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Six Sigma And Workout

Additionally slow implementation, Six Sigma training and over-training, and marginalizing non-belt performance improvement activities after months of Six Sigma deployments are causes of concern. As an option, using Workout combined with Six Sigma focuses on providing the know how to those groups of employees who are least exposed to the Six Sigma tools and concept, but are the base of that process.

Under Jack Welsh at GE, Workout as a business improvement methodology was born. The difference between TQM and Workout was the speed to action wherein TQM stressed on study before acting, while workout endorsed action on reaching a consensus on a simple solution.

The tools of workout are easy to understand, simple and ready to use tools for those with the understanding about the problem in contrast to the tools requiring analytical experience. The participants can express their opinion openly but have to give personal commitment of acting upon it.

Combining Six Sigma and Workout

Six Sigma has the ability to absorb new ideas and methods. The combination of Six Sigma and workout is gaining popularity as organizations look at handling the change management challenges of Six Sigma deployment. The Six Sigma approach is fact-based while making decisions about the processes, and considers the logic and data analysis to overcome the hurdles to change.

Workout is a psychological approach to change, which considers the human nature of need to be heard, valued by those in power and to be rewarded for making things better. For the managers and employees who are not a part of the core Six Sigma group, the incentive to change is the opportunity to put their ideas into practice for improving results.

Workout provides them with this opportunity by giving all employees a controlled format for translating ideas into action. This helps achieve results and reduce the cycle time of achieving the involvement of all in the Six Sigma culture.

Successful Integration

Integration of Six Sigma and workout is not difficult, but requires assigning of roles and responsibilities effectively. The keys to making it effective are listed here:

Workout as an Integral Part of Six Sigma

The combination of achieving perfection in process performance and the ideas of speed and self-confidence seems odd to come into being. It is necessary to decide the places where speed and simplicity and initiative can be fruitful and where they may be risky.

Workout Tools for Complex Problem Resolution

Workout tools such as idea prioritization, brainstorming and action plan development are useful in making improvements in processes with more than 5% defect rate. By deploying the workout teams on these areas, the Black belts can concentrate on the resolution of systemic problems.

Deployment with Acceleration

Deployment with the help of a workout team is useful, particularly when people will have to change their daily routine. Workout teams will help engage those people who will have to live with the solution.

Engaging Leaders

Workout events also help align the leadership with the priorities of Six Sigma deployment. This high level workout can sort out the problems of assigning resources on priority. It helps avoid discrepancy in matching problems to the tools.

Companies who are reluctant to implement Six Sigma can opt for workout to ramp up their process deployments and ensure employee engagement.

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Why Six Sigma Will Outlast Total Quality Management

Six Sigma is not just a new term for Total Quality Management
(TQM) . They have many similarities and are compatible in many
business environments. TQM has brought great improvements and
value to many companies. Six Sigma can do more.

TQM is the development, deployment, and maintenance of systems
related to quality-producing business processes. TQM is a
strategic approach that focuses on encouraging a continuous flow
of incremental quality improvements. It encourages the
establishing of a culture of collaboration among different
departments within organization. TQM is mainly a cultural
initiative and a style of management toward increased quality.

Six Sigma is not just another quality initiative or process
improvement program. It is more than that because it is a robust
continuous improvement strategy and process that includes
cultural methodologies such as the various TQM approaches. Six
Sigma is complementary to TQM initiatives such as ISO 9000
registration, which is mainly procedural; Total Quality
Management (TQM), which is mainly cultural, and Statistical
Process Control (SPC), which is primarily statistical process
control monitoring. All of these initiatives attempt to improve
quality levels but typically reach a plateau. The Six Sigma
approach goes to the next level.

Six Sigma is not about quality in the strict traditional sense.
Quality, defined traditionally as conformance to internal
requirements, is not the focus of Six Sigma. True, Six Sigma
focuses on improving quality by helping organizations produce
products and services better, faster and cheaper. However, it
accomplishes that by reducing waste. In traditional terms, Six
Sigma focuses on defect prevention, cycle time reduction, and
cost savings. Six Sigma is about helping the organization make
more money. Unlike cost-cutting programs that reduce value and
quality, Six Sigma identifies and eliminates costs that provide
no value to customers: the costs incurred due to waste.

The focus of TQM initiatives differs from the focus of Six Sigma
programs. One, TQM programs focus on improvement in individual
operations with unrelated processes. Six Sigma focuses on making
improvements in all operations within a process. Two, Six Sigma
involves dedicated, full-time resources–the “black belts”­
–versus TQM, which is usually a part-time activity of
non-dedicated managers.

The breadth and depth and the precision of Six Sigma and TQM
also differ. Six Sigma has a well-defined project charter that
outlines the scope of a project, financial targets, anticipated
benefits, milestones, etc. It’s based on hard financial data and
savings. In TQM, organizations go into a project without fully
knowing what the financial gains might be. Six Sigma has a solid
control phase (DMAIC – Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control)
that makes specific measurements, identifies specific problems,
and provides specific solutions that can be measured.

How else is Six Sigma different? Six Sigma is:

* Fact based and data driven

* Results-oriented, providing quantifiable and measurable
bottom-line results

* A leader-sponsored top-down approach

* Linked to strategy

* Thinking about customer requirements

* Applicable to all business processes – administrative, sales,
marketing, R&D, etc.

Six Sigma is a robust continuous improvement strategy and
process that includes cultural methodologies such as Total
Quality Management (TQM), process control strategies such as
Statistical Process Control (SPC) and other important
statistical tools. Six Sigma tools and techniques all are found
in total quality management. Six Sigma is the application of the
tools on selected important projects at the appropriate time.
Six Sigma tools and techniques all are found in TQM. When done
correctly, Six Sigma becomes a way toward organization and
cultural development. Yet, it is more than a set of tools! Six
Sigma is the strategic and systematic application of the tools
on targeted important projects at the appropriate time. Because
Six Sigma incorporates TQM but goes beyond it, it will outlast
TQM

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Frequently Asked Questions On Lean Six Sigma

How will it benefit me and my company?

Despite Lean Six Sigma being around for over twenty years now, it is remarkable that a significant number of companies and individuals still don’t really know what it is. Oh, they’ve heard of it, and may even have been involved in it, but when it comes to defining it or reaping the huge benefits it can offer, then far too many are still in the dark.

A few of the frequently asked questions from students and companies regarding Lean Six Sigma and how to use it are rehearsed below, together with some answers to these questions.

What’s the difference between Lean Six Sigma and other problem solving methods?

There are any number of ways to solve problems, some work better than others, however.

The trial and error problem solving method, sadly still in use, is the equivalent of groping in the dark, with little or no data, little or no method and often little or no idea. The result, quite predictably is ‘little or no improvement’.

The ‘Just do it’ method, where the problem solver is encouraged to jump straight into process changes, can be effective if the problem and root cause are understood and the person doing it knows what they are doing but the method lacks rigour and repeatability.

More advanced methods such as CEDAC (Cause and Effect with the Addition of Cards) or 8D (Eight Disciplines) are more structured. These methodologies utilise simple and often subjective tools such as the Fishbone Diagrams and Pareto analysis, however, and lack statistical rigour. 8D for example is a useful method to employ when reacting to customer problems.

Lean Six Sigma uses the DMAIC process of Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control to solve problems. The methodology is data centric with excellent tools that are more powerful because they offer statistical validity. They are sill easily learnt, however, if taught by seasoned professionals. Usually run as a project based strategic deployment or improvement method, Lean Six Sigma has proved to be an effective problem solving method with average savings, according to the DTI, of £150,000 per project.

I want to progress my career and wondered if training in Lean Six Sigma will help me?

In a word YES! The disciplined and structured approach combined with the tools and method of Lean Six Sigma are all highly effective and will help you to be more successful at solving problems and making improvements in your place of work. Typically, people who bring a Lean Six Sigma qualification to a job can command 10 to 15% higher salaries than an equivalent untrained applicant.

What’s the best way to identify projects for Lean Six Sigma?

The good thing about Lean Six Sigma is that there is a whole suite of tools to use to identify projects. An enterprise level Value Stream Map can be used to highlight projects in context to the whole company.

A Cost of Quality analysis usually identifies a host of projects to work on and techniques like Voice of Customer and Customer Journey will illuminate the customer’s perspective of what are the important projects to choose.

Undoubtedly though, the best way to identify projects is through a strategic deployment process, which takes in to account the external and internal customer perspective and aligns projects and goals to strategic objectives.

How do I keep my projects on track?

Well, the best way to keep projects on track, is to employ the age old adage of discipline. However a number of techniques, employed in Lean Six Sigma, can be useful to aid you in keeping projects on track.

It is important to spend time and effort upfront defining your Project Charter (a semi formal contract between the Belt and the Company detailing the problem to be solved and the resources required to solve it) and get buy-in from stakeholders. This can’t be emphasised too strongly. Poor planning and communication are the main reasons projects go wrong. The SigmaPro Lean Six Sigma tools will come in handy here.

Plan your activities and assign responsibilities, then meet regularly to review progress. The frequency of meetings will determine the pace of the project. Hold well structured meetings, here’s where the discipline comes in, and tackle delays and issues quickly to keep the project on track.

Treat your project as a process. Define it, choose KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) such as DMAIC stage reviews and monitor progress. A good way to do this is to have a ‘war room’ or notice board with project measures and progress easily accessible and simple to understand. Hold your meetings there, stood around your progress charts. This usually keeps meetings focused and short! And don’t forget – “what gets measured gets done!”

What is your favourite Lean Six Sigma tool?

Lean Six Sigma has such a wide variety of rich tools to choose from but if I were to pick a favourite it would be Regression Analysis. It is simple but extremely powerful.

A company once needed help to set up a Design Of Experiments trial and analyse the results to optimise the drying times of various sized components in an oven. There were 5 variables and each trial could take up to three hours to complete. Even using experiment reduction techniques the work to set-up and run the experiment would have taken over a month to complete with considerable disruption to production.

However, good quality data on the five variables had been taken over a period of time. It was a relatively simple task, taking less than a day, to run the data through a regression analysis and produce an algorithm describing the drying time as a function of these five variables.

The model proved to be highly accurate and simple to use. Needless to say the company was extremely pleased and enrolled several of their staff on a Lean Six Sigma course in order to have their own capability in-house.

Lean Six Sigma is an effective tool for improving business processes of all kinds. By adopting a grading system from Yellow Belt at the starter level, through Six Sigma Green Belt and Six Sigma Black Belt to Six Sigma Master Black Belt at the expert level, Lean Six Sigma can effectively engage a range of people with varying levels of ability and disciplines to make impressive improvements in any business.

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