We all know that English is the global language. You might be surprised that at Sanyo-Energy, the world’s largest manufacturer of rechargeable batteries, the language of their organization is Six Sigma.
At OneSixSigma, Six Sigma Qaultec reports that Sanyo-Energy’s success is attributed to the universal language of Six Sigma.
Because the company has offices in different parts of the world, dessiminating information has been a problem. But as they went into Six Sigma sometime in 2002, the language problem had been solved.
“…with a multinational array of manufacturing plants and offices, Sanyo-Energy’s in-country production environment is in local language. In Europe these are Hungarian, Czech and German. After just a few months of training by Six Sigma Qualtec, Sanyo- Energy black belts were communicating much more easily across all four languages with the commonly understood ‘universal language’ of six sigma. Even during training these black belts set up internal benchmarking between plants in different language environments without any trouble.” Read more…
More than anything else, I believe what the experience of Sanyo-Energy is telling us is that language is immaterial. For as long as your whole organization is looking at the same direction and has a one heart in the project you’re undertaking, then everyone will understand easily what needs to be done. Sanyo-Energy is a sure proof of that.
