How Employees View Six Sigma Methodology

In a Six Sigma deployment, both the leaders and the employees learn from each other. By listening to the employees tell what they expected of Six Sigma, what actually occurred, and why things worked or did not work, project leaders learn valuable lessons that can be applied immediately or help in future deployments.

This is what happened in three companies. Each shows the advantage of getting the employees voice during a Six Sigma deployment.

Federated Department Stores, one of the leading department store retailers in the United States with annual sales of more than $15.6 billion, improved its cycle time. Under the names Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, the company operates more than 450 stores in 34 states, Guam and Puerto Rico. Beth Fitzgerald is the manager in the logistics and operations group and therefore ensures that vendor merchandise is “there and paid for” in Federated’s various warehouses. The old system they used involved multiple vendors and multiple distribution centers. Looking at the process with the Six Sigma eye allowed the team to see what the root causes of certain delays, and then address them. It enables the organization to develop a systems team person. Fitzgerald’s advice to those about to embark on a Six Sigma initiative? “Stay open minded, as vulnerable as you feel. You won’t be sorry!”

Vanguard, the second-largest mutual fund firm and a leading provider of company-sponsored retirement plan services in the U.S. is able to better handle client account queries and questions over the phone. Vanguard manages more than $850 billion in U.S. mutual fund assets, including more than $245 billion in employer-sponsored retirement plans. You can just imagine the number of customer calls and queries are everybody. Obviously, handling them quickly, efficiently, and knowledgeably is very crucial to its operations. Its own Six Sigma program, Vanguard Unmatchable Excellence (VUE), allows the company to analyze calls, trace them, and find ways for problem resolution quickly.

GAI-Tronics, manufacturer of printed circuit boards for industrial communications, reduced inventory levels, cycle time and eliminated waste.The need to focus on quality improvement led the company to turn to Kaizen to introduce minor improvements. With the Kaizen events came the usual cycle of change: Kaizen plus Lean began to show decreases in defects, and noticeable increases in efficiency.

The Employee Perspective of the Six Sigma Methodology

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Top Six Sigma Companies Meet Up for New Innovations

Top Six Sigma practitioners will convene at the Four Seasons Philadelphia on August 24-26, 2005. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss “how early adapters and innovative leaders are revitalizing their performance excellence systems for optimal growth.”

Sponsored by the Global Benchmarking Council (GBC) of Best Practices, LLC, executives from Fortune’s Top 500 companies will discuss the trends in Lean, Six Sigma, and Process Excellence information exchange. The three-day session is limited to 60 individuals. Discussions will include:
* How GE Maintains Operational Efficiency
* Six Sigma at Xerox
* Sun Microsystems: Rebooting the Lean Six Sigma Initiative
* Lockheed Martin’s Quality and Process Excellence Success
* The Integration of Internal Best Practices and Lean Six Sigma at Rexam
* How NCCI Holdings Deploys Stealth Six Sigma in the Call Center
* Fuller Jones Associates: The Cure for a Six Sigma Hangover

The convention is very timely. Reducing waste in people-intensive, creative, dynamic and iterative processes is becoming more challenging. It has led companies to shift from cost cutting to revenue generation and waste reduction. Sun Microsystems, GE, Rexam, for example, have introduced new strategies to revitalize Lean Sigma initiatives and adapt these systems to accommodate reductions in speed to productivity time and cycle time on traditional Lean or Six Sigma training.

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Top Companies Convene to Discuss Current Lean, Six Sigma and Process Excellence Innovations

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Be a Six Sigma Certified Organization

Six Sigma certification agencies may have become a dime and a dozen, still organizations continue to seek out their advice.

At the Masco Builder Cabinet Group, this is their certification scenario. Steve Wittig, the group’s Vice President for Six Sigma talks about their certification policies.

The Green Belts must complete 64 hours of training, pass a written examination, complete a project, and defend the project. The written examination lasts 2.5 hours and includes multiple-choice and true-false questions, calculations and hypothesis testing using Minitab software (both normal and non-normal distributions). A score of 75 percent is required and approximately 90 percent of those who take the exam pass. The project book is normally 70 to 100 PowerPoint slides and must include the use of hypothesis testing. The project defense is 1.5 hours and is delivered to a consultant and to Mr. Wittig.

Black Belt certification must complete a total of 128 hours of classroom training, another 2.5-hour written exam, leading a project with strategic significance, completing the project in less than five months, and defending the project. This year, all Black Belts must already be Green Belt-certified.

Master Black Belt certification must comply with a development program which includes the successful completion and defense of two additional projects, completion of self-study assignments and presentations, literature reviews, benchmarking, development of case studies, teaching of at least one wave of training, and coaching of project teams by the Master Black Belt candidate. During the development program, which may last five to seven months, the candidates are mentored by a Master Black Belt supplied by our consultant.

Mr. Wittig added that their certification criteria was developed by the Juran Institute. They were based on what our consultant and the Masco Builder Cabinet Group believe to be “best in class” Six Sigma practitioners.

“Our consultant is able to assure we are current in all of the latest training materials and changes in Six Sigma because they work with numerous clients in diverse industries. Finally, the outside certification makes sure everyone meets the criteria for certification ? no favorites, no free passes ? including the top 50 individuals in our organization who have all been certified and recertified.”

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Ask the Expert: Six Sigma Certification

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Taking on Six Sigma Programs

There are many things to consider when you want to embark on Six Sigma projects. Among those considerations should be choosing those competent advisors. Are you going to rely on your in-house people or consultants. In the long run, however, it will be better to rely on internal resources. Yet, your internal resources must first be trained by the externals.

As a guideline, you should consider the following when getting external resources:

1. Assistance in training of internal resources - Get the number of certified ?master black belts,? ?black belts? and ?green belts? currently in your organization. Next, consider the Six Sigma project experience of these individuals and the significance of the past results. They must have knowledge of the business as well as the respect from his/her peers. And resist the temptation to over-train.

2. Assistance in delivering bottom- line results - Take the lead in defining the objectives and setting the success criteria. Embark on a resource and management time requirements. Allocate enough budget and resources to get it off the ground properly.

Most importantly, if your organization already has a Six Sigma program (perhaps running for several years) that has hit a plateau, be the change agent to rejuvenate it and turn things around.

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Taking on Six Sigma Programs: Guidelines for In-house and Outsourcing decisions

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Which is which?

Is This a Six Sigma, Lean, or Kaizen Project?

This question is often raised by organizations. According to Terence Burton in his article Is This A Six Sigma, Lean, or Kaizen Project?, In truth, it’s a wrong question. These concepts are nothing more than tools in your management toolbox. You don’t fix a watch with a hammer, and you get the same results when you deploy Six Sigma, Lean, and Kaizen incorrectly. The fact is, a business problem is a business problem, and it needs to be fixed. Understanding the application of these tools to various improvement opportunities is the key to success.

In fact, the three can be combined to achieve a total business improvement strategy. The three are only tools by which any organization can use for thier own purpose. As long as every strategic improvement initiative has the following infrastructure shell:

Leadership, Creativity, and Innovation - This element aligns strategy and deployment, advises the organization through the right execution path, and drives cultural change. When the leadership team understands Six Sigma, Lean, and Kaizen they can provide clearer focus on what needs to be done to improve profitability and competitiveness.

Teaming and Employee Involvement - This element provides the connection between concept and reality. People understand the need to change, they are equipped with the right tools, and they are empowered to take action.

Closed-Loop Performance - This element pegs accountability and process ownership. Real time performance measurement also allows people to better understand the cause-and-effect relationship between their actions and the improvement goals.

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VOC and Six Sigma Projects

It is often said that it costs approximately five times as much to gain a new customer as to keep a current one. Companies therefore put as much effort as acquiring customers as keeping them.

One way of taking care of their customers is to constantly get feedback from them and use it for improvement initiatives, particularly Six Sigma. A well-established Voice of the Customer (VOC) strategy definitely gives a lot of benefit to the company.

According to Walter Shewhart, ?The object of industrial research is to establish ways and means of making better and better use of past experience.? J.M. Juran describes failures as ?gold in the mine,? when the costs of poor quality could be sharply reduced by an investment in a quality improvement program.

Further, measurement systems, nonconformity reports, business strategies and supplier problems are good places to look when trying to choose a Six Sigma project and provide an opportunity to use customer complaints as a means to initiate improvement projects.

According to Geoff Tennant, “it is important to listen to the voice of the customer (VOC) and perform a customer needs analysis in a Six Sigma project.”

The article goes on to discuss substantially how to use VOC to deploy succesful Six Sigma projects.

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Use Customer Feedback To Choose Six Sigma Projects

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Improving Processes with Six Sigma

Today, process improvements are more critical than ever. As organizations feel the need to address a spate of market and regulatory pressures, they are desperate to find ways to improve their processes.

As a result, there?s been a resurgence of interest in various quality initiatives. One of these initiatives is Six Sigma. It was introduced by Motorola as a quality improvement methodology that involved the application of well-established statistical analysis techniques to minimize procedural errors. Now, it is considered the gold standard by which companies are managed.

According to this article BPM, Six Sigma & The Road to Process Perfection Business Process Management, or BPM is the means to achieving process perfection through Six Sigma. BPM’s solutions integrate process automation, application integration, business rule and event correlation among others. Together, therefore, BPM and Six Sigma provide both the methodology and means to align top-level strategic goals with enhanced performance. Six Sigma concepts align with process improvement initiatives and to the management of processes across the enterprise. Applying the DMAIC principle to achieve Six Sigma benefits requires cultural and managerial change. A solid BPM solution, on the other end, can provide a powerful, comprehensive platform for automating, integrating and optimizing processes while directly supporting Six Sigma initiatives.

The article went on to correlate BPM with Six Sigma and vice versa. It’s one good information for companies who are about to adapt Six Sigma, yet still thinking which tool to use. Read more

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The Benefits of the Six Sigma Tools

iSixSigma Magazine surveyed several companies to find out the benefits they’ve gained by applying DFSS. Design for Six Sigma (DFSS), the innovation arm of Six Sigma, is a rigorous roadmap and toolset for understanding exactly what customers want and translating that knowledge into nearly perfect new products and services, with reduced delivery time and lower development costs.

Here are some surprising results.

*Companies realize wide-ranging financial results from DFSS projects.
*The majority of companies do not engage in DFSS; those that do, run few DFSS projects.
*Overwhelmingly, companies that use DFSS decided to do so within the first three years of their Six Sigma deployment.
*Companies use their own resources to conduct DFSS training.
*DMADV is the DFSS roadmap of choice to introduce new products and enhance process capability; DFSS projects are completed within less than 12 months.

In another report, both large and small companies using DFSS reported median “hard” gains (direct tie to financial statement) of $200,000 per project with $100,000 in “soft” benefits. Large comapanies–companies near or over $1 billion in annual revenue–reported median ‘hard’ gains of $500,000 and ’soft’ gains of $200,000.” On the other hand, the smallest companies in the survey reported combined gains ranging from $10,000 to $300,000.

Seeing these numbers, other companies should not look any where else for quality improvement strategies.

$300K Typical Gain From Design for Six Sigma Projects

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Key to the Six Sigma Data Collection

Data collection in the Six Sigma deployment takes place in the Measure part of the DMAIC. Crucial in collecting data is being able to ask the right questions to get the right data. As author Edward Hodnett noted, “If you don’t ask the right questions, you don’t get the right answers. A question asked in the right way often points to its own answer. Asking questions is the A-B-C of diagnosis. Only the inquiring mind solves problems.”

It is therefore important to master data collection. The following are some helpful tips:

Be sure the concerned people know how the data will be used.

Utilize an objective party to help collect the data whenever possible to help eliminate bias.

Be sure “good” questions are specific to the problem under study. The better the question, the more useful the data. If you know that factors such as shift, location, person doing the work, machine, suppliers, etc., are important to the problem under study, make sure your data collection plan and form considers these stratification factors.

Use the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) when designing your collection form. The more complex you make your collection tool, the more opportunity you create for problems.

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Asking the Right Questions is the Key to Data Collection

Building a Data Collection Plan

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Selling Six Sigma to Management

Six Sigma projects will win half the battle if senior management cooperates right from the very start. But that’s not always the case. Many improvement efforts start at middle or lower levels.

Several reasons have been linked to senior management’s reluctance. One, they dedicate time and other resources for improvement when there are “products to get out the door” and short-term financial pressures. Two, middle managers balk at projects starting in their area for fear of embarrassment or punishment for years of poor-performing processes.

But there are two proven, successful ways to address this reluctance: Stealth Six Sigma and Limited Initial Commitment Six Sigma.

Their common underlying principle is that if Six Sigma benefits can be shown on a small scale, then senior management will buy into the program and dedicate resources organization-wide. The key difference is that Stealth Six Sigma begins under the radar scope of senior management, while Limited Commitment Six Sigma begins with a try-it-and-see blessing of senior management. Read more

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