Six Sigma Document Control Issues

When discussing Six Sigma document control issues it is essential to recognize the effect Six Sigma has on any firms QS/ISO 9000 initiatives. From its inception until today, Six Sigma has evolved and at present is much more than a defect control mechanism. It is referred to as a methodology that is used to control course deviations that have the capacity to cause defects. In any process where change is initiated, there is often an undesirable variation in end results. The 6-Sigma methodology is intended to manage variation and do away with such expected defects. Its use guarantees superior performance, consistency and value to the end user.

Major Techniques

The two Six Sigma methodologies to be understood are Six Sigma DMAIC methodology (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) and Six Sigma DMADV methodology (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify). What is most important in Six Sigma document control is timely interception and communication. When using 6-Sigma to uphold ISO 9000 certification, document control is an important aspect of the entire process. The Document Control feature is helpful in regulating the known coordinates. Its need arises when changes are made in any regular practice. As and when there is change in a system, it may require a while to understand and adjust to these alterations. Since the authorization to amend standard procedures is often made by an individual or specific body within a company, it is very important that all staff members who will be affected with these changes are notified in time. An accurate control measure guarantees that all personnel who are going to be affected by this interference are made aware of the changes. The document control aspect helps them analyze these changes, as well as realize that the new directives are now part of standard procedures. Document control helps associated personnel adhere, acknowledge and understand revisions in standard practices.

Alternatives

The document control procedures and alternatives have been discussed long enough to rationalize Six Sigma implementation. In most cases, a lot of objective revisions and realization of the need for change is possible through ISO 9000 Corrective Action data evaluations. The alternative is to use a proactive approach when implementing 6-Sigma to help provide greater value to the end customer along with developing a particular company"s reputation and projecting a much needed competitive edge. In Six Sigma methodology implementation, a company"s management selects and sponsors the Six Sigma project that is intended to accomplish planned objectives. As such, a specific project is awarded to a team that has potential process personnel and is led by a certified 6-Sigma Black Belt. Aside from having access to adequate funds needed to work on a new project, the team is also permitted to make authorizations to bring about the required change and implementing the blueprint of the methodology that is chosen.

Advantages Of Document Control

The document control procedures and alternatives ensure that a thorough evaluation has been carried out prior to undertaking any new project. Six Sigma methodology, together with an ISO 9000-type Document Control system avoids negligence of vital factors, provides accurate logistic results, allows for insight into long term project results and prevents process personnel from resorting to any previously used plan of action.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution's Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts

Six Sigma Service at the Speed of Lean

Why Services are Special

The Ubiquity of Services:
We encounter services everywhere, from health care, hospitality, and transport to government, retail and financial services. Even within manufacturing organisations, a significant portion of the activities are service related.

The Visibility Challenge:
While services are everywhere, the steps involved in the processes are difficult to visualise. For instance where on a production line, you can directly see the amount of work in process, or measure lead time by following a work piece from one end of the process to the other, the same is not always possible with services. An observer would be hard pressed to say how much work in process a data analyst working mainly with his computer has.

The Prevalence of Waste:
Services are generally prone to waste. A major reason is that there is usually too much work in process. These may be sales orders, reports on a desk awaiting review or approval, emails to be responded to, or customers waiting to be served. Up to 90% of the time work spends in process it is just waiting.

Substantial work in process makes services slow, which drives up costs and makes them prone to poor quality.

Other common wastes include people moving around chasing information, documents looping back and forth where items are being clarified, interruptions etc.

The High Variation in Demand:
Services, particularly those dealing directly with customers generally face highly variable demand. Consider the case of hotel clerks checking in guests. There will be periods of low activity and at other times many guests will be in queue, waiting to be checked in. The situation is similar in a restaurant or shopping mall. The impact of such variation on WIP is significant.

The Relative Absence of Hard Data:
Service personnel are not accustomed to the same level of rigor in collecting and analysing data as their manufacturing counterparts.

Applying Lean Six Sigma to Improve Services

Define Improvement Targets on the Basis of VOC:
Use reactive and proactive means to listen to the voice of the customer.

Reactive methods are those where the customer takes the initiative through complaints, compliments, enquiries, web page hits, emails and the like. Reactive methods are good at detecting service weaknesses as customers will most likely contact you when they have problems.

Proactive methods are those where you take the initiative to gather customer information and include surveys, questionnaires, focus groups etc. This information ensures that improvement targets you set are based on customer needs.

Make the Relevant Processes Visible:
The relevant processes target for improvement should be observed and mapped. This is not very easy to do, considering the nature of services. However with the cooperation and involvement of stakeholders and process operators, a lot can be achieved.

For each activity in the process, information required in creating the value stream map include estimated cost per activity, process time, queue time, change over time, demand rate, complexity (number of different services processed at the activity), uptime and defects/rework. This data should be collected based on at least one week of observation. The resulting map is known as a complexity value stream map.

Determine the Time Traps (to prioritise projects):
Using a complexity value stream mapping software, the activities which contribute most to non-value added time will be visible. These are the time traps. Following from the Pareto law, usually 80% of the non-value added time can be accounted for by 20% of the activities.

Analyse the Time Traps to Determine their Causes:
A further output from the complexity value stream mapping software is the cost driver analysis. This specifies whether the source of the major time traps are primarily quality related, making them amenable to Six Sigma tools, operations related, which can be taken care of by Lean tools or complexity related which requires a streamlining or optimisation of the variety of service offerings.

Apply Appropriate Tools to Improve the Process:
The foregoing analysis having already pointed out the direction of improvement efforts, it is now left to apply lean methods to reduce setup time, reduce work in process or increase completion rates and six sigma methods to reduce the defects.

Huge opportunities translating to significant cost and time savings, along with quality improvements, exist in many service operations where typical process efficiencies are below 10% as against world class levels of 25-50%.

Samuel Okoro is the CEO of Leapfrog Alliance Ltd, a management training and consulting firm that helps organisations located in the African region to improve quality and reduce costs through better business processes. His personal passion is to help move African business to world-class levels. For further details please visit http://leapfrogalliance.com

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.