The number 6 can very well be the key by which an organization can succeed in their Six Sigma projects.
Nari Kannan wrote in his article Six Ways to Make Six Sigma Efforts Succeed that Six Sigma deployments might fail if proponents ignored some of the pragmatic and mechanical issues involved.
He outlined six ways to ensure that the Six Sigma projects will see completion and experience success.
1. Apply the 80/20 rule when selecting a Six Sigma project: “20 percent of a company’s processes or technologies contribute 80 percent of the improvement possible.” This 80-20 ratio varies from one organization to the other. For instance, in a mortgage loan market, a company may have to spend more time on the loan origination and underwriting cycle than on post-loan processes. The crucial question to determine the ratio would be: “What kind of Six Sigma projects can give maximum impact to the company strategically?”
2. Examine the conflicting priorities in the organization. Speeding up sales and order processing, for example, may be a worthwhile goalfor the marketing people, but are the same concerns taken seriously by the manufacturing people and are they ready to handle the additional speed or volume that increased sales bring?
3. Ensure buy-in from all quarters of the organization. The employees must believe and fully support the efforts of each department. Sales may be happy with an increased customer base but is finance finding that a thoughtless rush to bring in new customers is bringing in customers of poorer quality causing bad debts to go up?
4. Emphasize the control aspect of DMAIC cycle. “How do you know that the response time is still what was achieved before in the Six Sigma effort?” Control or continuous monitoring of these projects and the improvements made will spell the Six Sigma success.
5. Value organizational knowledge and experience as champions and change agents. Experienced upper management as champions and change agents are absolutely essential to ensure continued Six Sigma efforts.
6. Emphasize cross-functional successes. This step strengthens numbers 2 and 3 efforts. These efforts avoid labeling of a particular project as as a manufacturing project or customer service project. It definitely encourages team effort.
Bearing this 6 by 6 principle, organizations aiming at achieving Six Sigma will realize a solid control plan, improved efficiency throughout the organization, and real savings.
