“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~Aristotle
Sustainability is one crucial point in any Six Sigma initiative. Okay, you have launched your Six Sigma projects. These projects are actually delivering what they’ve promised in terms of benefits and savings. Your processes are improved and the overall company performance is working efficiently.
But are you sure that if you used the DMAIC Roadmap you reached the Control phase?
Control the improvements to keep the process on the new course. In doing so, you prevent reverting back to the “old way.” You require the development, documentation and implementation of an ongoing monitoring plan, and institutionalize the improvements through the modification of systems and structures (staffing, training, incentives).
Or the relevant questions (taken from “Sustaining Six Sigma and Spreading The Success” article) would be: how to follow-up on your first Six Sigma successes, how to build upon those results, how to keep the energy level high, and how to spread Six Sigma throughout the organisation and beyond?
To continue what you’ve started, you need to initiate new projects, find more dollars, raise your quality levels, and maintain the momentum of your initiative. Six Sigma is ongoing; it’s a constant, “living” methodology that needs to continue as long as your business does. The article cited a two-year scheme by which you can follow up on your recently-concluded Six Sigma project. Read it here.
If you get the picture, all these efforts mean to sustain the feeling of achievement across the organization. Better yet, you publicize what had transpired to encourage similar initiatives. In other words, work and enthusiasm should not stop just because the project is finished and is successful. It’s easy to fall into the complacency trap.
Another is to document the lessons you learned every step of the way. Every success and missteps should not be forgotten so that you can learn from them. One way to spread the learning is to have open communication lines. Everyone should share his experience with another and transfer the technology to others, especially those who were not part of the project team(s).
More importantly, keep your focus on the customer. Keep on getting inputs from them by listening to complaints, do surveys, focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and test the product or service with them. In the end, it pays to find ways to discover the customers’ obvious needs and expectations.
It’s another interesting topic for research to go back to companies who’ve been into Six Sigma for years and find out if they have sustained it.
Documentation is indeed key to the success and sustainability of any endeavor.
Combined with honest assessment, documentation keeps an organization from re-inventing the wheel, so to speak, freeing precious time for other areas that need urgent solutions.
Documentation may be “time-consuming” or tedious, but such is the price of efficiency.
Very true! Over a period of repeated documentations, it becomes more systematic.