Six Sigma Practitioner Turns a Negative Incident Into a Positive One
Posted by: meikah | 31 March 2008 | 9:19 pm
Saeukkang, in Korean means fish crackers, has been loved by the Korean public for 40 years. Recently, however, a customer found a rat’s head inside a noraebang saeukkang, the jumbo-sized version of saeukkang.
The incident occurred just two months after Sun Wook, chairman of Nongshim, took his post. But instead of taking the incident as an assault to the company, Sun Wook took it as an opportunity to make the food company even better.
In an interview with Moon Byung-joo JoongAng Ilbo for Inside JoongAngDaily, Sun Wook says:
I will tell the public more when a complete investigation into the matter is finished. I do believe that there is something that is very wrong with the overall system, and by October, I will weed out these problems one by one. Through Six Sigma, we will lower the inferior goods rate from one in 1 million to one in 10 million.
Sun’s career began in 1975 at Samsung. He became head of Samsung SDI in 2005, and was the first person in Korea to adopt Six Sigma practices.
His being a Six Sigma practitioner and believer may just be the reason for his positive view of an otherwise negative incident.
Related story:
S. Korea: Rat’s head leads to cracker recall
Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Processes, Quality, Six Sigma, Food
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Innovation of the Week: An Invitation to Open Innovation
Posted by: meikah | 28 March 2008 | 2:43 am
Open innovation is taking a hold in most companies. It can work if the proper measures are drawn up. Here’s how to do it.
Check outl, BusinessWeek Online’s A Ripe Time for Open Innovation.
“Recessions present a good opportunity to collaborate with others on finding, developing, and marketing new ideas.” Continue reading…
Filed under: Innovation Update, Innovation
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The SixSig Roundup
Posted by: meikah | 28 March 2008 | 1:49 am
It’s time again to go ’round the blogosphere and read about Six Sigma and other quality management methodologies.
Learn from the following links and leave your message below. 
Buffalolog, Six Sigma Too “Dilbert” For The Buffalo News - this is another reaction to my earlier post on slowing down on Six Sigma.
Planview, Notes from ITIL Foundation Training - IT management, like any other field, definitely needs a good management system. ITIL is one approach to IT management, and in the post, Terry Doerscher shares his insights while on training for ITIL foundation-level certification. Six Sigma or not, I agree with Terry when he says that there should be mechanisms for assessment, optimization, and management of IT services.
Bloggeron, is Following a Systematic Approach to Six Sigma Project Implementations - Tony Jacowski offers a good review for Six Sigma practitioners who’ve been doing it through the years.
Statistical Thinking to Improve Quality, Resin Example of Hoerl-Snee Strategy (Part B) - Yes, the improvement process is iterative: gather data, identify special cause, gather more data, notice differences, and then conduct brainstorming session. The process may use Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) or DMAIC steps.
The Sixth Sigma, Kaizen Plan - Kaizen is creating noise these days. Go Kaizen? Yeah, why not. I like the organization part of it. Any strategy that calls for a never-ending contonuous improvement is always a good thing.
Filed under: Lean Six Sigma, Deployment, DMAIC, Kaizen, Six Sigma, IT, ITIL
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Using Six Sigma Tools for Talent Acquisition
Posted by: meikah | 25 March 2008 | 11:48 pm
I used to work for a training center of a placement agency. Every day, people seeking jobs overseas would crowd the office. And so I thought, recruitment work or the placement business is fast and easy. But that was a misconception. I knew about this when the HR of that agency approached me for help in looking for engineers for a steel company in the Middle East.
I found that there was pressure from employers to fill certain positions with highly qualified people, and the agency was having a hard time accomplishing that task. Maybe for those companies facing the same dilemma, you can learn from what Volta Asia Enterprises is doing.
Volt Asia Enterprises, is a world class leader in the staffing service industry based in Malaysia. To improve efficiencies, the company is going into Six Sigma and using Six Sigma tools such as DMAIC and SIPOC.
Speaking before the American Chamber of Commerce Human Resources Committee workshop in Taipei, Excelsis Magno, regional general manager of Volt Asia Enterprises, said that “Six Sigma is a business philosophy that matches a company’s basic strategies to customer needs and expectations.”
At Volta for example, she further said:
The basic approach is to understand the current performance level. To improve existing processes, the DMAIC roadmap is applied to define, measure, analyze, improve and control. For redesigning a process, the technique is define, measure, analyze, design and verify. She then defined the various roles, before discussing concepts and sharing possible applications.
Statistical metrics are used to describe the quality of a process in a state of near perfection with only 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). To emphasize the benefits of working towards Six Sigma, here are two examples: For every opening out of 10,000 total that are not filled in a year,” posited Magno, “at 93 percent (three sigma), there are 58 openings a month; at 99 percent (four sigma), there are 19 a month; at 99.9997 percent (six sigma), there are merely three every 100 years.
Source:
China Post
*Photo from Stock.Xchng
Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Human Resource, DMAIC, Six Sigma, SIPOC
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“Slow down Six Sigma…”
Posted by: meikah | 24 March 2008 | 9:52 pm
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.
