6 Sigma Online

So many individuals are confused about what to do with their business. In the current economy it can be difficult if not darn near impossible to keep a business not only afloat but moving forward. When it comes to running a business when the numbers are going down most people start to panic but it is important that no matter how challenging things get or how grim things seem it is important to make sure that you stay focused on the basic principles of running any business.

First and foremost your focus must always be on how to make the customer happier. Doing so may require some changes in the way that you are doing business but in the long run a happy customer will help you maintain a healthy business.

Keeping your customers happy is not the only goal because as is with all industry the goal must also be to make money. You need to find ways to keep your business lean and productive and doing so will help you to make the greatest profit. When you look at all the ways in which you can trim the fat it is likely that you will finally begin to make a greater profit.

Goals are important when you are running a business and the more clear and concise your goals are the more likely it is that you will succeed in business. Anyone in business either in management or even employees will tell you that the more clearly a company outlines its goals the more likely they are to succeed.

And while goals are important teamwork is just as important because it offers individuals a way to feel a sense of accomplishment and to feel that they have support and guidance when problems arise. A work environment where everyone is working as an individual is one that will likely not be successful over time. Everyone needs to be part of the greater whole.

There are many 6 sigma management techniques that touch upon all of these things. One such technique that covers a majority of these principles and provides across the board training for your entire staff is the Six Sigma method which offers a variety of training options for all different companies across the board.

Categories: Case Studies

These days most businesses are grasping at straws. They know that their business needs something to keep it going and to keep it afloat. Of course, there are many different approaches that business owners will take to make their businesses rise to occassion. for some it will be to fire some top executives and hire some new ones. For others it will be to revamp their entire management approach and throw something new in the mix.

No matter how it is that companies choose to approach their business problems it is most definitely certain that a variety of companies will need to do something or run the risk of having to throw their business out and start a new. Many businesses seem to choose the later and while this may seem like a bad business approach to some, in most cases it is necessary very simply because those who are in charge really don't have a clue what they need to do in order to pull their business out of the ruins and make it what either it once was or could be.

When it comes to making success out of a business in today's economy many are struggling and it is only those with the know how or those who can think ahead of the curve that will make a success out of their business. It is a shame that more managers and owners don't think outside the box and try using solutions that are working well for other companies such as Six Sigma.

Six Sigma is a management technique that combines several different workable approaches to business management together to formulate the best overall results. To begin with Six Sigma starts with an exceptional comprehensive training program that allows all employees to learn the same concepts from the same source. This approach really aids in the coherance of the process and offers everyone a greater understanding. Using this method works so much better than those programs that only train upper management and then upper management trains the employees under them. In these cases points can be missed and concepts twisted in a way that makes them less effective.

Business owners need to learn from the biggest and most successful companies. Learning from the example set by larger companies can help smaller companies to get themselves out of a rut and back on track in an uncompromising marketplace. There is a lot to be said for emulating those who are successful.

Categories: Case Studies

The Black Belt system is a tool that is used within the Six Sigma to help with the definition, measurement, analysis and the improvement of the deposit process within a bank. It has been successful by saving $4MM in a year.

When the dot-coms became popular, the process of making transactions online was the next focus. There are many decisions made and a lot of them without the data to support it. This lead to errors and there are wonders whether a Six Sigma process would have been able to help prevent these.

Black Belt would have been used and started out with online banking. The first step was to look into how any of the deposits were made. An online bank meant that there were no in-store branches for any of the customers and the deposits had to be made through the use of mailing through the USPS (United States Postal Service).There were savings made from the zero number of branches and these led to customers gaining high interest rates and some services for free – the customers benefited.

The bank had to receive all deposits quickly and then clear them through the traditional cycle. The plan was that there would be local places for the deposits and then they would be reshipped to the central location for processing overnight. This would mean that it would spend less time with the process and customers would feel more at ease mailing locally.

While the Black Belt process started out successful, there were flaws that were noted – mainly in the data collection. These were flaws that were not identified at first, such as the process of reshipment was completely manual. These plans were not enforced on a daily basis and it lead to a breakdown. There were times that the deposit locations were not getting the deposits daily and other times when they would not be reshipped on an express service that night. The main problem was over a weekend, when deposits arriving on a Saturday were not being reshipped until a Monday night.

There were other problems within the process – the fact that the deposits were sent to a local place first. It would have been quicker for people to send their deposits directly to the centralized location where the deposits were made. This would have meant that the process would have been quicker by an average of two days.

Categories: Case Studies

Why All Managers Should Be Six Sigma Certified? These are tiring times for many businesspeople. Shrinking revenues are leading to a culture of defeat in some workplaces. In this environment, many companies are urging managers to encourage their workers through inspirational pep talks. Managers could do far more to calm employee nerves by adopting Six Sigma and turning their companies into profitable ventures. Over the past twenty years, we've been gratified to see the how awareness of Six Sigma has grown exponentially. Nevertheless, far too many companies are embracing fatalism and resignation instead of embracing lean principles.

Some potential adopters of Six Sigma are put off by the unique terminology of Six Sigma. Black belts and other titles are simply fun ways to liven up a system that is rooted in business science and statistics. After clearing this initial hurdle, many companies have instituted Six Sigma partially, with positive but mixed results. For better results, it seems clear that all managers should be Six Sigma certified. By broadening the role of lean principles, companies will find themselves moving from the margins of their industry to the profitable center. In some ways, the Six Sigma movement has been sabotaged by its own success. With so much public exposure and media coverage for the Six Sigma system, some companies have become suspicious, fearing that Six Sigma is trendy or insubstantial. Digging a little deeper reveals concrete evidence that Six Sigma is far more than a passing fad. Six Sigma is a scientific business system that is transforming whole industries. Not even a second Great Depression could derail the triumphant forward progress of the Six Sigma revolution.

As we move forward into the century, it seems clear that we should strive towards the goal of full Six Sigma certification for all managers. This may seem overly ambitious to some, but the positive benefit of simply striving towards this goal will be quite stellar. Even economic downturns can have silver linings if they result in the broader adoption of lean principles. If all managers in all industries were to become versed in lean thinking, we feel that the resultant increase in revenue and productivity would benefits all members of our society.

Categories: Case Studies

Within a Six Sigma office, there are several principles that employees, leaders and CEO's focus on in order to progress through the process and see major improvement in waste, customer satisfaction and employee involvement. By clearly understanding the diverse steps in creating a Six Sigma office, one can comprehend how to approach implementation in an array of industries and office types, despite the organization levels and satisfaction measurements currently in place. The basic components of Six Sigma in the office are:

• Define
• Measure
• Analyze
• Improve
• Control
• Six Sigma Implementation

As a method of improving quality and promoting constant improvement within an office, Six Sigma implementation can see overwhelming for businesses initially diving in. Waste can be recovered or reworked in various areas, from scraps to employee resource expenditures, giving offices increased assets to use for improvement methods, training and other ways of making the business more efficient and streamlined. In order to see real improvement in an office, when implementing Six Sigma, employees and leaders alike must:

• Embrace the improvement conventions as well as the tools available for reducing waste and cutting costs.
• Recognize the long term effectiveness of Six Sigma implementation rather than adopt a quick fix.
• Measure processes.
• Accept the diverse roles of various employees within the office's Six Sigma community.
• Provide the proper training and support for the different roles and levels of Six Sigma leadership.
• Pay close attention to results and data from measurements.

Using Six Sigma to Define Goals and Standards in the Office

Manufacturing businesses have long since adopted Six Sigma as a method of defining goals and standards, making them familiar to employees and customers, which produces constant measures and continual improvement. One of the most beneficial ways employees may gain from implementation of Six Sigma within as office setting is the clear establishment of roles. Employees no longer must guess what employers, management and leaders expect from them. Instead, clearly defined tasks exist to insure no confusion exists regarding one's job. Gaining feedback and ideas from employees prior to implementing Six Sigma principles in the office can result in a better understanding of what roles have been currently adopted in contrast with proposed goals and new roles.

Six Sigma requires the efforts of a cohesive group, working together while grasping assigned roles. Accepting and seeking feedback from office employees can comfort fear of change and ease workers into roles and transformation that will occur.

Categories: Case Studies

A Six Sigma Champion has a highly important role to play in a Six Sigma organization. These are the people who take control of ensuring that the entire company is working by Six Sigma principles. They are part of upper management, and they are the mentors for the Black Belts in the organization. Another important duty they have is recognizing out of the Black Belts which ones would be ideal Master Black Belts.

The extensive duties of the Six Sigma Champion include those that ensure that new Six Sigma ideas are actually feasible. One of the main points of Six Sigma is to improve production at the same time that the company decreases its costs. The Six Sigma Champions are the ones who determine that the costs required of the new Six Sigma strategies will create the results that are expected. Six Sigma Champions are also the ones who give their Black Belts and Green Belts the resources they need to put everything into effect.

Six Sigma Champions are known as people who will step in and solve any problems that arise during the implementation of new Six Sigma ideas. Champions are the go-to people when things are not running as smoothly as the Black Belts and Green Belts would like. Champions are also the mediators between different personalities. Whenever disagreements arise between people, it is the Champion that is called in to defuse the situation. Six Sigma requires that Black Belts, for example, remain in their positions of running Six Sigma projects; it is undesirable for Black Belts to have the need to fight upper management to complete their projects.

Among the many duties that Six Sigma Champions have is to be fully knowledgeable in their businesses’ operations. They must be completely familiar with the technology that is used within their businesses. Six Sigma Champions are also the ones that are responsible for choosing Six Sigma projects to carry out. They must be able to select the projects that are going to have the greatest effect on the company and they must choose the right Master Black Belt who can best put the project in motion.

As Champions are the ones who will decide which Six Sigma projects may be the ones that save the company money, they are the ones who will be held responsible for the outcome of the project. If the project does reduce costs for the company, the Champion will be given the credit.

Categories: Case Studies

Many business owners and managers think that they need to rule their business with an iron fist and that forcing their employees into compliance is the best way to get results. Studies show, however, that employees that work in this type of environment have a faster turn over rate and in general produce less then those employees who are working in a nurturing loving environment.

There are many different ways in which a company can nurture their employees and help them to achieve all they can not only professionally but personally as well. Offering employees perks for success and extra training and growth is a big motivating factor that can help to keep your entire staff focused and on task.

Employees who love working for you will not only be more productive but more creative as well. They will become fully dedicated to the company and its purposes and will look for better ways to implement changes and to propel your business to the next level.

Rewards can be little like tee shirts for the team that produces the best results or ideas or can be monumental like in the form of vacations and time off. Many employers even find that allowing some of their employees flex schedules and the ability to work from home helps to produce the results they are looking for. The more people enjoy their work the more productive they are as employees and the less likely they are to take their skills and knowledge elsewhere.

Companies like Google have gone above and beyond for their employees with incredible results. At Google, play is the name of the game. Their employees work hard and are a valuable part of their process and this company knows it. They allow their employees to play and build toys while at work, work out, get a massage, and even make a selection at the cafeteria which is a culmination of a variety of cuisines to suit just about any palate. As a result they have perhaps the most successful business in the world.

This type of free environment provides their employees with everything they need to be productive and take the down time that they need to stay productive and happy. Google feels that by providing this type of supportive workplace they encourage their employees to dedicate more hours towards their work and produce far superior results.

Categories: Case Studies

Solid implementation is one of the most important things to help you make the most out of Six Sigma. Recently in the news has been some talk about Home Depot and how they had to let their CEO go because of his over the top Six Sigma implementation and many look at this as a short coming of Six Sigma yet from Home Depot’s standpoint they want someone to manage their company using Six Sigma but the tunnel vision that their former CEO had was just overwhelming and while it did improve the company’s bottom line their employees were not happy with the implementation and this is where the CEO met with difficulties that he did not adjust to deal with.

There are actually several ways that Six Sigma can fail and one of the biggest ways is by using an overemphasis or rigid approach and this is exactly what Home Depot experienced. While Six Sigma is important the problems that are sometimes created need to be looked at and adjusted for. In this case it was that while the customers were being made happier the employees were being made more dissatisfied by the layout of the store, location of displays, and other issues that were effecting their work environment.

At the same time that Six Sigma was improving their bottom line it was also in turn creating unhappy employees, which in essence is self defeating because these are the front line people that customers are dealing with each and every day. This is a big hindrance to improving customer experience.

Six Sigma works and works well and even Home Depot would tell people that but the people who are involved in Six Sigma implementation are key to making it a success, a half success, or a complete failure. Having someone who is so smart and well trained in Six Sigma principles but with little common sense to adapt the principles to their business can truly be self defeating and can create the impression that 6 Sigma doesn’t work even though it does each and every time it is used correctly.

Categories: Case Studies, Six Sigma

When you are looking for a way to make your business boom with some out of this world results then you should look to the bigger companies who are creating their own success. Looking towards some of the most successful companies in the world, the big companies like GM, 3M, and Bank of America you will very quickly see they all have one thing in common and that thing is Six Sigma.

Six Sigma is a business management technique that sets the tone for success and just looking that the many companies and businesses that are using this to get the results and run a more successful business can help you to truly understand that no matter what business you are in you can adjust these principles and put them to work for you. It is not only a system that improves the bottom line and improves customer experiences and quality of the products and services that are being offered but also provides you with measurable results.

Six Sigma is unique in the fact that it involves employees at all levels and helps to bring everyone on board with the training and support they need to make success out of their business goals. The more successful a business is the better for all the employees within that company.

Taking a look at your future, what can you anticipate from your business? If you aren’t exactly sure where your business is heading or how to get it moving in a more successful direction then Six Sigma may be the program for you. Do the research and look at the facts. Millions of larger companies and smaller ones as well have integrated the Six Sigma principles with much success. If you want more success for your business then you should follow the techniques of those that are already successful. Knowing before you start that you can achieve the kind of results you are looking for from Six Sigma will help you find greater success then you ever thought possible.

Categories: Case Studies, Six Sigma Success Stories

In 1988, Motorola was recognized for its excellence in manufacturing and business processes when the company received the Malcolm Balridge Award for Excellence. The Balridge Award is awarded to companies that have successfully implemented Six Sigma standards, although this is not explicitly expressed. The Malcolm Baldrige Award is compatible with the standards set forth in Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma and ISO 9000. These processes are based upon achieving performance excellence in the work place. The award is given by a member of the Presidential staff as a commemoration for performance excellence in the United States and Global economy. The recipients of the award established leadership roles in their community with other business leaders, schools, health care organizations or nonprofit agencies. The recipients are national and global role models in the area of business and uphold ethical business practices.

In 2009, Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies received the Balridge Award for Manufacturing. The award process examined the company’s processes in terms of their leadership, strategic planning, analysis, measurement processes, customer focus and knowledge management. In 1992, Honeywell laid the groundwork to prepare to receive the Malcolm Baldrige Award in 2009. In this year, they adopted the Six Sigma processes. By 1999, the company had saved more than $600 million. By 1998, they had increased market value by 27% each year. With Six Sigma processes in place, Honeywell reduced certification time from 42 to 33 months. For the past 3 years, Honeywell has invested approximately $25 million annually in innovative designs and technology. The company integrates Six Sigma Plus Continuous Improvement Model into every customer interaction and design project.

In 2002, Motorola won another Malcolm Baldrige award while implementing the processes of Six Sigma. Companies who successfully implement the program have been recognized at the highest levels within their communities, nationally and globally. Winning the Baldrige award is a huge return on investment for these companies. To qualify for the award, nearly 5,000 public and private sector leaders evaluate the companies based upon a set of criteria. Each applicant to the program receives 300 to 1000 hours of review prior to receiving the award.

Motorola Case Study

Motorola was one of the first recipients of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1988. They received the award again for manufacturing in 2002. In 1988, Motorola attracted attention from the organization because of its role as a national and global role model. The company received recognition for the introduction of the Six Sigma program. Under this program, the company was able to yield 3.5 sigma in most of its processes. This translated to 99.73 percent process yield. At this time, this was unprecedented in the manufacturing world. Motorola developed a process that was replicated in other companies and assumed their role as a leader in the manufacturing community.

Motorola informed the world of the complexity of manufacturing processes. Each company was challenged to improve their processes beyond their current level of success. The company introduced the concept of only 3.4 defects per million products produced. Motorola University was established to teach the principles of Six Sigma to its employees and executives. Motorola University has also extended its Six Sigma knowledge and expertise to other companies such as General Electric, Federal Express, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak, NBC, Polaroid, Texas Instruments, Sony, IBM, GM, Toshiba, Dupont, Black and Decker and others who desire to adopt the Six Sigma principles of Motorola.

Motorola University has a global presence in nearly 20 countries around the world. The University can share its best practices and first hand case studies of how Six Sigma can change a company and save the company millions of dollars. Online education is also available to those whose schedules do not permit them to study in a physical classroom.

Categories: Case Studies

In 1996, Jack Welch adopted the Six Sigma process for General Electric. Jack Welch implemented the Six Sigma program when he discovered the effects the program could have on the quality of General Electric products. The CEO and Chairman of GE desired to have his company’s product be “10,000 times better than its competitors.” He set a goal of becoming defect free in all products, services, training, career path planning, measurements and transactions by the year 2000. Over time, customers who recognized the superior construction of GE’s products became loyal to the brand and desired only GE products.

Initially, GE invested nearly $200 million to achieve this goal in the company. Later, the company invested several hundred million in hopes of saving $7 to $10 billion in the coming years. Over time, the company realized a profit of $100 million and countless dollars saved. By the end of 1998, the company had saved over $750 million. Invoice defects and disputes were decreased by 98 percent. Payment processing speeds and productivity increased dramatically. Annually, the company save an average of $1 million from streamlining the contract review process and faster deal completion.

Over the years, the company has shown improvement in capacity and output. They have improved customer satisfaction. Process flow runs smoothly compared to previous processes. Productivity of their employees improved and the cycle times were decreased. General Electric maintained its place in the Fortune 500 companies and customers have grown to know the company as one that produces quality products. Each of these goals was achieved by implementing and striving to reach Six Sigma quality in every process within the company. Every business unit within GE including GE Capital, GE Medical Systems, GE Appliances and GE Plastics adopted Six Sigma processes in to their business model in order to achieve success.

Jack Welch also realized that Six Sigma was not only about the processes, but about the people implementing the processes. He desired to hire the best people in order to steer the company towards quality and Six Sigma processes. A typical General Electric employee has an incredible energy and desire to motivate the company’s employees toward Six Sigma success. The ideal employee will have the desire to gain market share and win in the market place. The person should know that achieving the best product is not only a technical process, but also involves developing a brand image and loyalty to its customers. The Six Sigma process should be achieved while remaining cognizant of the finances of the company.

In reality, most successful companies do not actually achieve 6 sigma. Most companies operate along the level of 3.5 sigma. Motorola actually won the Malcolm Baldridge Award operating at this level in 1988. General Electric adopted the DMAIC phases described in order to achieve success in their organization. These phases are described in detail on a previous page. GE used intensive statistical analysis programs in order to ensure that high standards were achieved and maintained within the organization. Extensive training of employees was required in order to achieve Six Sigma standards throughout the organization. By 2000, the company had trained 4,000 Master Black Belts and Black Belts and 60,000 Green Belts. As an incentive to top executives, Jack Welch only awarded bonuses to those who achieved Six Sigma standards within their organizations. The vision of Six Sigma began with the CEO and upper management and disseminated to the lower tier management and organizations.

Attaining Six Sigma quality requires significant commitment on behalf of the leadership. The leadership retrained the staff to think in a new way. The new way was drastically different than their previous way of thinking. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars towards this effort. The improvements in productivity and service have more than paid for the investment into the program.

Categories: Case Studies