Motorola, Inc.
Motorola Inc is a global communication leader, powered by, and driving, seamless, mobility. Motorola is revolutionizing broadband, embedded systems and wireless networks – bringing cutting-edge technologies into the everyday life, with style (Motorola, 2008). With their projects of revolutionizing broadband, embedded systems and wireless networks, they are bringing new technologies into everyday life. They are recognized around the world for their policies on environment and safety issues. The Corporate Social Responsibility Report ranked Motorola as sixth, in their corporate in business ethics report. Their customer needs and expectations are seen as opportunities for them to improve their product and give customers what they want.
Motorola has implemented a six-sigma program for them to improve quality. This helped them with the numerous complaints that were received by field sales engineers because of quality defects. In 1986, the six-sigma methodology was used to address quality concerns. This led Motorola to set the goal no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. Using Six Sigma, the processes were documented, and measure and analysis systems were installed to continuously improve the process. “The six sigma evolved from its roots as a measure of quality to an overall business improvement methodology and to what it is today at Motorola- the next generation Six Sigma is an overarching high performance system that executes business strategy” (McCarty, 2004). Tom McCarty, senior management has created a balanced scorecard of strategic goals to identify the improvement points that will have the most effect on the organization’s bottom line. Second, customer focus teams are formed and empowered to take action. Third, the team uses an action-learning framework to build their capability and execute the project. Finally, all projects are carefully reviewed in the context of process metrics and business outcome goals (McCarty, 2004).
Sony Corporation
Sony Corporation operates in the electronics, game, entertainment, and financial services sectors. In the electronics segment, the company engages in the development, design, manufacture, and sale of various kinds of electronic equipment, instruments, and devices for consumer and professional markets. In the entertainment segment, Sony engages in motion picture, television, and home entertainment production. In the video game segment, it develops, produces, markets, and distributes PSP (PlayStation Portable), PlayStation 2, and the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment systems. In the financial services segment, the company offers individual life insurance and non-life insurance, credit financing, and banking services in Japan. The company’s mission is to remain globally unique.
There are many people that benefit from Lean Six Sigma which include mainly customers, suppliers, employees, and also stockholders. Lean Six Sigma is a way for businesses to improve, to reduce waste and to become more successful. In the future, more and more organizations will adopt or practice some of the Lean, Six Sigma, or both in order to stay competitive in today’s market. In some cases, blending both Lean and Six Sigma can be costly and difficult; however the end result can create an organization that focuses on quality, accuracy, and speed to meet the goal which is profitability.
1) Six Sigma should not be viewed as a quality program that is commissioned to reduce defects but as a methodology that helps companies better meet the needs of their business. KM shares this goal.
Lean is best defined as “a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste (non-value added activities) through continuous improvement by flowing the product only when the customer needs it (called pull) in pursuit of perfection” (Sarkar, 2008, p. 1). Lean thinking along with Six Sigma have generated interest all industries. This can be seen by the countless studies and quality improvement efforts undertaken by many corporations, with training and building staff as certified Lean Six Sigma experts.
Methods for quality improvement offer numerous benefits and there are many models to use for quality improvement. These models and features have traits in the up to date version of total quality management practise models and are of numerous benefits, with the likes of six sigma and kaizen model using these traits (Royal Charter, 2011)
Two major competitors in the global consumer electronics industry, Philips of the Netherlands and Matsushita of Japan, both have extensive histories that can be traced back more than a century. They have each followed different strategies and have had significant capabilities and downfalls along the way. In general, Philips built its tenured success on a portfolio of responsive national organizations. On the other hand, Matsushita based its global strategy on a centralized and efficient operation through Japan. As they developed and reorganized their international strategies, each company was forced to undertake its strategic posture and restructuring as its competition position fell.
The Six Sigma approach was designed by Motorola in 1986. The primary objective of the concept was to develop a tool for tallying the process defects and, as the result, improving business operations. The foundations of the approach are the customer needs, statistical analysis of data and facts, and timely execution. The method promises numerous benefits such as increasing performance and profitability of an organization, improving product or service quality and employee morale, decreasing costs, the growth of market share, the higher level of satisfying customer needs, etc. (Meredith & Shafer, 2013). The primary advantage
Barnard, W., De Feo, J. (2004). Juran Institute’s Six Sigma Breakthrough and Beyond. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies
Two new managers have been appointed at Sony in the last 15 years due to a number of developing problems, including the innovation ‘cogs’ within Sony slowing down, being forced into an aggressive pricing strategy, increased competition, losing the battle of VHS and Betamax, profit and sales remaining flat and the ongoing poor performance of Sony films (Mintzberg et al, 2003). Both managers initiated major strategic changes with varying degrees of success; firstly Nobuyuki Idei was appointed and initiated a major shift from analogue to digital technology, as there was a belief that Sony was falling behind the market in this respect. Idei also targeted the top position in the audio and visual industry, a universal standard in home computer devices and a new distribution infrastructure. He believed his job was the ‘regeneration of the entrepreneurial spirit’ (Mintzberg et al, 2003), believing it had been lost.
Motorola continues to pursue mergers, acquisitions and alliances in an effort to grow and continue to be profitable and be a global leader in the industry. Some of the major mobile devices products for Motorola are mobile phones, accessories, Bluetooth devices, IDEN technology, portable energy systems and two-way radios. Major products for Motorolaaê¡?s government and enterprise mobility solutions are biometrics, integrated information management, computer-aided dispatch systems and records management systems. Other major products are Motorolaaê¡?s networks and home networking solutions. Motorola has three business units which are mobile devices, network and enterprise, and connected home solutions.
One of the major purposes of Cisco’s products and services is to help connect people through technology. Their role in society in the 21st century and is more important than ever. By donating money and the technology they developed they are able to connect the global community to resources such as healthcare, education, and other critical human needs more easily. By trying to expand these services to poorer areas of the world not only helps improve the human quality of life but it also helps Cisco show how important CSR is to the
Cell phone manufacturers and service providers are at the core of the cell phone industry. These corporations are integral from their research and development endeavors to interactions with the consumer and the marketing of new products. The companies that control such factors of cellular phones are very numerous, so it is difficult to address all the cell phone manufacturers and service providers. However, we have focused largely on only the most significant cellular companies namely in the U.S. marketplace, although many have global ties. Collectively, companies around the world have the same goals in mind – to create desirable cutting-edge technology and to increase consumer satisfaction with hopes of generating sales, and thus profits.
N.V. Philips (Netherlands) and Matsushita Electric (Japan) are among the largest consumer electronics companies in the world. Their success was based on two contrasting strategies – diversification of worldwide portfolio and local responsiveness for Philips, and high centralization and mass production for Matsushita.
Total quality management focuses on customer value, its leading ideology is "customer satisfaction and recognition is the key to win the long term market, to creating value.”. Therefore,Total quality management requires a customer-centric approach throughout the enterprise business process management, all aspects should firmly establish the "customer first" thinking, not only to produce inexpensive products, but also provide extensive customer service, so that the business can achieve and exceed customer’s needs and expectations. Samsung has also developed a strong customer-focus which emphasises on understanding needs and wants of the future. “At a macro level, Samsung tries to understand the behaviour of consumers in particular country by sending staffs to attend MBA programs at the local universities worldwide. These "Country Specialists" also establish a vast connection with many business leaders and potential business partners. At micro level, they gather the customer preferences and incorporate them into the product design through a method called "Quality Function Deployment”. Samsung always puts the customers growing and expanding opinions and interest first and so they are focused on the discovering of customer needs, and how they can bring value to customers, always respect and care for their customers. Another contributing factor withinSamsungs Quality Management is that the company does product research and design based off of their customer’s perspective. Samsung constantly improve their service system, improve service speed and quality, in order to increase customer satisfaction and promote customer
Improvement in the quality is a continuous process; by discontinuing the continuity will shatter the business competitiveness in the market. Generally, six sigma, lean and Kaizen are being used for continuous improvement by the companies. But in case of manufacturing companies, they need to be more calculative and carful in the continuous improvement is essential but the company should be cautious in not investing in destructive research. It is not possible for implementing the TQM in all process (Ashkenas, 2013).