initiatives using continuous improvement approaches in the Amusement Park business through analyzing specific defaults in the Six Flags Corporation. Analysis will include an evaluation of processes and provide recommendations in order to improve overall park processes within a specific area. The Deming Cycle methodology is critical in reaching desired results for customer satisfaction; this model is composed of four stages: plan, do, study, and act (PDSA). Each stage of the model is used cohesively to find the root cause and analyze it thoroughly in order to implement improvement solutions. This method guides teams to develop an improvement plan, try it out, examine the results, and then repeat the process all over again if the first was not efficient. (OM 2014) Six Flags Background: The starting point of amusement parks date back to Europe, here medieval entertainers and vendors held festivals in front of medium to large size crowds, similar to today’s attraction sites. (IAAP) Six flags, a well know amusement park throughout the U.S, can be closely compared to the first amusement parks design and operations structure. It was founded by Angus G. Wynne, Jr in 1961. The first Six Flags theme park was very small with few attractions and did not get much attention, and was later bought by Time Warner in 1998. Today, Six Flags has grown to be the largest regional theme park operator and the second largest amusement park operator in the world, and operates seasonally. Most attendance is generated in the second and third quarters of the calendar year (sixflags.com) and most of their revenue is made within the warmer months. Context Problem: Like the original theme parks, Six Flags still has many unresolved issues within its quality management. Even though its parks generate much revenue and provide customer satisfaction through its generous admissions; food and beverage departments; retail and gift shops, and transportation (sixflags); one of the biggest issues facing Six Flags then and now is the lack of continuous improvement in the ride operations and maintenance sector, which has resulted in many defects within its product and process design activities. This lack of improvement also creates more costs for the parks, which results in higher prices for customers. W. Edwards Deming believes that higher quality leads to higher productivity and lower costs. However, the corporation adds new exciting rides and features to the park every other year to accommodate its customers, but they do not make improvements nor annual adjustments to its older attractions, and as a business, all factors should be recognized. In 2004, a man was thrown from a ride in …show more content…
Six Flags main focus is generating revenue while providing customer satisfaction through its thrills and attractions, but they lack structured plans of continuous improvement in the ride operations maintenance division; and lack methods to accurately measure current processes to allocate where such improvements should be made, which has created dissatisfaction in this area among consumers. Although Six Flags is one general corporation, each of its locations have different infrastructures, employees, and consumers, which means the quantity for each sector will vary but it is crucial that the characteristics that will satisfy customers wants and needs will remain …show more content…
When continuous improvement is present this will lead to a reduction in the amount of daily ride maintenance and errors associated. Waste in the form of unnecessary wait times, injuries and death will also be taken into account. As a result, higher internal and external customer satisfaction will be improved. The implementation of this concept, and making improvements to services and processes will lead to decreased costs, while making more opportunities for larger innovations and competitive strength. Although the application of new technology has improved park operations, there is still a great need for further improvement within the parks ride operations and