Six Sigma Training - The Basics
Six Sigma training should be for everyone. The famous process improvement system can be applied effectively in all kinds of organization, in all kinds of industry and in all countries. I trained as a Six Sigma Black Belt at the turn of the century, and the training regime was intense - four weeks of hard core statistics, practical exercises and business case studies. It felt like boot camp, as we familiarised ourselves with the Minitab software and identified roadblocks that needed eliminating and problems to be solved.
I completed many successful projects as a Black Belt and mentored many Green Belts too. The interesting thing is that I rarely used the ANOVA analysis, the chi-squared tests and the toolbox of statistical weapons that the training gave me. Nine-tenths of the power of Six Sigma lies in the quality mind-set it gives you and the problem-solving fundamentals. This blog is light on bell curves, but strong on the basics - and it gives you Six Sigma strategies that you can apply, right now.
Six Sigma Training - The Vital Principles
Six Sigma training is built on fundamental concepts. Here are seven of my favourites:
- Inputs drive outputs. Don't focus on the results, but on the root cause of every business problem. The famous y=f(x) formula means that the output (y) is a function of the inputs (x's). Drill down relentlessly until you reach the basic drivers which are the root causes of every problem.
- Data drives decisions. Intuition can lead you astray, but numbers are truth. Yes, data can be distorted and manipulated; hence it is absolutely critical to...
- Measure rightly. Make sure your measurement system is robust. You should spend as much time testing the measuring system as recording the data.
- Poor quality costs more than you ever realised. What is the real cost of poor quality? Look at the so-called hidden factory - the cost of rework and error in every process. The internal and external failure costs of a faulty process can be monumental, and in the case of a jet engine, literally fatal.
- Listen to the customer. Every Six Sigma Project should be driven by a definite customer requirement. It's not a case of pushing pet schemes or projects which were going to happen anyway.
- Shave with Occam's Razor. William of Ockham, the medieval theologian, told us that the simplest solution is almost always the best. Try and adopt so-called poka-yoke solutions -simple, failsafe and foolproof remedies. One of my projects achieved its greatest rewards, after months of data analysis, from simply installing a new filing cabinet.
- Don't expect miracles,or become fixated on targets. In the late Nineties the self-evident power of Six Sigma in companies such as General Electric meant that it became a corporate craze. It divided people into fervent believers and heretical skeptics. I am a critical practitioner.
Six Sigma is just an evolutionary adaptation of Japanese theories of lean production and quality management. So organizational culture and values eventually matter as much if not more than all the tools and jargon. The ultimate aim of Six Sigma should actually be to abolish itself. After all, the great quality hero Deming thought we should abandon targets altogether once quality was ingrained in our hearts and minds...
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