I. INTRODUCTION
Six Sigma Beginnings
Companies have spent millions of dollars and numerous hours attempting to lower production costs and reduce the amount of rejected items. A breakthrough principle that attempts to solve these problems was first developed by Motorola Corporation and is known as the Six Sigma concept. This concept was first initiated in the early 1980s and did not become widely known until approximately ten years later. By this time the CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch, and the CEO of Allied Signal, Larry Bossidy had given some credibility to the Six Sigma concept through the success of their own organizations (Pheng and Hui 2004). Six Sigma has since become a quite common quality concept.
II. WHAT IS SIX SIGMA
Six Sigma Defined
Six Sigma has successfully pulled away from other concept qualities because of its focus. This concept focuses on “communicating measurable error ratios” (Williamsen 2005: 41). The objective of Six Sigma seeks to attain a “three-parts-per-million error ratio at a 99.9996 percent incidence” (Williamsen 2005: 41). The men who initially developed the Six Sigma concept, Harry and Schroeder, define Six Sigma as “a disciplined method of fusing extremely rigorous data gathering and statistical analysis to pinpoint sources of errors and way of eliminating them” (Pheng and Hui 2004: 482). Before the introduction of Six Sigma, quality used to mean making products to a standard and insuring that they did not fall outside of the previously specified limits. Post Six Sigma expanded the definition of quality to include both the economic value created by the product, and the practical uses of it to those who use it and to those who produce it (Pheng and Hui 2004).
Principles of Six Sigm...
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... the information and concrete methods they receive.
REFERENCES
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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.
The Japanese were using a variety of manufacturing improvement processes, like kaizen and poka-yoke, but it took time for them to be recognized and brought back the U.S. by individuals such as Edward Deming. Meanwhile, other business managers were also looking for ways to enhance quality and speed up production. In 1951, the concept of total quality management was introduced along with its quality circles. In 1982, Tom Peters’ book In Search of Excellence shook the industrial world by making companies look seriously at their production mode. Statistical process control (SPC) was also making a comeback in industrial areas. Ford Company started to look seriously at was happening with automobile production in Japan.
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.
Even though I have no real experience in software development I know that dealing with software is not easy and can be very frustrating. Six sigma incorporates many tools that help organizations determine their customer requirements. Before reading this article I thought six sigma was just about statistics and improving processes. It is so much more than that. It’s also about managing all given information or data quantitative or not. Six sigma can help with customer requirements and also with understanding processes capability.
A fundamental aspect of the implementation of the Six Sigma theory is the project manager. The existence of a project manager significantly increases the financial returns and project success of Six Sigma projects (Marzagão & Carvalho, 2016, p.1516). Thus, the project manager helps implement and enforce cost cutting measures, in addition ensuring the projects meet the organization’s goals. Marzagão and Carvalho also note that in addition to a strong understanding of Six Sigma, a project manager also needs important leadership qualities, specifically teambuilding and interpersonal skills (2016, p, 1516). Consequentially, Six Sigma influences the hiring process of an organization since the human resource department should seek out employees that possess these
As you can see from the figure the lean six sigma is customer driven, targets variation, focuses
There is a lot of literature on the concept of continuous improvement (CI). Studies show that CI is very important to creating competitive advantages in highly competitive industries such as the automobile industry (Bhuiyan & Baghel 2005; Li et al. 2009; Schaeffer, Cadavid, & Backström 2010). These studies suggest that manufacturing firms use CI to eliminate waste in all organisational systems and processes (Bhuiyan & Baghel 2005; Li et al. 2009). Currently, manufacturing firms use lean manufacturing, six sigma, lean six sigma, and the Kaizen methods of CI methodologies to reduce wastages, simplify the production line, and improve quality (Swink & Jacobs 2012).
Instead of segmented purchasing through regional managers, all purchasing decisions were shifted to Atlanta, Home Depot’s headquarters. He also changed the managerial decision making process to be based on performance data rather than “gut-feelings”. Companywide analytics and improved information systems were implemented to support this new approach. In addition, GE engineering processes such as six sigma was used to create strict KPIs to allow management to track performance of stores. Failure to meet KPIs resulted in termination of managers or employees, creating a climate of fear.
Sitnikov, C. (2012). Six sigma as a strategic tool for companies. Young Economists Journal / Revista Tinerilor Economisti, 94-102.
Lean Six Sigma is a methodology that creates processes within an organization to cut waste and improve the company’s performance. However, studies have shown that over the past decade applying Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma can create problems for companies financially and potential problems for employees. Companies should take great care before implementing a Lean Six Sigma solution because in some instances, going lean can do more harm than good both financially for the organization as well as destroying employee loyalty and moral.
Vest, J.R., & Gamm, L.D., (2009) A critical review of the research literature on Six Sigma, Lean and StuderGroup's Hardwiring Excellence in the United States: the need to demonstrate and communicate the effectiveness of transformation strategies in healthcare. Implement Sci. 2009 Jul 1;4:35.
According to what we have learned in class, six sigma, statistically, is interpreted as having no more than 3.4 defects per million. However, they dump 10-12 dough balls per week, while 5-6 is more reasonable, which illustrates the quality mismanagement. So, the food cost there is way higher when it accounts for 38%, while industry ideal is 30%. In order to streamline the entire process of making pizza, it is an imperative for Pizza My Heart to exhaustively put six sigma in action.
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
Introduction Effectively integrating information technology (IT) into an organization’s business processes is critical if the organization wants to increase productivity and remain profitable. IT includes items such as the systems software, application software, computer hardware, and the networks and databases that help manage the organization’s information. When implementing quality standards and processes that are forever changing in the IT world, organizations must balance these changes while continuing to rapidly implement new systems technologies in order to stay competitive. Quality improvements in IT delivery and service support can be improved by measuring and tracking user satisfaction, integration and flexibility early on in the decision process and reinforcing them throughout the review process. Adhering to quality management best practices means ensuring that quality standards are strictly enforced and entrenched into the organization’s philosophy.
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).