Involving Finance in Six Sigma - Do It Early and Fully

That’s the advice of Tony Jacowski. These are the reasons:

1. On Benefits - The teams agree upon the calculation of benefits upon implementation of the project, and when it’s time to transfer the project ownership to the process owner, the teams can review the expected benefits.
2. On Reliability - The finance team can give an honest assessment of the expected benefits and will report correctly any finance-related info.
3. On Standardization - Results of the computation of benefits are reliable and meaningful.
4. On Auditing - Project results and benefits can be subject to internal audits and other reviews of benefits.
5. On Budget - Any process improvements, such as KPIs, can be included in the budget.
6. On Accountability - The finance department can ensure that the Six Sigma project has accomplished more than the previous year(s).

Read more…

*Photo from Stock.Xchng

Filed under: Finance, Deployment, Six Sigma

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COO of GE Money Philippines Adheres to Six Sigma

GE Money Bank-Philippines is new in the country, and so in terms of market share perhaps and customer trust it has a lot of catching up to do.

The bank’s new COO, John Hickey, for the Philippines is banking on Six Sigma to help his team toward ultimate customer satisfaction through virtually defect-free processes or products to achieve profitability.

Eric Montelibano, the bank’s VP Communications – Philippines, shares how Mr. Hickey’s plans for GE Money Bank and Six Sigma:

Fixated on the methodology of Six Sigma, having earned the certification as Six Sigma Master Belt, Hickey adheres to this business-driven methodology like a fish in water. During his stints in Prague, he led a diverse team of Six Sigma black belts, process leaders, technology managers, financial planners and analysts wherein he created a business wide shared vision for wing to wing operations proces enhancement and delivered end-customer driven improvements and base cost reduction.

“Six Sigma is a process that GE adheres to ensuring that all of its processes hit the specifications that were set. I was with this team, we were kicking around this Six Sigma in financial services and we came up with certain ideas like starting to measure processes, and we started getting this incredible results…I was hooked,” Mr. Hickey relates, showing his passion for this methodology.

Read more…

Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Finance, GE Money, Six Sigma

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“Slow down Six Sigma…”

Early this year, Erie County had put its high hopes on Six Sigma. Believing that the methodology will help them save on taxpayer’s money, county officials planned on sending employees for Six Sigma training.

The latest news however is saying that the control board and the Erie County Legislature have taken a stand to slow down on Six Sigma. According to the new on tradingmarkets.com, the budget for the Six Sigma training would run up to $912,000. But the control board’s finance committee would want to start small and see how it would go. Read the full story.

I think Six Sigma is not really for the faint-hearted. Unlike other quality methodologies, Six Sigma has to start big. Big because the first step in Six Sigma is training. And Six Sigma training is quite pricey.

I can now hear quality practitioners say that quality is free. Free in the sense that the cost of starting a quality journey cannot compensate for the benefits and savings that one reaps in the end.

So in the case of Erie County, I’m not quite sure if this is a case of being prudent or a case of politics getting in the way.

Filed under: Finance, Training, Public Sector, Six Sigma

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Pricewaterhouse-Coopers Deploys Six Sigma

Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PwC) is the world’s largest firm of accountants. I’m sure you know the nature of accountants’ work. It handles data, large figures even, and thus needs precision every step of the way.

What complicates things for PwC is that it has offices in different countries all over the world. How to coordinate all the company’s operations, and succesfully? PwC found the answer in Six Sigma.

Kathy Murray, managing director of infrastructure at PwC, saw MES (meeting and event services) as a prime candidate for the Six Sigma project “because it’s very process-oriented.” Meeting management had been centralized for years; however, Murray says, “individual meeting planners were doing their own thing. It was crying out for consistency.”

The Six Sigma project for MES started in April 2005, and as they say, the rest is history. Below are the improvements.
Process improvements:

• A stronger meeting and event policy
• Better cost avoidance
• Better service

Technology improvements:

• Better record-keeping
• Increased automation
• Improved tracking

Organizational improvements:

• More staff
• Division of tasks

Read how PwC leveraged Six Sigma and got benefitted by it.

Related story:
PricewaterhouseCoopers Deploys Six Sigma for Meetings Policy

*Photo from MorgueFile

Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Finance, Team Dynamics, Deployment, Technology, Six Sigma Zone, PricewaterhouseCoopers

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The Industries Implementing Six Sigma

In the latest sBWire release, it talks about Six Sigma and the industries that are implementing the methodology. Here’s the list:

Manufacturing - All type of manufacturing companies have benefited be it process manufacturing or discrete manufacturing. Examples include TISCO, Samsung, LG, Motorola, GE Plastics.

Banking - All leading banks including BoA, American Express, , HDFC, HSBC are utilizing Six Sigma.

Financial Services - Insurance, Stock Broking, transaction processing of various kinds.

Call Centers, BPO - Voice (In-bound as well as out bound) and Non Voice outsourced processing industry has benefited immensely. ICICI OneSource, Accenture, Satyam BPO, IBM Daksh, HSBC BPO are Six Sigma implementers.

KPO - Knowledge Process outsourcing industry is using Six Sigma tools to design and improve processes regularly.

Hospitality sector - Hotels along with Airlines and Hospitals are implementing Six Sigma. ITC Hotel, GRT Hotels, Apollo Hospitals have generated benefits.

Retail Sector - Retail has huge opportunity of benefiting from Six Sigma. The Shoppers Stop group has taken an initiative towards implementation. We have had participants from Reliance Retail.

Telecom - Bharti Cellular, France Telecom, Vodafone, Siemens have been doing wonderful Six Sigma projects.

EPC (Engineering, Procurement & Construction) and Logistics - Global leaders like Bechtel have benefited a lot by Six Sigma implementation.

Software Development - IT Industry leaders like Wipro, Satyam and Accenture and Infosys have been implementing Six Sigma.

Read more…

According to the press release, Six Sigma is able to penetrate these varied industries because it can be integrated well with accepted management approaches, such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, TS 16949, HACCP, OHSAS, SEI – CMM level 5, TL 9000, AS 9000, or any other standard. Before, I had also written about interweaving Six Sigma with complementary technologies.

Have you implemented Six Sigma with other management approaches as well? Do share your experience here.

Also check out Six Sigma Links Library for more companies implementing Six Sigma.

*Photo from Punchstock

Filed under: Manufacturing, Finance, Software/Technology, Telecommunications, Retail, Call Center/BPO, Hotels, Six Sigma, ISO, Airlines

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DFSS and Brand Strategy

Over at CustServ, I wrote about striking a balance between brand experience and customer experience. Today, I found another interesting article on iSixSigma. It talks about incorporating Design for Six Sigma to building brand strategy.

The premise is that while companies work hard to make brand strategies more than just empty promises, they often find themselves stuck in the execution phase.

This is where Six Sigma comes in. The methodology is often viewed, and rightly so, as a versatile, effective framework for connecting executive goals (business strategy), marketing communication (brand promise) and management (operational activities). Here’s an example of a bank working on its brand using Six Sigma.

Consider the case of the business bank that wanted to increase its share in a regional market. The bank used the DMADV roadmap of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and adapted it for brand strategy (Table 1). By applying DMADV, the organization realized that to advance from the business strategy to marketplace results, it was necessary to first understand the brand, define the brand promise and identify specific actions required to deliver on it (Define, Measure, Analyze). Finally, the organization needed to make sure that the defined brand promise actually was fulfilled (Design, Verify).

Continue reading…

Source:
iSixSigma, Promises of Brand Strategy and Design for Six Sigma

*Photo from Stock.Xchng

Filed under: Tools/Toolkits, Six Sigma Organizations, Finance, iSixSigma, DFSS, Six Sigma, Brand Strategy

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18 Organizations Make it to The Global Six Sigma Awards Finals

WCBF has announced the shortlist of finalists for the 2007 Global Six Sigma Awards program. Listed by category, the following are the finalists for the 2007 Global Six Sigma Awards:

Best Achievement of Design for Six Sigma and Innovation, sponsored by Air AcademyAssociates
ATMI
Capital One Direct Banking
Raytheon Information Solutions

Best Achievement of Integrating Lean and Six Sigma
BMO Financial Group
Truman Medical Centers

Best Achievement of Six Sigma in Financial Services
BMO Financial Group
Capital One Direct Banking
Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation
OCBC Bank

Best Achievement of Six Sigma in Healthcare
Providence Health and Services
Truman Medical Centers
Valley Baptist Health System

Best Achievement of Six Sigma in Manufacturing
ATMI
Hexion Specialty Chemicals Inc
Lonmin Plc
PACCAR Inc

Best Achievement of Six Sigma in Outsourcing
Clayton State University Continuing Education
CONEXIS
WNS Global Services (P) Ltd

Best Achievement of Six Sigma in Sales & Marketing
Unisys
Best Achievement of Six Sigma in Service & Transactional Environments
BMO Financial Group
Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation
Firstsource Solutions Limited
OCBC Bank

Six Sigma VP of the Year Award
Aravind Immaneni, Vice President, Strategic Analysis & Improvement, Capital One Direct Banking
Leslie Behnke, Vice President, CIGNA Business Excellence, CIGNA
Dr Tomas Gonzalez MD, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Strategy and Six Sigma Quality, Valley Baptist Medical Center

The winners for all categories and for The Platinum Award for the Most Outstanding Organizational Achievement through Six Sigma, sponsored by Genpact will be announced at The Global Six Sigma Awards & Summit Gala Dinner on Wednesday October 24th 2007. The Gala Dinner is part of WCBF’s 2nd Annual Global Six Sigma Summit at The Rio All Suite Hotel, Las Vegas.

Congratulations!

Filed under: Manufacturing, Six Sigma Organizations, Finance, Awards, Software/Technology, Healthcare, Military

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Where is Six Sigma?

The New York Times Your Money section features how GE is going through some rough times financially. The company has not been able to get their stocks moving to a significant high. It even had to write off $3 billion in reinsurance, sell stuff, buy things, and the earnings growth rate has not reached the targeted 15 percent.

GE is one of the big companies that has been associated with Six Sigma. For years, it has boasted of savings and benefits brought about by its Six Sigma strategy. Other companies even look up to GE. But with what’s happening at the company right now, I’m sure it has raised a lot of questions such as:

• Where does Six Sigma figure in all this?
• At what point did Six Sigma fail the company? Or did it?
• Can Six Sigma help improve GE’s bottomline?
• Can Six Sigma save GE?
• To be successful in all aspects of business, does a company need more than Six Sigma methods?

Does anyone have the answers?

*Photo from the NYTimes article

Filed under: General, Six Sigma Organizations, Finance, Sustainable Business, GE, GE Money

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Nine Critical Factors to Help Six Sigma Deliver the Money

Perhaps one of the biggest questions in Six Sigma projects is how much they are contributing to the company bottomline. Some companies claim that after a year, or even six months, of Six Sigma, they are already enjoying a lot of savings. Others say that they have yet to see some ripple in their finances.

So aside from improved processes and allegedly happy customers, how can Six Sigma bring in the money to the organization?

ProcessModel, Inc. puts out nine critical factors to help Six Sigma deliver the money.

1. Find the projects with the greatest overall return
2. Overall interdependencies in processes
3. Risk free experimentation
4. Reduced experimentation time
5. Optimize
6. Impact of change on the existing process
7. Combined projects required to see the money
8. Close the gap between project inception and financial impact
9. Communicate how a process will perform in understandable terms (even a manager can understand)

Read more…

Apparently, all these factors are made possible with ProcessModel software. Yet, I believe that these nine factors are only logical to do. These are the things Six Sigma books tells practitioners to do when deploying Six Sigma projects. Good reminder for everyone, though.

*Photo from Stock.Xchng

Filed under: Benefits and Savings, Finance, Processes, ProcessModel

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Six Sigma Movements

Early this month till mid month, we see Six Sigma practitioners assume important positions in big companies. Their doing so is hoped to make a difference–the Six Sigma advantage, that is–in their respective companies.

Last July 3, HTNG announced the appointment of Thomas Peck and Todd Thompson to Board of Directors. Hotel Technology Next Generation is a self-funded NGO that facilitates the development of next-generation, customer-centric technologies to better meet the needs of the global hotel community. Peck is a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and has graduated from several of GE’s executive training programs, and is a published author. Thompson has years in experience in business process engineering among others.

In July 9, Blue Square Energy (BSE), a developer and manufacturer of high-performance silicon solar cells, announced that Alan Swanson is the new VP of Manufacturing Operations. Swanson has more than 25 years experience as a global manufacturing operations executive. As an expert in the Six Sigma methodology, he helped create Tyco Electronics’ Operational Excellence Organization.

In July 11, Newtek Business Services, Inc., a provider of business services and financial products to the small business market under the Newtek(TM) brand, announced that Gordon L. Schroeder is the 6th independent director to join the Newtek Board of Directors. Schroeder has taken extensive Six Sigma training from the GE Center for Learning and Organization Excellence.

Source:
iSixSigma News

Filed under: Manufacturing, Finance, Events/Announcements, Hotels

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