How And When To Choose The Right Six Sigma Training

The term "Six Sigma" may seem difficult to comprehend at times, but is actually very easy to explain. The term is derived from a character in the Greek alphabet, which is used for representing a standard variation in statistical mathematics. Statistically, Six Sigma can be defined as a near perfect method of production that restricts the number of defects to less than 3.4 for every million opportunities that exist for a defect to occur. This makes Six Sigma one of the preferred quality management techniques for achieving near perfect business processes through process improvement.

Data Driven And Disciplined Approach

Six Sigma follows a disciplined and data driven approach for eliminating defects in any type of business process, whether it is the product manufacturing process or after sale customer service. The two most commonly used methodologies in quality improvement projects are the DMAIC process (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) and the DMADV process (define, measure, analyze, design, verify). The former is used for improving the quality of business processes that have not met customer specifications and require improvement. The latter is used for developing new products or business processes that conform to 6-Sigma quality levels. Both the processes are carried out under the guidance of Green Belts and Black Belts, who in turn are guided by Six Sigma Master Black Belts.

Companies often want to know exactly how many benefits can be derived from Six Sigma training. Just to get an idea, one can look at the financial data of General Electric, one of the companies that have successfully implemented Six Sigma training. It is estimated that the total value of benefits derived from the training was close to a staggering $ 10 billion in the five years after implementation. It is estimated that on an average, Six Sigma Black Belts help companies save $ 230,000 per project. Given that most companies can execute 4 to 6 such projects per year, the total savings can translate into $ 920,000 to $ 1,380,000 per year.

Selection Process

After selecting the most appropriate type of training, a company needs to find the right consultant who has the necessary skills and experience in implementing Six Sigma programs. The selection of the training consultant will depend on the type of Six Sigma program that the company is planning to implement. Some programs are implemented all throughout an organization whereas others are implemented in a specific area only such as individual functional departments. The decision regarding the selection of the consultant needs to be made only after consulting other employees, as they are the ones who will eventually interact with the consultant during the implementation process.

After getting approval from the employees, it is advisable to seek references from business associates in other companies that have implemented such projects and can provide the necessary insights. Companies need to interview potential trainers and ask questions regarding their previous work relationships, referrals, total number of candidates trained by them till date, training materials used, earlier projects they have worked on, and their qualifications. This is essential since companies need trainers with a great deal of real-world experience. Companies need to inquire in depth about the type of training that the trainer is willing to provide. Usually, companies prefer training firms that operate online help desks for helping clients in dealing with problems that might arise after the training has been completed.

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

Change Management In Six Sigma

Change is the only constant thing in the world and businesses are no exception to this universal principle. The aim of change is bringing about continuous improvement in the competitive world through which businesses hope to surpass their competitors to meet customer needs better than the rest.

Change Meets Resistance

You need to anticipate resistance from unexpected corners while contemplating and proposing change. This could be for the first Six Sigma project or for the subsequent project, despite rigorous results with previous project implementations. Workers may respond by ignoring the change, by refusing or failing to comprehend changes, disagreeing with apparent benefits and resorting to delay tactics and tantrums. Other instances can be ignorance from other sections within the organizations and non-cooperation on projects

Managing The Change In Six Sigma

Project leaders understand that most resistance has no valid reasons.

1. For example, let us take the case of ignoring the change. People are opposed to change just because they don't want a change. Change entails doing things in a different way, which demands adoptability regardless of its simplicity. They assume ignoring the change proposal will ultimately lead to its withdrawal. Make it an irreversible change, perhaps by associating annual review to the success of the changed process.

2. Failure to comprehend is another place to manage the change assertively, although this is not intentional. Handling things can be easier in this case. Use additional sessions to explain, such as a lunch meeting, one-on-one meetings; mailers, tables, and calendars which are visible daily and can be used for tools.

3. Not accepting or ridiculing the true values of the benefits is another way of resisting change, which the Master Black Belt must anticipate. Use independent sources or/and positive results from other departments or projects to prove your point. See that the points are valid and the team can relate to them.

4. Failure to achieve speed: Slow progress in change initiatives may bog you down, forcing you to go through multiple steps, which you may want to skip, even though they are essential. But practically, this could be futile. Break the illusion of speed and build up the momentum as you progress on a scientific path only. This is more permanent and speedier than a diluted and scattered set of activities.

5. Sustaining and sharing the vision: They key to longevity of support down the line is the shared vision, the dream and positive attitudes. Following up launches with a flurry of short-lived activities achieves nothing. But the workforce needs to be galvanized regularly to keep the vision alive. Communicating and getting together regularly will help in this regard.

6. Proof of the pudding is in eating it: Shareholders look for economic benefits out of every project, although not opposed to changes as long as they see appreciation to top line and bottom line figures in the financial statement. You can only prove to them when you show increased profits riding on more volume and enhanced quality.

Managing the change in Six Sigma is no different from doing it elsewhere. But the scale of the operation and the interests concerned along with wisdom should guide the way ahead.

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 Champions & Master Black Belts

The responsibility of developing a Six Sigma company successfully rests as much on Champions & Master Black Belts as it does on Black Belts and Green Belts. But the importance of their roles in the implementation can't be understated, as the necessary contribution from them is substantial. A Champion is a leader bestowed with authority and the huge responsibility of overseeing the smooth and complete implementation of Six Sigma.

If someone were to explain the role of champions in one breath, it would be that of removing roadblocks. Roadblocks can be sticky issues that Black Belts alone can't handle. Champions are looked up to for diffusing cross-territorial issues between black belts and upper management in the company through pacifying and mediation. They relieve black belts to focus on the problems on hand.

A Champion's Role Can Be Summarized Into Four Areas:

These four points underline the position and character of champions in a Six Sigma organization.

1. Their familiarity with the entire business and operational areas but without the interfering in the day-to-day operations with the black belts. This provides them with an opportunity to focus on potential improvements.

2. Project selection, which usually comes under a microscope following reports to top management - this sometimes causes career-limiting fears in champions. Driving out this fear takes effort at both the ends with top managers being 'educated' by Six Sigma providers/consultants. The project selection element is crucial and alignment of interests with the needs of management has to be explained in the proper perspective beforehand.

3. Deployment of the program. The importance of this point arises because of the need for financial decision making. The Six Sigma provider, whether he is interested in the success of implementation or primarily concerned in improving financials, is pivotal to the success of the program. Even before the results begin to align with expectations of upper management, it can come under fire.

4. The accountability question; failures are most often attributed to champions. It is often said that "there are no such things as unsuccessful Black Belts, just unsuccessful champions". This should highlight the importance of their unenviable position.

Master Black Belts

There are no universal definitions or training manual for Master Black Belts until they differentiate themselves from Black Belts by exhibiting extraordinary abilities and a high degree of propensity for problem solving. They are often devoted to working hard and are self-starters & self-reliant. They could, with some additional Six Sigma training intended to broaden the Black Belts' skills, be prepared for assuming a position where they are able to achieve higher goals and face bigger challenges. The strategy of the mass Six Sigma training of Black Belts will not succeed even if a small percentage of them were to pass Six Sigma training unless they demonstrate that they are able to solve complex problems well. The ease with which they handle crises must indicate their affinity to take on more responsibilities as a fundamental qualification.

Implementation of Six Sigma is more than just having the skills and knowledge of implementation tools. It is the exuberance and the fire to excel that counts in addition to the all-important drive for quality.

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

The Marriage of BPM and Six Sigma

Companies are just discovering the benefits of combining BPM and Six Sigma. Ideal for enhancing the long-term performance of business processes, the BPM/Six Sigma union helps companies better characterize, understand, and manage entire value chains. It also helps companies improve control and predictability of corporate business processes and generate sustainable enterprise improvements in performance levels.

BPM aligns processes across an enterprise using technologies to provide visibility and management at any point in a business process. BPM and associated technologies help model data flow, people, resources, and systems in an organization. They also help build or modify processes to better align enterprise systems with business objectives and market needs. Unfortunately, BPM lacks the analytical tools to solve difficult and complex process problems.

Six Sigma, on the other hand, is a quality improvement and problem solving methodology. It has the tools necessary to solve the complex problems BPM can't solve. Where Six Sigma falls short is in its ability to collect huge amounts of data across enterprises, the direct result of a lack of standardized process monitoring technology. Six Sigma also falls short in controlling business processes. It often uses manual methods and controls, which inhibit its ability to sustain long-term performance initiatives.

Without BPM, Six Sigma may founder because executives lack the critical data needed to focus their efforts. Instead, the executives bounce all over the place looking for performance weaknesses, or they focus on areas where successful performance improvements provide only marginal results. With BPM, Six Sigma projects can pinpoint problems and address the underlying causes.

Honeywell Improves DSO Metric

In addition to identifying quality improvement targets, BPM enhances Six Sigma projects by speeding the collection and distribution of critical data. Honeywell International, the Morristown, NJ, technology company, recently applied Six Sigma to its accounts receivables process. Its efforts were initially stymied because key information was dated by the time it reached decision-makers.

When it came to the days sales outstanding (DSO), for instance, internal teams were assigned to monitor and catch invoicing mistakes and reduce that DSO number. But it took too long to get data on categories like discount terms, over/under shipments, and warranty entitlements, to the proper people. As a result, the teams were always one month behind.

Honeywell combined its Six Sigma efforts with a BPM initiative, accelerating the process. Now the company gets daily, weekly, and monthly information that managers can access at any time. Their percentage of exception-free invoices has jumped from 67 percent to 75 percent. The jump unlocked about $30 million in accounts receivables, according to the company. The BPM/Six Sigma union also gave Honeywell a much clearer cash flow forecasting capability.

Additional BPM/Six Sigma Applications

Motorola uses the Balanced Scorecard at all its divisions to guide its Six Sigma projects. The company took Six Sigma and implemented it corporate wide, making it the means by which to execute the strategy dictated by the Balance Scorecard approach. Balanced Scorecard initiatives are often more effective when they are automated through a BPM system.

Crompton Corporation, a Middlebury, CN-based specialty chemical company, uses BPM to track its Six Sigma programs by region and byproduct line to see how those projects are doing. Feeding Six Sigma data into its BPM system is faster and more accurate than its previous approach. Now, Crompton tracks all it Six Sigma projects using its BPM system.

Other companies employ the BPM/Six Sigma union to improve product design. These companies stand a better chance of developing a new product right the first time using Six Sigma. It can provide new product growth projections and help in gathering data via focus groups and surveys to determine customer expectations and desires. BPM supplements those capabilities by providing current information in customer buying patterns and attitudes and by forecasting future customer satisfaction.

Use of BPM and Six Sigma To Rise

Combined BPM and Six Sigma are a powerful tool. The two approaches are synergistic. What one lacks the other provides and vice versa. Together, they are a better approach to understanding, analyzing, and improving business processes than other methodologies alone. Unfortunately, this union has not become a mainstream approach to improving enterprise-related business processes. One reason may be that companies are unaware of how well these two initiatives work in concert with each other.

Nevertheless, companies with revenues greater than $200 million have been adopting
Six Sigma at a 28 percent rate, according to trend analyses by Don Redinius, Agillist Group, Inc., a business performance improvement solutions company. While this rate is significant, it is bound to improve as companies come to understand the synergies between BPM and Six Sigma. The union is ideal for providing long-term, enterprise-wide performance solutions.

Peter Peterka is President of 6 Sigma us. For additional information on Six Sigma Black Belt or other Six Sigma Consulting contact Peter Peterka.

Company Politics and Six Sigma by Peter Peterka

No grouping of human beings is without some amount of politics. Managing deployment of Six Sigma in your organization will unavoidably run into some personal issues and conflict. However, with deft handling of the personal and political issues that come up, along with patience and perseverance, your Six Sigma deployment will not get derailed.

Political factors that can affect a Six Sigma project include personal resistance to change, inflexible company policies, and incompatibility with existing organizational methods and goals. Not surprisingly, all of these factors also affect business processes of any kind. They are not unique to Six Sigma. This is one of Six Sigma's strengths: realistically acknowledging the way politics work in an organization. Six Sigma is not just number crunching. It understands the importance of and encourages the involvement of people throughout and at all levels of the organization working together toward a common goal. Six Sigma encourages planning, communication, and openness about processes, procedures, and information.

Many people see change, any change, as loss?a loss of their power or a loss of the security of the old way of doing things. Thus, people are prone to defend the old way, out of habit and out of unease. They wonder how change will affect them and what exactly happens behind the scenes and if they don't know, become apprehensive. This is a problem that can be overcome through communication. Six Sigma successes require clear and open communication at all levels. Any change in an organization will meet some resistance, either intentional or just from inertia. When management can effectively communicate that it is behind that change and can communicate the positive aspects of the change, resistance and ?turf? politics can be countered and overcome.

Another problem is people who disregard the value and power of Six Sigma and consequently, they are reluctant to support Six Sigma projects. To the uninitiated, Six Sigma may appear similar to or simply an evolution of other quality programs. There have been so many quality improvement fads over the years. It is not surprising that people are now a little jaded. Others may see Six Sigma as solely another cost-cutting or productivity enhancement fad. This is a short-sighted view. Six Sigma is neither a fad nor just another quality initiative. It is a ?way of life.? It is a multi-level, cyclical movement toward continual process improvement. The quality improvement fads sell themselves as cheap and easy quick fixes. The reality is that there are no quick fixes to significant process improvement. Six Sigma understands that; it is not a simple quick process. However, the right Six Sigma training and information will help people to understand that Six Sigma is significantly different; it is a robust continuous improvement strategy and process.

Once projects are begun, Six Sigma projects can become a battle of wills for control over which strategy, approach, or tool is used. Team meetings can devolve into arguments over which measurement to use, how it will be calculated, which charts will be generated, whether to use DMAIC or DMADV, etc. Six Sigma is not about making things more difficult. It is about using common sense to make things easier. It is certainly about recognizing that there is more than one road to improvement and more than one right answer to a problem.

In overcoming political problems, the leadership of senior management is critical. Successful Six Sigma programs are built on a solid organizational foundation. The organizational structure and system needs to be clearly identified and communicated to the entire organization to successfully implement Six Sigma Quality. Becoming a Six Sigma organization doesn't just happen. Planning and training goes into setting up a successful Six Sigma organization. Employee roles and responsibilities must be established and clearly communicated to all. For many companies successful in Six Sigma, the key factor has been the direct involvement of their top leaders.

Six Sigma is about getting everyone involved. A Six Sigma project forms a team of people who work together to identify problems and develop solutions. Such teams are not isolated teams rearranging the world for everyone else to live in. These teams are serving the organization by employing the skills and tools they have learned to increase quality and reduce defects. Instilling the team concept along with expert training will go a long way toward solving potential political troubles in your organization.

Peter Peterka is a Master Six Sigma Black Belt for Six Sigma us and has implemented Six Sigma in a variety of organizations. For additional information for Six Sigma Training and Six Sigma Consulting please contact Peter Peterka at http://www.6sigma.us/.

joseph@sixsigma.us

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.