SUMMARY
Is Six Sigma right for your organization, and will it be now?
Like any project undertaking, you must be ready and prepare for it.
Readiness means being capable to embrace change, a whole new way of doing things. You will know this by evaluating your organization’s current performance as well as forecasting its performance.
Evaluating your current performance involves the following considerations:
Readiness also considers the organization’s systems and its capacity for improvement. Timing is the key word here. Your organization may be ready for a Six Sigma initiative but is also undertaking other efforts or changes using another methodology. You must again, therefore, look at your cross-functional processes. Are they managed in such a way that everyone in your organization understands the whole process? In any case, it is only fair that you train your people well.
Undoubtedly, Six Sigma efforts if undertaken carefully will yield amazing results for your organization. There are instances however that Six Sigma may not be right for you.
First, your organization already has a strong, effective performance and process improvement. Second, the changes are overwhelming to your organization thus will impede their initiatives. Third, potential gains are simply not there.
If you think however that Six Sigma is right for your organization, your next focus will be on the cost and the kind of return you will get.
To know the exact rewards will be easy at the outset. But you can definitely make intelligent guesses by evaluating the rework, inefficiency, unhappy or lost customers and then estimate the amount by which you can reduce them.
Your assessment measure may not be perfect because you can only know the actual cost after you’ve started doing the real Six Sigma improvement. Still you need to establish some lead time. Plan your DMAIC from the first project to the next until finish.
Some of the most important Six Sigma budget items can include the following:
Estimates of the cost will depend on your implementation speed, scale of your effort, and your general “risk profile.” You must not compromise these factors.
COMMENTARY
There is great benefit in deciding whether to start Six Sigma in your organization or not. You need to answer several questions: Do you really need it? Is your organization ready for it? What benefits would you really like to gain?
It is best that these are discussed to remind managers and executives that there are certain considerations indicating not to go Six Sigma. In short, it is a self-reflection to examine your internal operations and assess the outlook and future of your business. These No-Go conditions are just simple question guides loaded with plain business sense.
The problem with Six Sigma is that decisions cannot be based strictly on a short term cost-benefit basis. Executives should then remember that these high initial costs are just birthing pains toward sustained success in the future.
