Literally, Six Sigma is a statistical measure of the performance of a process or product characteristic compared to a specification level. A Six Sigma level process would exhibit no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. Very few processes achieve this level of performance and consequently most organizations endure very high costs due to poor quality. Most company processes produce upwards of 6000 defects per million opportunities which for many is simply not good enough for today's competitive environment where customer demands increase exponentially. To achieve a Six Sigma level of performance, a systematic process based methodology and project framework must be employed. The methods must operate within a defined deployment structure, which involves the development of personnel at various levels within the organization to operate and lead the six sigma implementation program.
Much of the hype around Six Sigma would have one believe that it is all new, but the genesis of the techniques can be traced back as early as the 1920s! Although the methods of Six Sigma are not new, the structured approach to deployment, which is the feature of many programs, is not common. Uniquely the consultants in SBTI have operated such a structure since the late 80's and the development of internal change agents/leaders, who in Six Sigma companies are referred to as Black Belts, have been a feature of our programs since that time. The elements of a typical Six Sigma program involve:
- developing the strategic context, rationale and drivers
- executive development
- project champion development
- specialist Six Sigma practitioners sometimes called Black belts and Master Black Belts who will lead Six Sigma projects
- local Six Sigma project leader or team member development, sometimes called Green Belt and Yellow Belts
- systematic project selection, management and review, usually focused on revenue growth or profitability improvement projects
Six Sigma benefits stem from a significant improvement in process performance, which in turn results in:
- increased revenue from removing process capacity limits
- Increased revenue from excellent new products or greatly improved existing products
- dramatic reduction in defects, cycle time and cost
- reduced reliance on inspection for quality
- greatly improved customer satisfaction
- reduced costs from rework and elimination of non value-adding work
Learn more about SBTI's Six Sigma and Lean Deployment Approach
Click on your topic of interest.
Quality Management and Quality Initiatives – which takes priority?
Improved Business Results with Six Sigma
How does Six Sigma contribute to process control?
What is Six Sigma in your Supply Chain?
What is Six Sigma in Design?
How does Six Sigma affect Process Design?
Quality Management and Quality Initiatives – which takes priority?
You are an organizational leader who struggles with quality management. You want to move your organization to a new level of performance and build a company grounded in quality management. Your productivity is not where it needs to be and you want to grow the business faster. You are facing global support challenges ranging from competition in the corporate arena to greatly reduced government support in the nonprofit arena. Quality management is lacking and you need to do something about promoting quality initiatives. Your organization does many things well but there seems to be something missing that you can't quite put your finger on. You have a good strategy management, you've surrounded yourself with good people and you have a good feeling about what needs to get done to improve bottom line results. But you can't quite get quality management to be part of the culture, to have your organization turn the corner. You need quality initiatives, right away!
Quality initiatives will lead your company into a culture where the rigor of quality management becomes second place, part of the DNA of the organization. A “Best in class” process design brings maximum bottom line results.
It's amazing what organizations lacking in quality management suffer from. Without alignment to the Voice of the Customer (VOC) quality initiatives don't exist, they work in a vacuum. Leadership development suffers, strategic management doesn't exist, and training and development are elusive. New products & services suffer from lack of quality and alignment to customer needs.
In Stephen Covey's recent book, The 8th Habit, he reports the results of a Harris Interactive poll addressing an organization's ability to focus and execute their highest priorities. Some 23,000 employees were polled with some surprising results:
- Only 37% said they have a clear understanding of what their organizations are trying to achieve and why.
- Only 1 in 5 are enthusiastic about organizational goals and business results.
- Only 1 in 5 said they had a clear line of sight between their tasks and their organizational goals for business results
- On 15% felt their organization fully enables them to execute their goals to grow the business
- Only 10% felt their organization holds people accountable for results and improved business
As a consulting company, Sigma Breakthrough Technology, Inc. (SBTI) has worked with over 50 corporations in launching Six Sigma, building a quality management program leading to successful quality initiatives. Our experience is that the above results were typical of most companies before Six Sigma was launched and quality initiatives were derived to improve bottom line results.
By training your people to follow the Six Sigma process improvement methodologies, by building quality initiatives as part of a quality management program you will create a disciplined organization around problem solving and process improvement. You will see consistency in the way your organizations select, prioritize, resource and complete strategic projects. You will see projects that are consistently aligned to your strategic goals and process control to sustain a best in class environment. You will create a quality initiative with a new core of process improvement experts – Master Black Belts, Black Belts and Green Belts. And you will see quality management bringing serious accountability for results. And with all that, you will see enormous growth in creativity and innovation.
[Top]
Improved Business Results with Six Sigma
Deploying Lean and Six Sigma (312KB ) as an initiative to obtain improved business results is a complex undertaking involving all levels and functions within the business. However, there is no better path to sustained improved business results than a full deployment of Lean Six Sigma . The initiative provides tight linkage to business needs and checks for results along the way via proper metrics. The organizational involvement ensures the right people get involved early and become an integral part of the program. Deployment throughout the organization creates an excitement that something real is happening which will fundamentally change the business by demonstrating greatly improved business results.
[Top]
How does Six Sigma contribute to process control?
Six Sigma projects and methodology typically follows these 5 phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control, often abbreviated as DMAIC (144KB ). By following the rigorous phases of Define, Measure, Analyze and Improve prior to the final phase, we arrive at Process Control knowing what needs to be controlled and what range it needs to be controlled within to keep our processes operating on target with minimum variation.
A good process control plan is a back bone for a six sigma implementation strategy. Application of the six sigma tools helps achieve greater process performance where as the process control plan helps to sustain those results. There are some key components to a process control plan. A process control method includes a training plan to ensure smooth transitions and hand-offs as well as a process auditing system. Control methods identify person responsible for control of each critical variable and details about how to react to out-of-control conditions in a process. Some of the designated tools for a process control are:
- Statistical Process Control
- Standard Operating Procedures
- Automated process control
The only reason a process control plan exists is to ensure that we consistently operate our processes such that product meets customer requirements ALL THE TIME!
[Top]
What is Six Sigma in your Supply Chain?
Supply Chain management is a key part of remaining competitive in today's rapidly changing global economy. Gone are the days of just local competition; supply chain management is crucial to meeting your customer expectations for on-time delivery, with high quality at a competitive price. Deploying Six Sigma in your supply chain management efforts requires a global training partner, with the abilities to train your international locations and global suppliers in multiple languages. SBTI has deployed six sigma training in over 10 languages all over the world. Often we are asked to translate customized training materials and provide mentoring and coaching in local languages in order to keep the supply chain competitive for our multi-national clients.
Additionally, SBTI has customized the deployment and training of Six Sigma for your supply chain management professionals (276 KB ) to incorporate the unique aspects of supply chain management processes into the approach. Successful implementation of Six Sigma into the supply chain management functions incorporates the use of statistical methods into planning, forecasting and problem resolution efforts.
Additional info:
Deployement Approach
Six Sigma and Lean Process Excellence in Professional Services
[Top]
What is Six Sigma in Design?
The Design Process is perhaps the most complex business process at your company. It has tremendous leverage on the future because nearly all new products and services flow through your design process. Innovative new products and services are the future of any company, and so much is much is at stake to obtain a great outcome from the design process. Unlike Six Sigma in manufacturing or continuing operations, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) requires changing how all work gets done in the design function. This alignment includes using the right tools, in the right sequence in the right way. To properly align the tools, the New Product Development process needs to include the right tools sequenced into the stages and reviewed at the appropriate gates.
Additional info:
Lean
Product Development!
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
[Top]
How does Six Sigma affect Process Design?
Process Design and Development is often done with very little discipline and with even fewer tools, except in key industries like the chemical industry. Consider that when a product fails, the results are often immediately noticed, sometimes with violent consequences. When a process fails, the results can be subtle and completely overlooked until many items are through the process and potentially in your customers' hands. Consider an invoicing process with an improperly trained staff member and the likely outcomes when the invoices reach customers.
Six Sigma provides an edge to businesses in the arena of ongoing process development. It helps improve existing core processes using a sequential set of tools in five different phases followed one after another. Using a DMAIC (144KB ) (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) approach ensures high quality performance and on target results for existing process development work.
The Six Sigma methodology may be adapted to the rigorous task of process design and development, in particular adaptation and utilization of some key tools and techniques from Design for Six Sigma (DFSS). SBTI has created a one-week workshop and training program called Six Sigma Process Design (1.92 MB ) using a subset of DFSS tools. This program requires participants to be trained to at least the Green Belt level of proficiency.
Also, for less rigorous Process Design and Development activities, the Kaizen approach utilized in Lean Methodologies may be used. In such an endeavor, a small focused team is identified, a charter is written by the process owner, and the team assembled on location to design or re-design the process in a period of 3 to 5 days. SBTI has applied the Kaizen approach to web site design and optimization as an example.
[Top] |
