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Posts about six sigma. See our six sigma portal including selected six sigma articles (articles by Roger Hoerl) and recommend six sigma books.
Recommended posts: Lean, Six Sigma, ToC, TPS, TQM... Management - Deming and Six Sigma - Will Six Sigma Fix Bad Management? - Has Six Sigma been a failure?
Gordon England, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, signed a directive establishing policy and assigning responsibilities to institutionalize the effort throughout DoD. See a webcast of his speech on lean six sigma to a DoD conference on continuous process improvement.
Leading Business Transformation the “Lean” Way
Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) joined with Raytheon to complete an LSS project, which ultimately saved $133.5M across the 2006 FYDP and $421M over the life of the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) Block II program. The integrated product team developed a three-tier approach to reducing weapon unit cost over a two-year period. Success of the JSOW program has led to development of a follow-on Block III weapon system.
The Marine Corps is applying LSS concepts, analytic techniques, and tools to improve the process for identifying, evaluating and acquiring critically needed warfighting equipment. Initial analysis focused on the evaluation stage, where improvements reduced the time required for this step by 35% – from 131 days to 85 days – and identified savings valued at $135K per year.
The first LSS initiative for Army aviation scheduled maintenance was deemed a success and signals a more efficient future for maintaining the Fort Rucker helicopter fleet. More than 32 days of scheduled maintenance were saved during the first LSS effort for Aviation Unit Maintenance involving UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter scheduled maintenance. The first helicopter inducted into the newly developed process was returned to flying status in just 18 days, which included a four-day break for the Fourth of July weekend. That is a 67% improvement in phase flow efficiency from the previous average time of more than 50 days of phase cycle maintenance for the UH-60.
See: online six sigma resources and lean manufacturing resources from the Curious Cat management improvement web site.
Related: Government Lean Six Sigma - Public Sector Continuous Improvement Site - Transformation Through Lean Six Sigma - Army Business Transformation - History Of Quality Management Online - More Lean Government - Army Lean Six Sigma
Doing More With Less in the Public Sector: A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin by William G. Hunter, Jan O’Neill, and Carol Wallen, June 1986.
New Erie County Government Executive, Chris Collins, discusses the director of six sigma position that will drive their new six sigma efforts.
Related: Six Sigma for Erie County Government - Public Sector Management Improvement Site - Posts on improving management in the Public Sector - management webcasts
My previous posts on the proper use of six sigma: Process Improvement and Innovation - Six Sigma Outdated? No. - 3M CEO on Six Sigma - Will Six Sigma Fix Bad Management? - New Rules for Management? - Quality and Innovation
Chris Collins proposed bringing six sigma to Erie County government in his campaign for county executive. He won the election. From his web site:
As County Executive, Chris Collins will reform county government to make sure it serves its customers: the taxpayers. He will implement new management techniques – Total Quality Management, Continuous Improvement, ISO, Six Sigma and more – to focus on making every government agency and worker more efficient and accountable. These are the same techniques he’s used to turn around failing companies.
Chris Collins will also choose a business management expert as Deputy County Executive – and then make their only duty to fight everyday to make sure taxpayers get the value we deserve for our tax dollar
Where did he pick up this interest in six sigma? He is the founder, owner, Chairman and CEO of Audubon Machinery:
Audubon Machinery is one of the fastest growing companies in the United States and will be recognized on the INC 500 list this year as well as the new Business First list of the fastest growing companies in Western New York.
I wish him luck in bringing management improvement practices to Erie County.
Related: Bringing Deming to the Public Sector - Public Sector Continuous Improvement Site - Six Sigma City Government
Peter Pande adds his thoughts on how six sigma and innovation can work together. In his podcast, Innovation vs. Efficiency, he makes the argument that innovation and efficiency can work together. As I have stated many times, while bad six sigma efforts may harm innovation but there is no reason good six sigma efforts would. In fact good six sigma efforts help innovation.
Related: Six Sigma Outdated? No. - Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt - Better and Different - New Rules for Management? No! - Six Sigma Success
via: Peter Pande’s Take on Six Sigma and Innovation
Six Sigma makes inroads in software development organizations
Still, Siviy said, “At a lot of software conferences now you see a sprinkling of presentations that somehow touch on Six Sigma or Lean, and the quality and depth of questions have evolved tremendously. In general, and not just in Six Sigma, as the [software] industry matures you see a wave of interest in measurement and analytical techniques.”
McKesson is a prime example. “Measurement is key,” Childers said. “What you can’t or don’t measure, you don’t know.”
A couple points. First, you can know what you don’t measure. Do you know your parents? Do you measure them? Manage what you can’t measure.
The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University has great materials. There is a danger in using those materials to become overly bureaucratic but the material was developed out of an excellent understanding of quality management (way back when that was the way this stuff was referred to). David Anderson provides some good insights, see: Stretching Agile to fit CMMI Level 3
Design of experiments is very suited to testing software: Planning Efficient Software Tests - Design Of Experiment For Software Testing.
six sigma does seem to foster a lack of sharing; which is a shame.
Related: six sigma articles and links - six sigma posts - software development posts - design of experiments articles
Here is another of those articles that promotes the idea that oversimplifies six sigma and then declares that mindset is outdated because innovation is needed nowadays - Six Sigma: So Yesterday?.
Previously I have addressed this mindset in New Rules for Management? No!, Has Six Sigma been a failure?, Managing Innovation and Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt:
My guess would be that what leads to this quote is not a lack of understanding that managers need the same qualities today they needed 10 years ago but the compulsion to feed the media frenzy for some incredible new insight. It just isn’t sexy to say “we need the same leadership qualities we needed in the past.” Deming stressed the importance of these “new” qualities he states more than 50 years ago
Yes execution of six sigma often focused too much on cost reduction, optimizing short term projects (which resulted in sub-optimizing the entire system), ranking and rating employees… But innovation is not harmed by a good six sigma program - in fact a good six sigma effort a decade ago understood the importance of innovation perfectly well.
Six Sigma winning supply-chain converts
Next year, senior managers at Cummins will be required to have Six Sigma certification before they can switch jobs or be promoted. “Six Sigma is headed toward being a condition of employment,” Strodtbeck said.
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“In 10 years, will we be calling it Six Sigma? I don’t think so,” said Roger Schmenner, associate dean for Indianapolis programs with the Kelley School of Business. “We’ll have something else with a new name. Will it use the same statistical techniques? Absolutely, because some of these things are immutable.”
Six sigma has persisted for well beyond a 10 years already. I must admit I think the name “six sigma” is not the best but it seems to be holding its own. Six sigma is obviously achieving results many companies find worthwhile as they continue to grow their efforts year after year. While I would agree I think it is likely six sigma efforts will transform and be renamed within the next ten years, in many organizations, the momentum seems to be strong still - which is very rare for a management approach. I agree that is due to the benefits of applying statistical tools, education and focus on specific project based success.
Related: six sigma portal - Six Sigma Results - Can six sigma fix bad management? - Seduce Them With Six Sigma Success - 6 Sigma Conference 1999
Peter Abilla (shmula blog) is hiring a Manager for Process Improvement to work with him at eBay. A great opportunity, in my opinion.
Here are some highlights of what he is looking for:
See the Curious Cat Management Improvement job board for more lean manufacturing, six sigma, quality engineering… jobs.
Toyota’s success pleases proponents of ‘lean’
More evidence that lean works will result in interest in lean - that seems true. And then those that have an interest will be disappointed in their efforts to do what Toyota does. Yes, half hearted attempts to institute some instant pudding management improvement will fail. And many companies will make those half hearted attempts. It is sad but true. Serious attempts will also be frustrating at times and can also fail but most organizations won’t even commit to attempting serious change. Most will just look for some items from current fads to dress up how they have always managed.
That management consultants will also jump from fad to fad, without conviction, is not news. Deming called them “hacks” in the 1980’s. Bob Sutton’s excellent article calls 90% of management advice crap. Care must be taken to manage effectively. It is very easy to implement management ideas poorly. So I am not surprised when good management concepts are implemented poorly.
Related: Management Improvement - Management Improvement Leaders - Deming and Six Sigma - Deming and Toyota - Can Six Sigma Fix Bad Management
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A recent report from the Brookings Institution, Reconnecting Massachusetts Gateway Cities, has some good words on the efforts of Fort Wayne, Indiana:
In this time, Fort Wayne’s first-in-the nation municipal foray into Six Sigma practices has proven that statistical analyses and stringent quality control standards do not lose their power outside the boardroom. Such data-centric attention to detail, in fact, is making all the difference.
Related: Doing More With Less in the Public Sector: A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin (pdf) - Public Sector Management - Lean Government - Quality Best Practices in Government (pdf) - Six sigma management resources
Lean/Six Sigma: The quest for efficiency in manufacturing:
Good idea, but there is no good reason a six sigma effort didn’t do that from the start.
Successful lean efforts reduce waste, improve value creation, improve productivity, expand sales and expand jobs.
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3M in building spree to end capacity constraints
In the past, a 3M culture that viewed new investment with circumspection and an over-reliance on the Six Sigma management technique made it shy of building some needed capacity, Buckley said. “We got ourselves into a position in which we thought Six Sigma would come to our rescue. We all known that in reality it’s something that runs out of steam,” he said.
Well if you “know” that you are not properly executing a six sigma management system. Previous posts on this topic: Management Advice Failures - Change is not Improvement - Leaving Quality Behind? - Going lean Brings Long-term Payoffs. Often six sigma programs amount to cost cutting programs (which can easily run out of steam),; but that is so far from effective six sigma management that it isn’t really fair to equate a programing calling itself “six sigma” with the actual practice of six sigma management.
Still the CEO still seems to believe in lean six sigma:
One-Factor-at-a-Time Versus Designed Experiments by Veronica Czitrom:
I still remember, as a child, asking what my father was going to be teaching the company he was going to consult with for a few days. He said he was going to teach them about using designed factorial experiments. I said, but you explained that to me and I am just a kid, how can you be teaching adults that? Didn’t they learn it in school? The article is a good introduction to the idea of why one factor at a time experiments are an ineffective way to learn.
Related: Design of Experiments articles - Statistics for Experimenters (2nd Edition) - Design of Experiments blog posts
Bank of America: Investing in Six Sigma by Thomas Hoffman:
I think in reality there are several things needed at the starting block but voice of the customer is one, and one that is given too little attention far to often.
Six Sigma … at a Bank? by Milton Jones Jr.:
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In Mike Wroblewski’s capstone, to his posts on his tour of lean manufacturing in Japan, he states:
Yes, lean is about eliminating waste and using great lean tools to improve our business but that is all we seem to focus on in the US. Lean principles are much more than that.
He captures the difficulty of truly operating in a lean manner. The tools are useful, but they are not the end. Just using the tools can help move an organization to the point where they are ready to truly examine how to improve. Most often the attempts (just like previous attempts with quality management, six sigma… did) stop short of more than superficial change where a few new tools are used in the same old system. Luckily more an more organization are moving in the right direction.
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Squeezing the fat from health care by Hanah Cho is another article on lean healthcare. This one provides a better view of the overall picture - especially compared to all those claiming to be one of the first lean thinking effort in healthcare. A good sign was that the author referenced, Going Lean in Health Care, a great report by IHI (James Womack and others).
It is nice to see a recognition of management history (so often missing):
Can Six Sigma Work in a Sales and Marketing Environment? by Paul Selden:
Sales is often an area that is treated as though it were separate from the company. That leads to all sorts of problems. Sales needs to be seen as part of the system of the organization and managed in that way. Just remember systemic thinking (viewing the entire system) will be needed, not just analysis (viewing the components of a system).
Related: Marketers Are Embracing Statistical Design of Experiments - Appeal for Marketers to Apply Deming’s Ideas - Marketing in a Lean Company - Problems with Bonuses - Free, Perfect, and Now (book by Robert Rodin) - Design of Experiments explanation
Lean Six Sigma eases fiscal constraint challenges by Beth Reece, Army News Service:
Another press release on the Army’s use of Lean Six Sigma. See: online six sigma resources and lean manufacturing resources.
Fortune recently published an article talking about the “new rules” for management using Jack Welch (GE six sigma) as the focus of the old rules. It seems to me there is nothing new here (once again).
“New” rule: “Agile is best, being big can bite you”
Yeah. Does anyone think this is new. Do they really believe Jack Welch thought agile was not a good thing? Yes, Jack Welch wanted to be number 1 or number 2 in the field or get out of that business line. I still don’t think that he thought being a big un-agile organization couldn’t hurt you.
“New” rule: “Find a niche, create something new.”
Yeah, good idea. I seriously doubt GE was against creating new things. Finding niches in fact is basically what being number 1 or 2 is about. Find those niches you excel in and focus there. I think saying you have to be number 1 or 2 is a silly arbitrary target. But that was just as true 10 years ago as today. Lets look at who the article for these new ideas quotes (with big photos on the main page): Starbucks - number 1 coffee shops, Xerox (I don’t know), Cisco - number 1 switches/routers, Coke number 1 sugar water sellers. Boy this old idea of number 1 or 2 is sure old thinking. Why are those highlighted as experts all perfectly suited to the old rule?
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