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... f dynamic systems, making the relationships between customer satisfaction, critical success factors, and key process indicators immediately apparent. o Scientific creativity methods ensure innovation can be effectively applied when and where it is needed, and knowledge supply chain technology ensures that every new lesson learned is immediately available to anyone in the enterprise with a need to know. Six Sigma methods define the tactics. PPM methods incorporate the new technology to make Six Sigma results available quicker, faster, and better, at lower cost and reduced risk. Six Sigma successes to date are impressive and well documented.
However, the process is still expensive and time consuming. The biggest risk may be the accelerating rate of technological change, and a competitive environment where processes, products, and even entire markets can change before traditional quality and improvement methods have time to work their magic. Enterprises that successfully integrate the best of Six Sigma with the best new technologies will be the ones who can not only rise to the top, but maintain their position over time. Why Six Sigma May Fail Like any tool, Six Sigma can be used inappropriately. Some of the most common Six Sigma implementation hazards include the following: 1. Lack of executive management's understanding of and commitment to Six Sigma principles.
If you can't link ownership to Six Sigma and there's no passion for making it happen, then your implementation will run into problems. The biggest reason implementation of Six Sigma fails is a lack of focus. The Six Sigma executive committee must make certain that Six Sigma receives adequate human and financial resources, establish Six Sigma sponsorship in all departments, manage the scope of Six Sigma so the corporate restraint doesn't become unwieldy, emphasize the need for ongoing support, and plan for Six Sigma renewal. 2. Choosing the wrong people and failing to keep the right people.
If you don't get the people thing right, nothing else really matters. Successful Six Sigma companies recommend being as proactive as possible on this issue. Work with your HR and compensation departments. Develop company-paid incentives to attract and retain key people and offer completion bonuses. Devote HR time, research, and budgeting to continuous training and retention programs. 3. Business metrics not clearly defined or communicated through the organization.
If you don't develop an official manual to define clearly business metrics and measurement criteria, confusion and chaos will overwhelm your Six Sigma projects. Make sure your business metrics link you to competitive criteria. Outline how the organization measures critical-to-quality and critical to customer (CTC) issues. How do you define a defect? How do you define a process improvement? The team selected to develop your metrics manual should involve a master black belt, a top executive, and someone from corporate communications.
Establish a metrics manual review process to keep standards fresh. 4. Choosing the wrong process or project. The size of a project can doom it to failure. Set reasonable goals for your Six Sigma improvements.
A safe rule to follow is to undertake projects that can be finished with financial sign-off within the training period for new Black Belt's or within four months for existing Black Belt's. 5. Lack of incentives for six sigma improvements and failing to celebrate successes. Older companies deploying Six Sigma find uprooting legacy cultures difficult. Planting the Six Sigma "mind -set" into these established businesses is challenging. Six Sigma companies use incentive models and methods as diverse as the companies themselves. 6. Unable to link shareholder values to business results driven by Six Sigma.
Unsuccessful companies never learn how to ensure that every process produces a return that exceeds its cost. Successful companies do. A Six Sigma approach enables the successful companies to directly align employee and shareholder interests. The result? Employees-whether senior management, part of a quality team, or on the shipping room floor-start to think and act like shareholders. Fortunately, awareness of these common potential barriers to success, combined with some careful planning, can go far to prevent a Six Sigma improvement effort from failing.
Six Sigma Ideals Confront Reality Voices of experience issue forth from the most successful Six Sigma initiatives: integrate Six Sigma with your company's identity and strategic goals, secure buy-in from top management and the rest of the company will follow, work with Six Sigma suppliers. Whether in the form of instructions (what to do) or warnings (what not to do), the same ideals emerge time after time, forming a set of sacred Six Sigma directives. Get these critical areas right, say the Black Belts who know and your initiative will progress smoothly. Circumstances, of course, are not always ideal. Can a company realistically expect to be able to adhere to the ideals of Six Sigma?
If a company goes into a Six Sigma initiative knowing that the ideals are not feasible, is implementation still advisable? Among the proselytizing voices of Six Sigma experts, a small amount of experience does occasionally surface to help answer the questions raised when reality does not conform to ideals. Six Sigma Ideal: Apply Six Sigma Across All Operations According to Mikel J. Harry, Six Sigma companies-in particular Allied Signal / Honeywell, GE, and Sony-have come to define quality as "a holistic and multidimensional concept, rather than a compartmentalized practice. " The advice imparted by Six Sigma elders is that lasting, meaningful results come from a thorough implementation throughout all of a company's processes.
Reality Companies that actively attempt a thorough implementation of Six Sigma do not always succeed in involving all departments. When Raytheon Company initialized its Six Sigma program in January 1999, management planned company-wide implementation. Because of the significant cultural transformation required, however, the extent to which Six Sigma took hold varied across the corporation. Furthermore, companies that seek to implement Six Sigma only in selected departments have made steady progress: o Six Sigma's diffusion into Air Products and Chemicals has been characterized as "piecemeal, " with various business units implementing Six Sigma at varying times, but implementation is, nevertheless, proceeding. o Continental Terms, Inc. , a brake and chassis supplier has profitably used Six Sigma methods for nearly ten years without seeking organizational implementation until this year. One project increased annual profits from business with only one customer by $ 100, 000, a figure that will dramatically increase when the project extends to transactions with more customers.
Isolated Six Sigma projects do seem to have merit on their own, as well as in functioning as trials for overall implementation. While a Six Sigma "culture" can certainly increase the benefits of an effort, it is not a necessity. Six Sigma Ideal: Involve Your Suppliers Six Sigma efforts do not thrive in isolation. A company may function at six-sigma quality levels, but if it must begin with inferior components, it cannot manufacture six-sigma products.
Thus, companies advocate not only selecting suppliers based on quality standards, but also working with suppliers to help them achieve higher goals. GE and the former Allied Signal have both structured programs for training suppliers and for implementing Six Sigma projects within their supply chains. Reality Providing Six Sigma support to suppliers can be a financial strain and becomes an easy target for budget cuts. Daniel Burnham admits that Raytheon's efforts to involve suppliers, at least, initially, were hampered by "financial problems" that "caused top management to narrow their focus considerably. " Whether budget restrictions come into play or not, supplier performance deserves to be a low priority.
True, six-sigma quality can't be attained with three-sigma components, but the potential for improvement is still great. Companies don't have to aim for six-sigma quality immediately. What Can't Six Sigma Do? As Six Sigma continues to revolutionize processes outside of manufacturing, bringing results to a wider variety of businesses and industries, it is beginning to look like the miracle that will transform the marketplace, the cure for all ailing balance sheets, the saviour of defect-ridden processes. The question arises: is there nothing that Six Sigma cannot do? When isn't Six Sigma the best choice?
Are there certain company goals, certain applications for which Six Sigma is simply not appropriate? In spite of recent enthusiasm for discovering the multitude of uses Six Sigma might have, there are circumstances that make it inappropriate and ineffective. 1. Six Sigma Can't Make a Bad Product Marketable. Six Sigma improves processes, not products. Mikel Harry explains, "I could genetically engineer a Six Sigma goat, but if a rodeo is the marketplace, people are still going to buy a Four Sigma horse. " All of the Six Sigma improvements you initiate cannot salvage a faulty product idea. 2.
Six Sigma Won't Raise Stock Prices. The market value of a company, like the market value of its products, does not always correlate with its processes. True, Six Sigma can help a company restore profitability. However, if your primary reason for being interested in Six Sigma is to take your company's stock valuable, Six Sigma, with its expensive price tag, could do more harm than good. David Fitzpatrick of Deloitte Consulting's Lean Enterprise Practice estimates that Six Sigma will improve the share price of only less than 10 % of practicing companies. Aram Robinson of UBS Warburg agrees that Six Sigma "is unlikely to make weaker companies strong. " 3.
Six Sigma Won't Bring Immediate Results. If you are looking toward Six Sigma to turn your company around, you had better be certain that you can last long enough for the gains to manifest themselves. Black Belt training requires one week of training per month over the course of four months, so deployment alone requires a significant time investment. Jerry Blakeslee, Director of the Center of Excellence Six Sigma Services at PricewaterhouseCoopers, elaborates, "You " re not going to get to six sigma in one or two years. It takes you anywhere from four to eight years. " The real gains, he adds, come once a company moves beyond improving existing processes to replacing them with more efficient processes tailored to customer requirements. 4. Six Sigma May Be Too Complex for Young Companies.
New companies that are still establishing their business processes are not ready for Six Sigma. Mike Burkett of AMR Research in Boston asserts, "when you " re in a ramp-up mode, you " re moving so fast that there isn't enough time to put disciplined management practices in place. " Once new processes have been solidified, however, and a company functions with some "maturity, " then processes can be measured and improved. 5. Even if one of the above circumstances does not apply, a company may simply decide that it does not need Six Sigma. Joseph A. De Feo, President and CEO of the Jan Institute, Wilton, Connecticut, acknowledge that quality levels of four or five sigma may be satisfactory for some companies. Both De Feo and Quality Magazine's Nancy Chase agree that a working pattern of hastily reacting to problems without analysing for root causes constitutes the best reason for considering Six Sigma.
If this crucial condition is not present, Six Sigma just may not be the most appropriate answer to a company's quality problems. CONCLUSION Ultimately, Six Sigma is a superb strategy that addresses leadership, tools and infrastructure issues, some of which were neglected by previous programs. CEOs of leading U. S. firms praise the accomplishments of their Six Sigma initiatives.
Outstanding quality professionals and industrial statisticians concur and describe potential roles for their colleagues. Engineering programs have begun to incorporate elements of Six Sigma into their curricula. When have quality professionals ever had such a splendid opportunity to contribute? Constructive criticism of Six Sigma or any other quality program can be useful but it should be informed and fai
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Research essay sample on Successful Companies Four Months
