Six Sigma Strategy for Sid

Six Sigma Strategy for Sid

Back in the plant, Sid asked me to look things over and decide where I would like to conduct the next workshop. So I set up camp in the office where Celia sent me and headed out to the plant in order to find the next opportunity.

There were still many processes in the plant that needed addressing; I narrowed the list down throughout the day. I planned to make my decision first thing in the morning, but as I was finishing up for the day, I received a phone call from Sid’s administrative assistant. Celia informed me that Sid wanted to see me in his office at 6 a.m. the next morning. He had a staff meeting at 10 a.m. and needed to be briefed on Six Sigma. Sid had done some research from the books I recommended and was not quite clear on the subject.

I arrived the next morning promptly at 6 a.m. and found Sid poring over a stack of books, all with “Six Sigma” strategically placed in the title. Scattered across the desk were a variety of periodicals and Internet printouts with the same type of titles. Sid looked like he was suffering from information overload. He hadn’t even noticed I had walked into the room, so I said, “Good morning” and handed him a cup of coffee.

Sid looked up, took the cup of coffee, and leaned back in his chair. “So what do you know about this Six Sigma stuff?”

“In my previous job I went through the Six Sigma training. I am a certified Black Belt and Master Black Belt.”

Sid nodded his head and smiled. “So you understand everything about Six Sigma?”

“Well, I don’t think I really understand everything about Six Sigma, but I will try to help you.”

Sid waved his hands across his desk at the piles of books and pages.

“I have read all this stuff and it is really difficult to determine what Six Sigma is. Some of these tell me it is a philosophy. Some say it’s a quality program. All are full of statistics that are talking about things I don’t really understand. It seems they all talk about saving money with some kind of connection to quality. That seems to be an oxymoron in my experience.”

“Sid, there are various opinions on what Six Sigma is,” I said as I leaned back in the chair and smiled. “It actually began in 1964 when Dr. Joseph Juran wrote his book Managerial Breakthrough. The book

distinguishes between control, which is an absence of change, and breakthrough, which is change.

“Motorola initiated a Six Sigma program in 1986 and really perfected some of the techniques. A few companies, such as Texas Instruments and ABB, picked it up later, but it really came to prominence

with the deployments at AlliedSignal and General Electric in the mid-’90s.”

Sid shrugged and waved his hands again. “Thanks for the history lesson, but I still don’t know what it is.”

All leaders must spend time up front defining what Six Sigma will mean in their organization. The

definitions need to be as specific as possible.

“While it seems to be different things to different companies,” I admitted, “there are basic elements that are common among all the companies that have deployed Six Sigma. The program centers around using a problemsolving methodology called M-A-I-C. That stands for Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. Those are the four steps used in the Six Sigma problem-solving methodology. The methodology is used on chronic problems selected for Black Belts to work on.”

“Wait a minute,” Sid interrupted. “What is a Black Belt and where do the ‘chronic problems’ come from?”

“Black Belts,” I said, “are people who have gone through a training process and completed projects to gain certification in the Six Sigma problem-solving methodology. The projects are selected by

Champions to address chronic problems in strategic alignment with the company’s business objectives.”

“OK,” said Sid, “so what is a Champion and where do they come from?”