Why Six Sigma?

Seriously, this is becoming a cult. I have to get "yellow belt" certified by June. My cousin was just over bragging about his "green belt" certification. This whole thing smacks of 80's business smarmy-ism.

Yeah, I know what Six Sigma is. My last company was a "Qualpro" (a competitor to Six Sigma) company. I just hate these personality driven, bon mot dropping philosophies.

~String

 

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I don't put Six Sigma in the smarmy business fads of the 80's and 90's. I think there is value in Six Sigma methods if properly applied. The problem I have seen is that a lot of these practices are ill deployed in the work place. Management too often does not like the rigor of thought and dicipline. And sometimes the do not like the solutions for a variety of reasons.

So I think it is a good approach to problem solving and improved quality. But it is worthless if not implemented well.

 

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GE is big on it. I had to get mai green belt there danielsan. It's really a bunch of bullshit.

 

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Six Sigma came to fame with GE. GE management swears buy it. Jack Welch was and is a big fan of Six Sigma. And he made a lot of money for his stockholders.

 

Jack made GE the Top Corp(ar at least close to top) by one simple rule:

If you are not #1 or #2 in your business (Energy, I.T, Health, Insurance, whatever GE has everything), then i'm selling you.

Oh ya and If you are #1 or #2 in your business, I'm buying you.

 

About a year ago my wife came home from her work in the machine shop with a questionnaire that every machinist was expected to fill out, apparently as part of some kind of Six Sigma enthusiasm in headquarters - I did most of it for her, as machine shop experience was irrelevant and I at least recognized some of the language ("Which of the following quality control methods have you implemented within the past year? Describe your implementation strategies." Followed by a bunch of names of approaches I assume were chapter headings in someone's MBA textbook.)

She reported that she was the only employee on the floor to complete the thing, the rest of them lacking the requisite spouses. Later that day she learned a valuable lesson in quality control: don't push the life time of the deionized water in the electric cutter on a high tolerance part run; change it early rather than late.

Six Sigma is probably valuable in teaching people about standard deviations and what they mean, as well as how to pronounce that little squiggle the stat guys use. But its implementation at the local machine shop did not result in executives showing up on the machine shop floor and talking to machinists about the executive plans to improve "process" and "flow" by rearranging the layout; where they could have received a demonstration of exactly why moving the sandblasting out of its block-walled room and into an open corner of a high-precision machining area was kind of stupid.

 

Six Sigma is about cutting out waste and inefficiency.
Even small businesses need to to that.

A lot of the time you are doing things that neither earn you money or make your product better.

I can see how in a corporation, it could become a cult, done for its own sake rather than for its benefits, but that's corporations for you.

 

your wife works in the machine shop ? wow

 

Hello,

Black Belt here.

I've never used it.

The company I work for doesn't use it.

 

As I said it is only as good as the implementation. And most companies fail miserably in implementation for several reasons. But cheif amoung them is that management discovers there is a real cost to change and improved efficiency. Many in management are short term thinkers only concerned about the next quarter. Second, management may not be willing to give up certian sacred cows.

 

yeah it's a cultural challenge. Six sigma is a re-packaging of old tools except where six sigma control is necessary to maintain 3 sigma over long periods of time.

 

My theory is that it might be useful in an attempt to sneak common sense past a type of executive thinking that shouldn't be there in the first place. It's a way for the good guys to win a particular kind of executive battle.

If you already know what kinds of damage poor quality output does, actually understand the myriad ways shoddy product and careless service bite you in the ass in the long run, it won't do you any good personally - but it might give you a lever against a bureaucratic obstacle.

So a corporate bureaucracy with a substantial population of obstacles in its offices, but not too many, might benefit in the executive departments.

I dunno. I've never seen it do much, but I've never been an executive.

My own innovation would be Shop Swingby: Every executive would regularly swing by the production floor or the customer counter or the sales territory or wherever, and catch up on whatever's going on.

That would be complementary to the other innovation, in which any executive with production responsibility who employed a "foreman" or the like to do nothing but relay his wishes to the production floor would be fired and replaced by that foreman, or vice versa.

 

There is nothing wrong with management going out on the frontline.

 

lol ITIL

Jesus Christ, the latest buzzword in I.T - you can be ITIL CERTIFIED for a few million doll hairs too I hear.

Exactly, it's called get a fucking brain. We used to simply call it Systems Analysis. Computers...I.T is the only profession who gotta damn near spend more money than you make to prove what you learned in school or work, over and over again.

So sick of the "en vogue" buzz phrase trends. It's just CYA for executives.

 

Great Point Iceaura.
A lot of Corporate activity has been aimed at achieving short term gains to reach targets and get bonuses.
To hell with the long term implications for customer relations, staff relations, and productivity.

The Six S system, from what I know of it, is not corporate bullshit, but a method of continually cutting out waste.

On the shop floor, it is initially seen as a means of driving hassled workers to work harder, but later accepted as a means of removing all the annoying things that stop you from doing your job effectively.

I know a 6s trainer, and from the little I have gleaned, have improved my own small business.

No wonder that some company executives have rejected it.
Why take on a policy that will reveal how totally useless you are.

In the current global meltdown, it will be more influential, not less.

 

Six looks a bit like a sigma.
Its a wonder the evangelicals haven't found another six to denounce it as the coming of the beast.

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I think you hit the nail on the head. Six Sigma says operations are not perfect today. What executive wants to admit their operations could be better? It requires some long term thinking. Most executives cannot think past their next bonus check.

 

Thanks Joe. My leanings are not capitalist, but I hate waste.