Six Sigma Project Management

Employing Six Sigma for the business environment is for achieving well-defined goals. The project selected for deploying Six Sigma is not self-sustaining and can develop tendencies to get off target following even the slightest let up in its management. The focus of the Six Sigma management committee is to steer the project implementation to meet those stated goals within budget and time constraints.

Six Sigma Project Management Stages

Project management in Six Sigma begins even before selecting a project. In the run up to the implementation, the right kinds of people, who have proven track records, are selected for Black Belt positions. Since Black Belts are the pillars of managing six sigma, it essential that candidates have proven qualities such as attention to detail, tendency toward problem solving and a proclivity for dedicated work.

Organizational clearances, essential for project implementation, have to be sorted out at this stage. Project selection that has a potential for a high payoff cannot be missed out on any account. For example, because of lack of funds or because of organizational stumbling blocks.

Defining Project Goals And ROI

Defining project goals and estimating pragmatic ROI is essential at this stage to set the course for project implementation and for bringing it back to course if an audit shows that deviations occurred during the implementation. This is really important - if deviations are missed it will produce endless financial and customer base losses to the company. Another key aspect is setting practical ROI targets without getting carried away. The bar shouldn’t be set too high and certainly what has not evolved from the “Voice of the Customer”.

Getting Down To Measurements

Measurements are the watchdogs of a project and demand total integrity. This is the area where Master Black Belts and Champions need to concentrate completely. Black Belts can encounter undesirable pressures for misrepresenting facts, which would otherwise expose a few poor performances.

Another issue that needs to be tackled is of a more serious nature. The consultant teams have their interests in keeping the project going on for as long as possible. This fact may be seen in the fact that Black Belts employed at the company do not measure up to the reputation of the consulting firm. From this point of view, it becomes important to double check and get back to the basics to negotiate the names of professionals who are going to be deployed.

Six Sigma Audit By Internal Committee

The internal audit committee must not the audit exercise lightly, as there is much at stake. The audit committee, besides inspecting process records and documented measurements, must place a lot of emphasis on interviewing the internal customers. The interviews should focus on finding the status of efforts at minimizing customer complaints. This is clearly an exercise of contrasting the condition ‘as is’ against ‘should be’, which is the goal. The Champion will then take over the matter for brainstorming with the Master Black Belts and Black Belts. The agenda of the brainstorming session should not deviate from discussing the findings of the audit committee.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Six Sigma Employee Assessment

A typical business environment would like all processes to be assessed for improvement possibilities. The competitive business world demands that all business processes be at their peak performance levels at all times to meet challenges. These challenges, as defined by the ‘Voice of Customer’ and the projections of ROI, are not fixed but moving targets.

For business success, organizations have to realize the contribution of employee assessment. Employee assessment results in measurable metrics called ‘Employee Ratings’. Business organizations embarking upon an employee rating exercise, use internal and cross organizational surveys which assess ‘as is’ conditions with regard to perceptions of employees about their work environment.

The survey may be divided into two parts; one preliminary and the other comprehensive. A representative sample of employees may be taken into confidence for conducting what can be called a preliminary interview. The interview has to be invariably conducted in a formal environment for the feedback to be as real as possible. The purpose of this employee assessment exercise is to find out the present situation so that the metrics can be compared with the goal, point by point.

Preliminary Assessment Guidelines

Some researchers have identified 15 such aspects that affect organizations’ working environments. Employees may be interviewed for, for example on:

• Whether Six Sigma implementation reduced their workload
• Whether Six Sigma implementation improved their work climate
• Whether Six Sigma implementation helped reduce process time in their perception
• Whether Six Sigma implementation helped eliminate process variation
• Has it come to their notice that reduced defects reduced wasteful reworking
• Whether Six Sigma improved the position of the organization, in their view

The findings of the preliminary survey may be representative sample feedback and further assessment is strongly advised. The feedback may reveal two different things. The obvious one being the assessment of employees and the other important one is employee perception of the project itself. Although the latter is only relative, it serves as a wakeup call.

Before embarking on a comprehensive survey, the feedback from the initial survey must be analyzed in view of theoretically expected results, which were set at the time of project implementation. All possible deviations must be scrutinized with a view toward concluding whether there has been positive impact on employee performance. The analytical results lead the way for the final, comprehensive employee survey.

A Brief On The Comprehensive Employee Survey

For conducting the final survey, the team must consist of at least a couple of Master Black Belts, one from the HR department and the other being from another respective department for obvious reasons.

Having equipped itself with the preliminary feedback, the survey team need not take indirect paths to extract results. Further, the survey must include all employees, obviously for individual assessment, unlike the preliminary interview. The feedback is recorded on spreadsheets and charts are drawn.

Employee assessment is not necessarily for downsizing staff, as is the common misconception. For the future success of Six Sigma, the team must approach the assessment without being biased.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

A Holistic View of Six Sigma

"Only the overall review of the entire business as an economic system can give real knowledge" - Peter F. Drucker

No one needs to emphasize the holistic approach the Six Sigma deployment takes on overall business processes. All processes in an organization present at least one opportunity for improvement. Having a limited picture about the limitations of Six Sigma and its applications projects an all together different picture.

At the enterprise level, each company must consider the entire application of the project and this is certainly beyond the line employee level.

A Little Background

We have all known Six Sigma as a deployment strategy related to company activities and we have examples for justification. We have many glaring examples of successful and not so successful companies in recent history. Motorola, DuPont and General electric are some cases in point. Also known to us are the failures of deployment mostly in non- manufacturing businesses.

While thinking along the same lines, if in your understanding, Six Sigma is not applicable to your organization or industry, perhaps what first step you may take is answer whether it can improve the financial situation of your company within an acceptable timeframe. This fundamental answer must be obtained even before the project selection process. Answers to whether Six Sigma can work in all processes and parts of the organization must be put into place.

Thinking Beyond The Shop Floor

Notions and misconceptions such as those confining Six Sigma to the shop floor and relegating it as something of a quality implementation tool dedicated for manufacturing industry must be shown its due place for it to show results of any significance. The ‘beyond the factory’ approach encompasses almost all non-manufacturing aspects of the economy, not excluding those in the new economy group. For example, law offices, non-profit organizations, online business and the transport sector.

Three Critical Steps To Take Six Sigma Benefits Beyond The Shop Floor

Holistic thinking does not exclude non-production activities within organizations. Activities that don’t produce physical products but are still parts of production activities that go into manufacturing, as well as service industry sectors, such as transport industry or consultancy firms, contribute to the economy in a larger meaning by value creation. The following critical steps help reap major benefits in implementation:

• The Strategic Deployment: Think through the overall deployment of Six Sigma initiatives across the entire organization.
• The Tactical Deployment: Tactically selecting, conducting and closing the projects in all those environments.
• Methodical Deployment Of Operational Tools: Applying the analytic techniques of Six Sigma properly when facing common challenges beyond the shop floor, such as skewed (non-normal) distributions of cycle times, or the predominance of discrete data.

Holistic thinking In Six Sigma calls for adopting a statistical approach in its entirety to all aspects of conducting business and looking beyond statistics is an embedded part of deployment. Judgmental timing and accuracies assume the same degree of significance of decision making. There is not one single sure-fire formula to ensure the success of it.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Six Sigma Assessment

Assessing Six Sigma is not end-of-the-process post implementation, although an analysis of a failed Six Sigma project points out the lack of commitment by upper management and lack of attention to the cultural and business investment required for accomplishing and sustaining new tiers of performance. It is in this context that assessment of Six Sigma becomes necessary, especially when new attempts by companies on improvement projects, reveal that the journey will be long and hard.

Assessing The Different Implementation Stages of Six Sigma

The key to the success of Six Sigma implementation lies in assessing the status quo at various stages. Assessments reveal the deviations the implementation efforts have taken from the intended line of progress. As the deployment of Six Sigma is signified by emphasis on accomplishing benchmarks in process optimization and control to render progressively higher degrees of quality, performance efficiency and timeliness, a system of assessment needs to be inbuilt which puts in place an appropriate set of checks and balances.

Six Sigma Assessment Procedures

There has not been a single assessment procedure either devised or used by any one company which applies to all processes and industries. Companies successful at their Six Sigma implementation have developed and adopted their own assessment procedures. Some of them have used their own internal audit teams with their own criteria to assess the progress of Six Sigma implementation. Even using the audit procedures developed by Malcolm Baldrige Quality Awards is not new and unique. Many Six Sigma companies have actually gone ahead with evolving a custom developed audit system based on ISO 9000.

The Assessment Categories in Six Sigma

The fundamental premise of assessment in Six Sigma is identifying and reading the gaps between ‘as is’ and ‘should be’ conditions of the process stages. The ‘should be’ list of conditions is what is established at the beginning of the deployment described in great length for each category. The categories for assessment are listed below:

1. Leadership
2. Communication and Implementation in Everyday Activities
3. Project Effectiveness and Efficiency
4. Organizational Transformation
5. Customer Impact

The requirements of these top level categories are the customized topics needed for achieving overall objectives. The method of assessment contains written tests and interviews starting with top level managers down to line employees, in addition to meetings and seminars.

The overall results are shown as applicable to the core business process. The results of leadership assessments that show possible areas for improvements are essentially helpful in chalking out a course correction plan. The results also show weaknesses that are to be assessed as the first step toward fine tuning the exercise for needed changes.

The need for assessment may be fulfilled whenever it is warranted. In the normal course, where the results take 4-6 months to show, the assessment can be scheduled as an annual exercise. Experience from successful implementation of Six Sigma has shown that major roadblocks in changing an organizational mind set lies in sustaining the gains made.

Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Six Sigma Environment

It is not easy to implant the concept of Six Sigma into the culture of a company. This is because Six Sigma hardly bears any comparison with other quality management tools, barring a few similarities with Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award. But unlike the Baldridge Award, Six Sigma gets to the core of the business sphere with proven tools. But what really stands out as the major difference between Six Sigma and all other quality management tools is the whole army of highly trained employees coming from various professional and organizational backgrounds, not just from the quality assurance specialization. This is why they are called internal change agents.

It is irrelevant to say whether Six Sigma evolved as an alternative to other quality tools or management tools. However, some similarities can be seen between Six Sigma and other similar programs. Certain tools and concepts of continuity in improvement are shared across all quality programs. But it is the set of differences that make the Six Sigma environment a unique one.

Six Sigma Environment

At the core, the concepts of Six Sigma gels completely with the fundamentals of doing business. This is underlined in the basic emphasis that is given to total customer satisfaction, taking profitability to different sphere through maximization techniques. To quote an expert, “Six Sigma speaks the language of business”.

The success of Six Sigma depends a lot on the environment in which it is being implemented. The conduciveness of the environment for Six Sigma implementation is brought about when the vision of upper management is shared by everyone in an organization. This becomes clearer when seen against the backdrop of huge number of personnel working for it. It could be different in an ISO 9000 environment as the onus of implementation is relegated to the quality assurance department. Satisfied customers, a more realistic workload for employees, an improved work culture and finally a rising bottom line and profitability for the owners, are all contributors to the success of Six Sigma.

Linking Six Sigma to Financial Gains

Next, Six Sigma does not just focus on manufacturing or production-related activities alone, but the entire gamut of doing business. Cross-functional implementation coupled with recognizing opportunities for improvements in all key areas of business can be neglected but at the cost of relegating Six Sigma to the status of other traditional quality programs. The finance and planning departments are also included in Six Sigma implementation.

The powerful tools available with Six Sigma help to improve functioning of key departments. For example, marketing and sales can collect customer input. Feedback in the form of customer satisfaction levels can help the finance department adjust the accounting method to focus on predominantly costs and benefits. Human Resource can concentrate on rewards and recognition based on universal criteria, tracking employee satisfaction etc.

Business becomes “as usual” with Six Sigma once the project selection does not remain the sole jurisdiction of the quality team. When individual department heads begin to own responsibilities for business goals, the environment can be said to have arrived where it was expected. It is “business as usual” from here onwards within the Six Sigma environment.

Tony Jacowski is a certified Master Black Belt for Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ). Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Six Sigma Tools

Statistics are at the heart of Six Sigma’s powerful methodology for quality improvement. It pays to get to know some of the most important of the Six Sigma statistical tools.

Control Charts

The control chart is the fundamental tool of statistical process control; a proven technique for improving productivity. It monitors the variation of key characteristics and indicates the range of variability that is built into a system. Control charts provide diagnostic information about process capability that can be used to analyze variation in process data to demonstrate whether a process is operating consistently. The bounds of the control chart are marked by upper and lower control limits that are calculated by applying statistical formulas to data from the process. Data points that fall outside these bounds represent variations due to irregular causes, which can then be identified and eliminated. Control charts are effective in defect prevention and will help ensure that your process performs consistently. From them, you can, in a precise manner, monitor, control, and improve on process performance over time. This will allow you to be able to predict fluctuations, lower costs and ensure the process has a higher effective capacity.

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)

FMEA is a powerful structured approach that helps you to identify and counter weak points in the early conception phase of products and processes. Using FMEA allows you to analyze any system or subsystem in manufacturing or service industries in the early stages of the process. This systematic methodology identifies potential failure modes in a system caused by either design or process deficiencies. It also identifies critical or significant design or process characteristics that require special controls to prevent or detect failure modes. FMEA improves the quality of products and services and processes by preventing problems from occurring. It documents and tracks action taken to reduce risk while it integrates with the DMAIC methodology.

Histogram

A histogram is used to graphically summarize the distribution of a data set. A histogram is constructed by dividing the range of data into equally sized segments. This data tool enables you to quickly and easily answer several important questions: what distribution does the data have? What is the most common system response? Is the data symmetric or does it contain outliers?

Pareto Chart

A pareto chart is used to graphically summarize the relative importance of the differences between groups of data. A pareto chart is constructed by dividing the range of data into groups. The vertical axis of the pareto chart is the cumulative percentage, and the horizontal axis of the pareto chart is the groups of response variables. Unlike the histogram, the pareto chart is ordered in descending frequency magnitude. The Pareto Chart allows you to focus your efforts to achieve the greatest improvements by identifying the largest issues facing the process. It identifies the 20% of sources that are causing 80% of the problems.

Peter Peterka is President of Six Sigma us. For additional information on Six Sigma Black Belt or Minitab programs contact Peter Peterka at http://www.6sigma.us He is the Principal Consultant in practice areas of DMAIC and DFSS. Peter has eleven years of experience performing as a Master Black Belt, and has over 15 years experience in industry as an improvement specialist and engineer working with numerous companies, including 3M, Dell, Dow, GE, HP, Intel, Motorola, Seagate, Xerox and even the US Men's Olympic Team. For partial list look here. Peter is a certified a Master Black Belt and holds an MS degree in Statistics from Iowa State and a BS in Chemical Engineering from Purdue. Peter worked for 3M over 10 years where he gained extensive experience applying Sigma Methodologies to a variety of processes.

Peter has successfully developed Six Sigma deployment strategies and training for Product and Process Development, Manufacturing and Business Process Improvement. His broad experience across many technologies helped him gain insight on how to apply Six Sigma methods to Business Processes.

Six Sigma Audit

Six Sigma methodology is not a self-sustaining management tool perhaps unlike other technologies. It can only deliver the results subject to multiple variables and inputs such as deployment intensity and culture. Nonetheless, the results take around 4-6 months to show, depending on the projects selected and adherence to the tenets of the methodology.

The Six Sigma audit process does not depart too much from the assessment process of the deployment, in order that implementation status is checked for its effectiveness. The audit procedure dwells on questionnaires and checklists which help auditors evaluate the status of respective processes on ‘as is’ condition which is later compared with ‘should be’ condition. The ‘should be’ condition is the reference standard clearly defined at the beginning of the deployment in the goal setting stage.

The audit process in Six Sigma is pretty much comparable with a ISO 9000 audit. Many Six Sigma companies have successfully developed Six Sigma audit procedures based on the ISO 9000 principles but goes a bit further in the sense that Six Sigma takes into consideration the Voice of Customer (VOC). However, while auditing customers it is the internal customers that are interviewed. Using of audit procedures developed by Malcolm Baldrige Quality Awards is not new and unique in Six Sigma audit.

Use of Checklists and Charts for Six Sigma Audit

Using charts, made in the form of checklists, in audit ensures that nothing is left to chance. A checklist, which is exhaustive, is prepared during the launch of the project. There will be multiple checklists for each process and activity which can be used methodically to assess the processes involved in the project. For example, to check the leadership level and knowledge levels of Black Belts you can use the appropriate list.

The process audit checklists, like the rest, are prepared based on the Standard Operating Procedure defined in the beginning. Each question critically examines as to whether a step is being followed and if yes, how well. The activities and sub activities, since they are measurable, can be rated on the fact sheet on a predetermined scale. The answers to these questionnaires are summarized on the sheet itself.

For example, take the case of a dispatch system. If the process variation had occurred, the deviation is recorded in the operator’s log which gets exposed during the audit. The variations are plotted against the standard deviation for exact picture.

The deviations from the mean represent process variation and with the help of these data, root causes of process variations are interpreted.

The Scope of the Six Sigma Audit

All in all, the scope of the audit is only limited by the preset goals and the customer reactions to the changes. The measurable aspects, including the customer satisfaction level are recognized independently and critically examined, which throws light on the current status of that process. The correlation that exists between all processes put together gives the final picture of where the project is heading with respect to ROI and customer satisfaction.

Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Six Sigma Theory of

Six Sigma is a management methodology for accuracy in manufacturing, etc. to make sure things are done right the first time and with that comes increases of economies of scale-fewer returns, etc. Such processes are especially important in Military, Health Care, manufacturing, transportation and computer industries.

When every thing is right with fewer returns, less time is spent fixing your mistakes, thus higher profits. Some of this could be classified as Micro-management of little details which goes against the theories of Fly by the seat of your pants, entrepreneurs, yet when working on lower margins in low cost high volume matured industry sectors, if you cannot do it the Six Sigma way, you will be passed and put out of business by someone who is.

So I would say to those in any industry that the devil is in the details and Six Sigma is worth a read. You should start with Jack Welch's Biography and then go pick up a Six Sigma management book, yes you should be aware of this. I would also recommend that entrepreneurs also respect those resumes, which contain Six Sigma Black Belt in them. Although as I study this stuff I can tell you that you still need an entrepreneur and visionary out front and most are from the gut and few can do both.

So companies should be careful if they are looking for a problem solver or General Patton hard charger when you have a perfection systems guy of Six Sigma, most likely they are NOT the same animal and many times they will not even get along personally. Just make sure there is mutual respect and admiration for each of the others abilities. Too often Sign Sigma's think they know it all and forget the reality of the market or the customer. The sales teams or counter person is gold for information. Six Sigma black belts or whatever cool titles they give them now a days need to be full spectrum to work. Consider this in 2006.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

Thinking Six Sigma

 

The sole purpose behind thinking Six Sigma is the uncovering of the mystery of process variations. Six Sigma professionals, starting from top down, must combine their goals so that they all think in unison about 2 things: maximizing customer satisfaction and minimizing wastage, both of which are the essence of Six Sigma thinking.

Six Sigma Mindset

The Six Sigma mindset is a special state of mind which looks at things in a rather critical way, analyzing rationally about the need for each elemental process and why and how they are what they are.

Defining Six Sigma metrics and processes with customer specifications as a target of achievement brings out what can be called the skillful uncovering of the process specifics that destabilize the end results. The irrepressible urge to question things to tie up all loose ends exposes the value of each of the process steps.

The guiding force behind defining and analyzing process steps is clearly the path to problem solving. Naturally, a Black Belt or a Master Black Belt is inclined to interact with all persons involved in Six Sigma implementation. Interpersonal skills take center stage as the mindset is focused on brainstorming to produce accurate data. A Six Sigma “belt” is never hesitant to make use of statistical tools.

The Art Of Six Sigma Thinking And Creating The Mindset

The fundamental quality of thinking Six Sigma is dependent on the ingenuity of all the professionals involved. Furthermore, it is through clear direction during Six Sigma training that such qualities are honed for better. Here are several steps to help you develop the Six Sigma mindset:

1. Identifying A Problem: Realize that problems fall into different categories. If one problem originates from customer, others are caused by internal organization reasons. Solving them requires developing a ‘problem focus,’ involving data collection, measurement systems and analyzing discrepancies.

2. Finding The Problems To Attack: Segregate the problems making use of available tools such as ‘Pareto Diagram’.

3. Formulating Measures: Analyzing why each problem could have occurred opens the doors on the steps required to work them out.

4. Perfecting Countermeasures: Before short-listing countermeasures for implementation, identify the discrepancies in them by trial and error. At this stage, you must be open to possibly scrapping a measure that fails and to start from scratch all over again.

5. Keeping The Wheel In Motion: When implementing the now ‘refined’ procedure is complete, a Six Sigma “Belt” cannot relax. Using feedback from the line staff and upper management, interpreting the feedback may expose further gaps in the process for improvements.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

5 Laws Of Lean Six Sigma

 

Thinking about how Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing work well together despite being distinct, independent and complete tools? The combined principles gel so well that they compliment each other and progress parallels to each other on a well-defined path. The paths are defined by the 5 Laws of Lean Six Sigma as we know today.

5 Laws of Lean Six Sigma

The 5 laws have been formulated in order that efforts on improving quality and business process aimed at improving customer satisfaction and ROI as primary concerns. The 5 laws have evolved over time and are a collection of key ideas derived both from Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma.

1. The Zeroth Law: The first law is called so because all other principles are built upon this fundamental one. It States that the Law of the Market - Customer Critical to Quality defines quality and is the highest priority for improvement, followed by ROI (Return on Investment) and Net Present value.

2. The First Law: This is called as The Law of Flexibility. It states that the velocity of any process is proportional to the flexibility of the process. Interpretation: the more the process is receptive and flexible to adopt changes, the better the progress of the project implementation is.

3. The Second Law: The second law is known as The Law of Focus - it is defined as 20% of the activities in a process cause 80% of the delay. This can be interpreted as main causes of delay of activities originating from just 20% of activities thus enables a faster refocus during the reorientation phase.

4. The Third Law: The Law of Velocity as the third law is known is stated as the velocity of any process is inversely proportional to the amount of WIP. This is also called "Little's Law". This explains how the inertia of WIP, Work in Progress, bears heavily on the velocity of project implementation. Higher the number of works in progress (read unfinished tasks) the lower is the speed of progress due to various ground level handicaps

5. The Fourth Law: The Fourth Law, which is the last of the 5 laws of lean Six Sigma, is defined as The complexity of the service or product offering adds more non-value, costs and WIP than either poor quality (low Sigma) or slow speed (un-Lean) process problems. The bulky nature of products is against the foundation of Lean Manufacturing principles. The bulk, complex manufacturing process and product and service specifications contributes to render the offerings redundant. As an illustration to this 4th Law of lean Six Sigma, you can try and reason out why passenger cars are more and more becoming driver friendly despite their complex engineering features and functions.

You can revisit the definitions of Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing principles which emphasize eliminating process errors and variations. It also concentrates on efforts to invest less human labor, inventory, and time for product development.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Six Sigma: Is It Just A Fad?

 

Fads have inevitably entered the business scene, but have vanished into oblivion even before they could make their mark. Some of them, even while having materialistic approaches and huge initial support, could survive no longer than a year. The list may be endless, but the recent ones and those that still linger on include: sensitivity training, quality circles, e-business, self-managed teams and a host of others. But is there a relevance of this debate regarding Six Sigma? Does it mean that the time for Six Sigma’s exit from the scene is near? Experts and those who are thoroughly trained are not blinking an eye in support of Six Sigma, but there is always another side to the story.

This article attempts to provide a pragmatic account of the relevance of Six Sigma to business processes today.

Arguments Against Six Sigma

Editor Scott M. Paton of Quality Digest, talks about Six Sigma when writing on ISO 9001:2000. He writes in agreement that Six Sigma is a fad, “Six Sigma. The latest management fad has so captivated corporate America that there's little time to devote to lowly standards compliance.” He suggests that it may not live much longer, citing its grandiose and lofty ideals. He alleges that ‘it is not serious enough to get the real work done.’

Another detractor, an author and COO at Spectra Logic Corporation in Boulder, Colorado, Scott Dalgeish, is more vocal in his disagreement of Six Sigma. His argument is that Six Sigma is a repackaged quality tool like many that have come and gone. He believes firmly and expresses openly that he believes that Six Sigma has been detrimental to businesses including his profession.

The main arguments given in support that Six Sigma is a fad are two:

1. The relationship which ASQ is entered into was with a single consultant, when they launched Six Sigma

2. Some terminologies are owned and trademarked by certain companies.

It needs to be said that these types of criticisms of Six Sigma are mostly made by those people and companies that are more resistant to change of any kind. More realistically, the quality improvements that are made and that have been documented through the use of Six Sigma statistical tools cannot be refuted.

Arguments In Favor Of Six Sigma

The foundation of this more practical side of the argument lies on the premise that the principles of economy have not died but carried through even when much is made out of the “new economy”. The notion that with every change one needs to learn everything afresh and shift priorities to suit the new principles grossly damages productivity and resources. One must keep in mind the huge investments made in technology in the 1990s, and the ‘snail paced’ recovery of the stock market and business overall.

Quality lives in the hands of people who are empathetic of the advantages of Six Sigma and not with those whose attitudes compel them to decry Six Sigma just because it shares commonality with earlier statistical quality tools. Six Sigma invigorated quality by transforming bottom lines positively, company after company. Some of the cynical views against Six Sigma appear to have been triggered by companies that have looked at quality in theory, and not based on results.

Companies are talking of quality, more and more, because Six Sigma, whose tools were created and perfected over nearly a century, has electrified the business environment and customers, which are the ultimate benefactors of its results.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Six Sigma – Business Realities

There are criticisms about Six Sigma which say that the methodology is an elitist technique. Through all this, Six Sigma has proven itself to be a highly effective management tool. Most of the incidences of roadblocks to Six Sigma have come from external sources. In the rare events of its failures, they are ultimately determined to have been caused by improper training of belts or Master Black Belts, not because of system errors.

How the Business World Looks at Six Sigma

Six Sigma is looked upon as a strategic business tool in the business circles, notwithstanding what others would like to think. However, it is regarded as the ultimate tool of improvement and profitability, able to both meet and exceed customer expectations and increase customer satisfaction levels.

Factors That Determine Six Sigma’s Success

Typically Six Sigma’s success depends a lot on two things. They are the steadfast commitment by top management to implementation and the success of the black belts as implementers.

The commitment of the top management is necessary until the completion of the program. The reasons cited for the lack of interest by management are basically financially oriented. Hefty consultation fees in millions of dollars that run for years and the training cost for the belts are the main reason - because Six Sigma takes time to implement, to show results and impact return on investment, the expenses incurred in Six Sigma implementation bears heavily on the bottom line of the company.

In addition to these reasons, there are roadblocks hit by black belts. These require intervention by Champions to diffuse tensions and resolve problems in implementation. These problems can be in the form of non-cooperation from a specific business division. Competition between divisions in the company can cause a few sparks to fly. In cases like these, upper management needs to take quick and decisive action to diffuse the tensions. If this fails, it can result in lack of motivation of the team.

The question on whether or not the belts succeed depends a lot on the training and their experiences. But unfortunately there is a big gap here as there is no centralized training or and no standardization. Universities, private institutes and corporations train Six Sigma candidates. Due to this, it is observed that there is a big question mark over the quality of training. Belts from different training backgrounds can fail to make a solid team, as there are chinks in Six Sigma training uniformity due to disparities in training levels.

Summarized View

You can summarize the business realities faced by Six Sigma as follows: 1. Huge cost and time required for implementation

2. Slow showing of financial benefits and customer satisfaction

3. Possibility of management losing interest midway

4. High cost of consultants

5. Skirmishes between the belts and the rest of the staff threatening team cohesiveness

6. Elitist notion of 6 sigma professionals; income disparities with the staff demotivate the latter

7. Financial benefit: 0.5% to 1% per project

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.