General Motors Process Improvement with Six Sigma Approach
Analysis of the process using the DMAIC Six Sigma Methodologies
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
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It is a step of defining the goals of the projects and the results are aimed at reaching certain levels of productivity of customer satisfaction. The second stage is measure, and it is the stage of collecting data and facts and evaluating current operational performance. The third stage is analyze with the purpose of developing methods and theories that will best suit the solving of the problem; it is also a stage of detecting cause-and-effect ties of the processes. The fourth stage is improve, it is aimed at generating ideas for reaching the desired process improvement. Finally, there is the control stage that is about monitoring the operations to find out whether the process of improvement is smooth and the problems were solved (Meredith & Shafer, …show more content…
For example, it has started Six Sigma training in Warren, Michigan, where the organization is one of the biggest employers. The objective of the initiative is that GM sees the concept as one of the ways to improve the quality of the processes, as there have been concerns about the company’s performance (General Motors seizes every opportunity to capitalize on Six Sigma training in Warren, n.d.).
General Motors applied the concept to engineering operations, but the company plans “to implement it across the entire organization, infiltrating areas of supply chain management, product development, and recall procedures” (Staff, 2014, para. 15). One example of the approach embodiment is dealing with the safety concerns deriving from ignition switch issue that caused the customers’ vehicles crashes and even led to deaths. What GM has done is developed the safety improvement project based on the Six Sigma
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.
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
transformational and lean six sigma. These are the two best models out there in my opinion. Let’s
With teams trained and all processes in place, the Six Sigma expert moved on to other projects, and the responsibility for reporting to upper management was left to the team leaders. Without the help of a trained process improvement leader, some teams became confused when analyzing their progress. Others committed so much time to the process improvement project that their work suffered. The middle management leaders soon were reporting only their successes, and began to emphasize what they intended to do rather than what was actually happening. Upper management, assuming that the project was goin...
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).
Sitnikov, C. (2012). Six sigma as a strategic tool for companies. Young Economists Journal / Revista Tinerilor Economisti, 94-102.
The methodology of Lean Six Sigma is the merger of two business tools that includes Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. Six Sigma focuses on improving current business processes and performance while Lean Manufacturing focuses on the improvement of the processes of an organization by using highly skilled employees to increase speed and quality. Combining the two methodologies creates an organization that focuses on quality, efficiency and speed to lower operational costs and increase profits. By following the Lean Six Sigma methodology, many companies have attempted to create a lean, waste-free environment ultimately at the expense of the employee and occasionally at the expense of the organization.
This process is aimed at ensuring the project being pursued has a potential of delivering by adhering to the allocated time, sticking to the budget and very important, meeting customers specifications (Mott McDonald, 2002). It involves assessing the projects at critical stages (also referred to as gates) in its lifecycle and thus assuring it can advance to the next stage successfully. This function is performed by an independent experienced team, after which they assure the Senior Responsible Owners that the project can progress successfully (National Academies US & National Research US, 2004). There are six critical stages (gateways) in the lifecycle of a project that the independent gateway review team will evaluate and thus provide th...
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.
I am currently involved in a project to carry out process improvements within Customer Support organisation. Customer support is a high visible business unit for customers and is usually the first point of contact. So the project involves implementing business management strategy like Six Sigma to find and improve areas in customer request, escalat...
The third step named post-commissioning step deals with the impacts and affects of the new technology which contains evaluating existing conditions and measuring the performances of the firms. (Udo and Ehie, 1996) (Primrose, 1991).
Construction, Release, Production and Retirement. In the first phase the goal of the project and its market perception are identified. It helps in identifying the potential stakeholders and their goals.
...ll those helps managers to know if the process control is working or not, while the control process is contributing to successful of the current strategy.