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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A Six Sigma Winery?

Yes, indeed, there is a Six Sigma Winery. And true to its name, the company promises only the best quality wine. According to them, a great bottle of wine does not just happen!

Six Sigma Vineyards and Winery combines the old-world art of making wine with the science of data-driven Six Sigma principles. To accomplish this, Six Sigma has gathered a team of experts working towards a common goal: Making wine of an extraordinary quality at an affordable price.

I find the company really interesting, because they have named their businesses as Six Sigma ranch, Six Sigma vineyard, and Six Sigma winery. It appears that Six Sigma is powering every aspect of their business.

As I read through their profile, I found out that Kaj Ahlmann, the owner, named the business after the management process he had successfully implemented during his professional career. Together with his wife, Else Ahlmann who had worked for consultants to large breweries, bought the 4,300-acre ranch in 2000, and put up their Six Sigma company.

When you check out their site, you will see that the company is active and seems to be a lot of fun.

Let’s check out their winery and wines and wine shop and get a taste of Six Sigma.

Filed under: Services, Six Sigma Organizations, Team Dynamics, Sales, Sustainable Business, Retail, Processes, R&D, Six Sigma Vineyards and Winery

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Innovation of the Week: Enertia House - A Home That Heats and Cools Itself

Preserving our natural resources and keeping our environment clean is the current order of the day. Leading auto manufacturers are now launching environment friendly cars and several groups are pushing for alternative sources of energy. It’s good that people are now joining forces to address major environmental concerns.

Over at Pogue’s Posts, David Pogue featured the winner of the Modern Marvels/Invent Now annual contest run by the History Channel and the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The winning invention is called Enertia House.

According to the inventor, Michael Sykes, an engineer and former log-home architect:

It’s a design for a home that heats and cools itself, with benefits both the homeowner and the environment.

Two factors contribute to this effect. First, the entire house is made of southern yellow pine. According to Mr. Sykes, this wood is especially efficient at maintaining a constant temperature; it absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night.

Second, air circulates in a convection cycle from top to bottom of the house, constantly redistributing the heat.

Continue reading…

Filed under: Sustainable Business, Innovation Update, David Pogue

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Lean Six Sigma Round-up

It’s time for the Six Sigma round-up once again. Let’s go lean this time and see what’s the latest on combining Lean and Six Sigma.

The new blog, Lean Six Sigma Academy, has a very interesting post on Standard Work. I’ve done quite some reading on continuous improvement efforts, but I have to be honest it’s my first time to read about this. Ron outlines the three components of standard work namely, Takt Time (= Net Available Time per Day / Customer Demand per Day), Work Sequence (the order in which an operator performs manual operations), and SWIP (Standard Work in Process = (Manual Time + Auto Time) / Takt Time). What’s great about the concept of standard work is that it takes into account the following components involved in doing work: the time to do a task, the tasks to be done and its sequence, and SWIP evaluates the process.

Another new Lean blog is 63 Buckets. On this blog, I choose the one which lists the implications of adopting a lean policy on environmental performance. There is much talk these days about global warming, or alternative sources of energy to curb environmental degradation. However, I think we have not touched much on having a lean organization to eliminate wastes. The list goes:

• fewer defects decreases the number of products that must be scrapped;
• fewer defects also means that the raw materials, energy, and resulting waste associated with the scrap are eliminated;
• fewer defects decreases the amount of energy, raw material, and wastes that are used or generated to fix defective products that can be re-worked.
• lean tools focus attention on reducing conditions that can result in accidents, spills, and equipment malfunctions and potentially increase product durability and reliability, thereby increasing product lifespan.

Then at The Sixth Sigma Weblog, it gives a shout out on a Lombardi webinar that will explore the integration of Lean Six Sigma and BPM initiatives. The webinar is happening tomorrow, Feb. 7, at 2:00pm ET or 18:00 GMT. You can still catch it!

Filed under: Lean Six Sigma, Six Sigma References, Events/Announcements, Tips, Sustainable Business

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Textron Goes Green Through Six Sigma

If there’s one thing that we never fail to do every single day, that will be churning out waste or trash. Sure, we hear about preserving the environment, or we complain about pollution, but do we really make an effort to even take care of our garbage? Perhaps not—not as consciously as we wanted to be.

This was how Theresa Pacheco, corporate and executive services coordinator at Textron, Inc. felt. She could not really call herself an environmentalist but she knew she had to do something about preserving the environment. So when she was completing her Six Sigma Green Belt certification, she wanted to have a project that would make an impact not only on her company, but also on the surroundings she was in.

Pacheco need not look far to find that project. In fact, she was staring at it every time she went to work. Every day, Textron produces a small mountain of trash: plastic water bottles, soda cans, paper cups, discarded mail, newspapers, cardboard, which she thought could all be recycled. She knew to embark on a recycling project would be expensive, but she had the focus of a Black Belter already. She sought out the help of the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC), a state environmental agency that funds and manages the State of Rhode Island’s recycling program. The rest is history.

Being true to her Six Sigma training, Pacheco maintains the project successfully through the process. By the end of this year, Textron is estimated to have recycled 86 tons—86 tons that won’t end up in a landfill.

*Photo credit: MorgueFile.com

Filed under: Manufacturing, Team Dynamics, Sustainable Business

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Six Sigma: Reducing Waste Fluid Disposal at Perkins Engines

It’s good that manufacturing companies these days are also concerned about their own waste disposal. I see two reasons for this move. First, they are constantly reminded by the environmental agency, and second, it’s a lot wasteful to pay a fine for every environmental violation.

One company that has been benefitted by reducing waste fluid disposal is Perkins Engines. The company has cut waste fluid disposal at an internal combustion engine plant’s two-transfer-cylinder head and block-line systems by more than 80%. It is able to do this by deploying Six Sigma methodology.

Manufacturing Talk reports:

Perkins Engines, part of the engines division of Caterpillar, USA, is a major supplier of diesel engines for the industrial, agricultural and power generation markets, with UK manufacturing plants in Peterborough and Stafford and a manufacturing location in Curitiba, Brazil. The two transfer systems at the Peterborough plant have an annual output of 20,000 cylinder heads and cylinder blocks.

A cylinder head machining line supplied by Renault produces 80,000 units.

And a bearing cap machining facility produces 150,000 sets for a variety of different engines.

Perkins has been a Castrol customer for more than ten years and currently uses Alusol XTH soluble cutting fluid to machine cylinder heads and cylinder blocks at the Peterborough site; and Castrol supplies metalworking fluids and services to other Caterpillar sites in the UK.

Four years ago the company adopted Six Sigma methodology and applied the system to evaluate the potential for outsourcing fluid management. Continue reading…

Filed under: Benefits and Savings, Manufacturing, Sustainable Business

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Energy Saving with Six Sigma

Yes. It is again proven that Six Sigma methodology can be used not only in manufacturing or services process improvements, but also in energy saving upgrades.

Dow Chemical Company, recevied an award for leadership in energy management from the Organizing Committee of the 28th Annual Industrial Energy Technology Conference (IETC), in New Orleans, Louisiana .

A leader in science and technology, providing innovative chemical, plastic and agricultural products and services to many essential consumer markets, Dow was recognized for its strong global focus on energy efficiency and recent company achievements, including:

• achieving aggressive EH&S 2005 goals related to energy efficiency—reducing our energy intensity by 22% from 1994 to 2005
• maintaining strong corporate support and an energy efficiency organization to drive results at the site and business levels
• using proven Six Sigma methodology and industry best practices to accelerate energy efficiency improvements
• supporting external energy efficiency programs to help other energy consumers save energy, such as the Alliance to Save Energy’s “Power is in Your Hands” residential energy efficiency campaign and the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Save Energy Now” industrial energy efficiency campaign.

To improve performance, the company used MAIC roadmap:

Measure – Gather the right data to accurately assess a problem.
Analyze – Use statistical tools to correctly identify the root causes of a problem.
Improve – Correct the problem (not the symptom).
Control – Put a plan in place to make sure problems stay fixed and sustain the gains.

The team then outlined the following key roles and responsibilities.

Sponsor – Business executive leading the organization.
Champion – Responsible for Six Sigma strategy, deployment, and vision.
Process Owner – Owner of the process, product, or service being improved—responsible for long-term sustainable gains.
Master Black Belts – Coach black belts—expert in all statistical tools.
Black Belts – Work on 3 to 5 $250,000-per-year projects; create $1 million per year in value.
Green Belts – Work with black belt on projects.

Using the MAIC roadmap, the team launched four Six Sigma projects.

1. Steam Trap Improvement (Texas City, TX) - Optimize the steam delivery in energy systems by reducing steam loss through steam traps. Result: $220,000 savings to date in the first year.

2. Polycarbonate Unit Energy Reduction (Freeport, TX) - Ascertain why the Freeport PC plant has consumed twice the energy per pound of product as a similar DOW PC plant in Germany. Result: $2340,000 savings to date, and expected to reach $500,000 per year.

3. Styrene Unit Energy Envelope (Freeport, TX) - Identify opportunities to optimize plant energy heat integration, improve efficiency, and reduce CO/CO₂/NO_x emissions. Result: 80 MMBtu per hour energy reduction.

4. Angus Site Energy Reduction (Sterlington, LA) - Optimize operation/maintenance of the primary boilers and the steam-reducing station without exceeding boller air permits. Result: $474,000 savings to date, and expected to reach $600,000 per year.

Award Press Release: Dow Wins Award for Energy Efficiency Leadership

Dow’s Six Sigma Project: Applying Six Sigma Methodology to Energy-Saving Projects

Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Awards, Deployment, Sustainable Business

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