Six Sigma at McKesson Corp.
Posted by: meikah | 9 June 2008 | 7:49 pm
McKesson Corp., the largest pharmaceutical distributor in the U.S., is using the latest technology and Six Sigma to be ahead of the pack.
McKesson’s EVP and CIO, Randall N. Spratt shares with WSJ how his company is using technology to make its operations more efficient, to improve health care and to create a better environment for the company’s workers, dispelling the impression that many healtcare companies lag in terms of technology use.
This is how the interview started.
WSJ: McKesson makes 1.5 cents for every dollar it takes in on its distribution business, so efficiency is critical. Not surprisingly, the company relies on technology to make its warehouse operations more efficient. What is the process you go through to determine what technology might help?
Mr. Spratt: We have a large investment in a process-improvement methodology called Six Sigma. We employ somewhere north of 100 Six Sigma professionals, whose job is to take apart business processes. It could be as small as taking something off a truck and putting it on a shelf, or it could be as broad as what happens from the time we take an order to the time we ship an invoice. What they are trained to do is take a given business process, analyze it and take it apart to find where the highest variability is.WSJ: One technology that McKesson developed is a small computer that warehouse workers wear on their wrists and that is attached to a scanner on the worker’s finger. How did you come up with this system and what has it accomplished?
Mr. Spratt: It came from a Six Sigma analysis. Most errors in the warehouse came at the point of picking, which is taking something off a warehouse shelf, associating it with an order, and putting it in the right bin for shipping. The second-highest error rate came from stocking errors. If you stock a drug in the wrong place, the pickers have to search for it and they waste a lot of time. So they sat down and said how can we solve these problems.
Continue reading…
It’s pretty obvious that McKesson is trying to combine modern technology and Six Sigma. If they are able to do this successfully, then they’ll be a force to reckon with in the pharma/healthcare industry.
Source:
SmartBrief News
Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Deployment, Healthcare, Interview, Pharmaceuticals, Technology, Six Sigma
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GMJ Talks with John H. Fleming and Jim Asplund, authors of Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter
Posted by: meikah | 18 February 2008 | 9:56 pm
Jennifer Robison of Gallup Management Journal (GMJ) talked with John H. Fleming and Jim Asplund, the authors of Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter.
The premise of the study, which led to the book, is: the equation of “engaged employees + engaged customers” produced results far exceeding what the researchers expected.
Here are some of the insights from the talk:
- Fleming: HumanSigma was developed as a response to the lack of effectiveness of Six Sigma methodology to increase productivity from people.
- Asplund: …because people — employees and customers — are much more unpredictable than machines, they can’t be managed or directed in prescribed ways.
- On the importance of humanity in business - Asplund says: A company can’t control people’s emotional reactions… he reason a company must understand the essential humanity of its customers and employees is because they are people first and customers and employees second. They’re living, breathing, real people. Before a business can manage them effectively, it must understand how customers and employees think and how they react; it must understand their psychology and their emotional infrastructure.
- On standard is better than variation - Fleming says: No, it just creates mediocrity. There’s a paradox here that is important to recognize. What we’re suggesting is that companies that have concentrated on creating consistency of execution have failed to create consistency in the outcomes that execution is intended to produce. Most are trying to control the process through which employees are delivering service by mandating the steps.
If you want more insights from the book, you may want to check out the live forum on Human Sigma on February 21, 2008, 1:00 pm, at Hotel Intercontinental Manila.
Source:
iSixSigma Featured Link
Book Cover credit
Filed under: Interview, iSixSigma, Six Sigma, Human Sigma
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Textron CEO Lewis Campbell Talks About Six Sigma
Posted by: meikah | 22 January 2008 | 8:57 pm
If you’re company or group is on the verge of giving up on Six Sigma, here’s one interview that I’m sure will inspire you again to vigorously go for Six Sigma.
Yes, the lessons I learned from the interview are persistence, dedication, and focus. Your organization must decide to go for Six Sigma and commit to seeing it till the end. That’s what Textron is doing and look where the company is now and going.
In Lewis Campbell words:
I’m bullish on our long-term success for a variety of reasons. The transformation of our company is very broad. It entails a variety of things all supported by Six Sigma. If earnings per share needs to improve year over year, eventually you run out of gas if you don’t have a strategy of transformation.
Further down:
Six Sigma is not enough. Implementing it at Textron was absolutely necessary, but there are other things that must be done to drive continuous improvement. It’s bodacious, but we said we’re going to become known and recognized as the premier multi-industry company. Not a premier company, but the premier company, which means establishing a track record of years and years of performance. Somebody out there has to be the premier company. Why can’t we? Once you make that statement, you have the license to walk in and ask what are we doing to create a premier legal department, or finance department or production line. If you get enough premiers, pretty soon you’ll be known as the premier company.
I guess all we need is some imagination to make Six Sigma work for us, too. Remember, Six Sigma is more than just data, waste reduction, it’s a way of life.
Source:
USAToday, a Six Sigma Zone featured link
Filed under: Manufacturing, Six Sigma Organizations, Deployment, Interview, Six Sigma
1 Comment |
Six Sigma at Quest Diagnostics
Posted by: meikah | 9 October 2007 | 11:11 pm
Quest Diagnostics, America’s leading provider of diagnostic laboratory testing, information, and services, has been a Six Sigma company since the year 2000.
The company has grown since then and is growing. The company’s ultimate objective with Six Sigma is to deliver to customers what is critical to them each and every time — to strive to achieve “virtual perfection.” Read more…
Over at Westgard, Sten Westgard interviewed Kathleen Truitt, Quest Diagnostics Black Belt.
Some snippets:
- Ken Freeman, chairman of Quest Diagnostics, initiated Six Sigma in a deliberate attempt to raise the bar on quality in healthcare services.
- Approximately, there are 150 Six Sigma projects at Quest Diagnostics.
- Six Sigma has made a cultural impact on how everyone in the company performs their jobs.
Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Healthcare, Interview, Quest Diagnostics
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Six Sigma Cuts IT Costs at Cummins
Posted by: meikah | 7 October 2007 | 11:39 pm
I’ve written quite a lot about Cummins, Inc. here, and I can say that the company is a good example of an organization that has taken Six Sigma seriously and is enjoying the benefits of it.
Over at NetworkWorld, its National Correspondent Carolyn Duffy Marsan interviewed Gail Farnsley, Cummins CIO, and touched on how Cummins is able to cut down on IT costs using Six Sigma.
Some of the interesting points are:
- For employees who think they don’t have extra time to a Six Sigma project, encourage them to use Six Sigma in their tasks at hand.
- Six Sigma is about leading projects, doing analysis, and process improvement.
- You can do multiple pieces of IT stuff as Six Sigma projects.
- Six Sigma can be used for requirements gathering or reducing the cost of support or storage.
- Six Sigma should be the language of the whole organization.
Source:
NetworkWorld, a Six Sigma Zone featured link
*Photo from MorgueFile
Filed under: Manufacturing, Six Sigma Organizations, Deployment, Six Sigma References, Tips, Interview, Technology, Cummins
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iSixSigma Interviews Nick Brownrigg, CEO of Masterlease
Posted by: meikah | 19 September 2007 | 8:14 pm
In that interview, Nick Brownrigg, the chief executive officer of Masterlease Group, shares his views on managing for results through Lean Six Sigma and Line-of-Sight™ strategy deployment.
Background: Masterlease Group has over 40 years of experience in the leasing market. Today, it has around 16,000 customers and manages more than 200,000 vehicles.
Highlights:
- The company decides to start its Lean Six Sigma program to establish a common (organization’s) language backed up by a set of methods and tools to help them communicate across the business and help to bring about improvements.
- Lean Six Sigma has changed their organization’s view of control. For them, control is now about the quality of their processes, inputs and outputs. The connections are visible.
- With Lean Six Sigma, the company’s stakeholders have recognized that their quality framework drives business effectiveness helping them become a world class leasing company.
- Lean Six Sigma means to them a complete culture change.
Lesson: Lean Six Sigma revolutionizes your entire organization to be better and more effective.
Filed under: Benefits and Savings, Services, Lean Six Sigma, Six Sigma Organizations, Interview, iSixSigma
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Interview with Six Sigma MBB Reginaldo S. de Figueiredo on EMSNow
Posted by: meikah | 4 July 2007 | 7:35 pm
Thanks to Rob of Learn Sigma because I got hold of the very interesting interview with Reginaldo S. de Figueiredo, Six sigma Master Black Belt at NXP Semiconductors.
Here are a few interesting points that I learned from the interview.
- Six Sigma isn’t a black box of statistical tools and templates; it is a lot about a way of working.
- By using Six Sigma, it is possible to derivate a rational project portfolio composed by a set of projects that will contribute a maximum to performance enhancement. Projects inside that portfolio are typical projects, and their goals are typical goals. That’s the Six Sigma magic!
- Misunderstanding Six Sigma at the management level was the main challenge.
- Critical when implementing a Six Sigma project: the CEO commitment.
Filed under: Benefits and Savings, Six Sigma Organizations, Six Sigma References, Interview, Semiconductors
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Innovation Insights of the Week
Posted by: meikah | 28 June 2007 | 11:37 pm
Today, let me share with you insights on innovation from Henry Chesbrough Executive Director, Center for Open Innovation, Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley.
Over at Product Development and Management Assn (DMA), Michael Docherty interviews Henry Chesbrough. Read the interview and learn about open innovation, P&G, and innovation in general.
Michael Docherty: What do you think is behind the interest in and popularity of Open Innovation?
Henry Chesbrough: I think that many people in many companies felt that the earlier model of internal R&D [research and d evelopment] was no longer effective. Too little productivity, too many spillovers, too long a timeframe to go from inception to market—these were longstanding complaints. Two additional factors that have compounded the problem are the rising cost of R&D and the ever-shorter product life cycles in the market, should one be so fortunate as to get a project through to the market.
What was missing was any alternative way to address these problems. Open innovation increases R&D productivity, captures or leverages spillovers in other markets, shortens the time to get to market, and shares the rising R&D costs with others.
One thing I learned from the interview is that innovation efforts take a lot of hardwork and focus on what you want to achieve. Without the focus, the initiative could get bogged down.
Filed under: Interview, Innovation Update
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QualityDigest Interviews Andy Joswiak
Posted by: meikah | 1 May 2007 | 7:06 pm
Andy Joswiak is VP for Operations of Linetec, one of the largest paint and anodize finishers in the US, and the country’s largest independent architectural finisher. QualityDigest interviewed Joswiak about how Linetec prepared and adopted Six Sigma, and featured him in the “Day in the Life.”
Joswiak claimed that Six Sigma allowed them to have a systematic approach to solving nearly any problem or opportunity that presents itself.
Quality Digest: What were some of the problems Linetec was having when it began its Six Sigma effort?
Andy Joswiak: Linetec was the premier aluminum finisher in the architectural industry but knew it could improve its operational efficiency. We had some great equipment, but we couldn’t optimize it with the tools we had. For example, we had the best paint application equipment money could buy, but it only improved our process slightly when compared to our old equipment. Our people were working hard with some successful days, and then failure would occur without any apparent reason. Defects were up, and on-time delivery was down. We were working Saturdays and still delivering late. We needed something more, a toolset to target the root-cause issue behind the problems and a way to eliminate or at least minimize their negative effects. That toolset was Six Sigma.
Filed under: Benefits and Savings, Manufacturing, Services, Six Sigma Organizations, Interview
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SixSig Interviews Ron Pereira of Lean Six Sigma Academy
Posted by: meikah | 4 April 2007 | 12:37 am
HOT NEWS: Check out Six Sigma Interviews and read our interesting interview with Ron Pereira.
What benefits so far are derived from it? Could you quantify them, even in terms of percentage?
My green belt project at Nokia saved $2.2 million dollars. I also used the tools to reduce inventory by millions of dollars while with Nokia. I also have done lots of work with suppliers where I saw defects reduced which enabled the supplier to win and we also won since we shared the savings. That, in my opinion, is the true spirit of continuous improvement.
