Time and again, we are told, and even those in the know, agree that Six Sigma is not a silver bullet, which can solve all process improvement problems.
At one time, it has been observed that many organizations do not achieve the savings they hope to achieve with Six Sigma. Well, as quality people would often say, efforts toward improvement is a journey that needs a long-term commitment. And you have to commmit to quality again and again.
I believe that Six Sigma or any other quality strategies is better than nothing at all. What organizations need to do is to evaluate their processes well, and choose which quality methodology is best for them.
Let me share with you today an amusing commentary on the human side of business. It is Dale Dauten’s (The Corporate Curmudgeon) interview with his fellow executive at Mundane Industries ( 
), the head of Quality Management, Donald “Zero” Difetto. Published on BostonWorks, the interview touches on Six Sigma, zero-defect initiatives, and other quality issues. The issues are tinged with humor but if you read through it, it makes sense. 
DALE: I invited you to join me because I wanted your opinion on a new study. The folks at QualPro, a research company I wrote about recently, searched for corporations announcing new Six Sigma programs, then looked at what happened to each company’s stock price. Of the 58 companies they reviewed, only six had stocks that outperformed the S&P 500, while 52 underperformed. That’s 10 percent up and 90 percent down. Could it be possible that quality is to the manufacturing business what health food is to the restaurant business — everybody says they want it, but nobody actually buys it?
ZERO: So are you anti-quality? Pro-defect? We’re building the best Mundane Industries products ever, and yes, our stock price is falling, but I don’t see how more defects are going to boost the stock price. Take our least-profitable division, our toy business. Not our fault. Our product returns are approaching zero. We are, in effect, making perfect toys.
DALE: Good example. Our lead product this last Christmas season was our “Me too” competitor to “Tickle Me Elmo,” our “Wedgie Me Wayne.” Nobody returned it because nobody bought it. So it’s flawless production of a product nobody wants.
ZERO: That’s marketing, not production. The Wall Street Journal had an article on the stock-price research that quoted Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Stanford professor and Six Sigma advocate, as saying: “You can’t do just one little thing. Low cholesterol is just one measure of health. In the same way, quality management is just one piece of the puzzle, but not the answer to the whole puzzle.”
Source:
BostonWorks, “Creating flawless products no one wants” with link provided by Six Sigma Zone.
