6-ssigma Q-a

 Ask the Expert - The Topic: Six Sigma Certification Q: What is the certification policy at your organization for Green Belts, Black Belts and Master Black Belts? A: The Masco Builder Cabinet Group requires Green Belts to complete 64 hours of training, pass a written examination, complete a project, and defend the project. The written examination lasts 2.5 hours and includes multiple-choice and true-false questions, calculations and hypothesis testing using Minitab software (both normal and non-normal distributions). A score of 75 percent is required and approximately 90 percent of those who take the exam pass. The project book is normally 70 to 100 PowerPoint slides and must include the use of hypothesis testing. The project defense is 1.5 hours and is delivered to a consultant and myself. Black Belt certification requires doubling the Green Belt requirements – a total of 128 hours of classroom training, another 2.5-hour written exam, leading a project with strategic significance, completing the project in less than five months, and defending the project. New this year is the requirement that all Black Belts must already be Green Belt-certified. Our Black Belt pass rate last year was only 67 percent, with most not being able to pass the defense or meet the project deadline. Master Black Belt certification is a development program which includes the successful completion and defense of two additional projects, completion of self-study assignments and presentations, literature reviews, benchmarking, development of case studies, teaching of at least one wave of training, and coaching of project teams by the Master Black Belt candidate. During the development program, which may last five to seven months, the candidates are mentored by a Master Black Belt supplied by our consultant. Q: Is a strict certification policy necessary in your organization? Is it necessary in any organization? A: Yes, we are very strict in regard to certification. We expect our Green and Black Belts to solve problems that are highly complex and/or highly cross-functional. We use other tools such as individual problem-solving, Kaizen events, value stream mapping, and the Deming cycle (plan, do, check, act) to solve the less complex and cross-functional problems. None of these require certification. Our primary metric in evaluating our Six Sigma process is project success rate. Projects will not be successful if the people leading and participating do not have the skills to manage and solve the problems encountered in the project. We are also active in working with our customers on Six Sigma projects. All of our sales and marketing directors, national account managers and area managers (plus our vice president for sales and vice president for marketing) are at least Green Belt-certified. This allows us to launch projects that matter to our customers. Q: Is retraining and recertification a part of your program? Why or why not? A: Both are required by the Masco Builder Cabinet Group. Green Belt recertification requires either participating in or championing a project annually once the initial certification requirements are completed. Black Belt recertification requires leading a strategically significant project and advising/assisting on at least two other projects per year.

If the requirements for recertification are not completed, the individual is not recognized as being a Green Belt or Black Belt within our organization. Retraining is required if the individual goes two years without meeting the recertification requirements. Just as with any other skill, practice makes perfect and failure to practice leads to a deterioration in skills. As Dr. Joseph M. Juran said, "All improvement takes place project by project...and in no other way." Our improvement efforts are only as successful as the people leading and participating in them. Green and Black Belts who understand the process they are trying to improve, understand the tools of Six Sigma, and are experienced in using them on a regular basis are the foundation of our success and the key to our future.

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Q: Who developed your certification criteria? And what is it based on? A: We use the Juran Institute to certify all our Green Belts, Black Belts and Master Black Belts. The criteria is based on what our consultant and the Masco Builder Cabinet Group believe to be "best in class" Six Sigma practitioners. The use of outside certification also is critical to our deployment and project completion success. Our consultant brings a "brand name" to our certification and sends a message to all of our Green Belts and Black Belts that we value their development. Our consultant is able to assure we are current in all of the latest training materials and changes in Six Sigma because they work with numerous clients in diverse industries. Finally, the outside certification makes sure everyone meets the criteria for certification – no favorites, no free passes – including the top 50 individuals in our organization who have all been certified and recertified. Q: How do you value third-party certifications when evaluating job candidates from outside your company? A: Six Sigma certification from an outside party is valued more in hiring candidates outside the company than "company certification." We have seen a great deal of variation in the certification requirements from company to company – not only in the training, but also the type of projects completed. We have a limited number of full-time Black Belt positions and none of our Green Belts are full-time in Six Sigma. We believe the project comes first, then the best people to improve the process are assigned to the project. We have found that the most difficult part of completing successful projects is understanding whom to get involved and how to get them involved – not the tools. People new to our organization tend to have difficulty understanding the processes and people involved on complex problems.  Ask the Expert - The Topic: Six Sigma Metrics Q: What are some of the metrics used by companies that are successful with Six Sigma? A: The easy answer would be to review a list of classical and/or typical Six Sigma metrics. Classical measures of quality such as timeliness, accuracy, ease of doing business and cost are important and often abundant on most companies' Six Sigma measurement framework. Other typical Six Sigma measures such as rolledthroughput yield, sigma and DPMO tell a good story, when applied properly.

 Innovative, as well as classical/typical metrics make up successful measurement frameworks.  Vanguard translates performance "voices" into drivers and ultimately CTQs, for a unique focus on clients, business and crew.

Still, simply collecting and calculating these measures are not enough to be successful. Successful businesses apply these metrics in the right context and in innovative ways to solve client opportunities. Companies that are successful with Six Sigma tailor metrics to align with core processes and its critical-to-quality (CTQ) characteristics. Understanding clients' CTQs and ensuring they are measured and addressed are paramount. Another element of success is ensuring measures are "leading" rather than "lagging." Leading measures focus on the process, its inputs and suppliers, whereas lagging metrics focus on results or outcomes. Ultimately, the truly successful companies understand the cause-and-effect relationship between the leading and lagging measures. At The Vanguard Group, feedback from clients, business leaders and the crew is collected, utilizing both proactive and reactive means. By translating these "voices" into drivers and ultimately CTQs, a measurement framework is constructed that has a unique focus on the client, business and crew. Q: How can companies ensure they are measuring the "right" things?

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A: Arguably the most critical step in ensuring a company measures the "right" things is to understand its clients' needs. Fundamental understanding of a client's processes or value chain allows a company to gain critical knowledge of a client's needs and therefore CTQs, enabling definition of business processes from the client's point of view.

 Fundamentally understanding clients' processes is a cornerstone.  Prioritizing strong CTQs and metrics (though correlation or causation) focuses on adding value.

A common challenge in identifying client-focused CTQs and metrics is the sheer number identified. Complex business processes often deliver a lengthy list of CTQs, and therefore metrics. While all CTQs are important, the right things to measure are those that are most critical. It is usually impractical to measure every CTQ or metric identified due to limited time and resources. At this point, a company must develop and utilize an effective means of separating strong from weak CTQs and metrics. The means of prioritizing CTQs depends on the business, its clients and the nature of its processes. In most cases, a correlation or (hopefully) causation link can be established between an input and an outcome through quantitative and/or statistical means. In other cases, it may be as easy as asking the client and utilizing a prioritization tool such as pairwise comparison or a prioritization matrix. However the CTQs are prioritized, ensuring that metrics are focused on successfully adding value to the client is the way of ensuring you are measuring the right things now and in the future.

Q: Should Six Sigma metrics be distinct from the rest of the business metrics? If so, for how long?

A: Ideally, Six Sigma metrics should not be distinct from the rest of the business metrics, but rather one and the same. Practically speaking, however, this is often a work-in-progress, especially in the early stages of a Six Sigma implementation. Consolidating Six Sigma metrics with business metrics is an exercise in change management. The saying "never solve a problem before its time" applies. Forcing a business (and its culture) to change to a new set of metrics can lead to resistance.

 As organizations strive to manage with data, Six Sigma metrics should be fully integrated.  Improvement projects, business operations and leadership forums all leverage a common measurement framework.

So what to do? Effectively managing a continuous improvement initiative, such as Six Sigma, will produce a waterfall effect on metrics by not only identifying new ways to consider and measure what's important to the business, but also creating better data the current business metrics are based on. As continuous improvement initiatives are executed, more actionable and relevant business data is produced. Business operations are motivated by results to incorporate Six Sigma metrics. With leadership leveraging better business data, a more informed strategy can be put in place that better addresses client needs and how the company can more effectively address them. Q: What are some of the ways that these metrics can be effectively displayed to upper management?

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A: How the metric is derived and used is important. First, regardless of the tool, the metric must be based on data that is sufficient, relevant, representative, contextual and timely. Without the data possessing these attributes, the metric based on this data can lead upper management to bad assumptions and wrong conclusions. Second, the metric must be actionable. An actionable metric is one that is accompanied by specification limits of some sort. "Actionability" allows upper management to assess current levels and determine whether or not those levels are acceptable.

 Examples of effectively displayed metrics include dashboards and balanced scorecards, digital or lowtech.  The metrics displayed should represent the most critical drivers and outcomes identified for a business.

Third, metrics should be presented in a format that establishes a clear "line of sight," cutting through the business' core processes and, therefore, process owners. Establishing clear accountability not only for the quality of the metric, but also the action taken to improve the metric is critical to the success of the dashboard, and the business. Upper management should be able to consider a highlevel metric and drill down into the business to gain a better understanding of where the problem originates (drive to root cause). Last, metrics should be presented in a simple manner. Do not crowd as many metrics onto the dashboard as possible, but rather present the most critical seven-to-twelve metrics required to run the business successfully.  Ask the Expert - The Topic: Six Sigma and Employees Q: What should a company planning to launch a Six Sigma initiative tell its employees about the program and what it is expected to accomplish? A: The truth. By that I mean discussions with employees should include not only what Six Sigma is, but also the company's reason for undertaking the deployment. There are multiple reasons an organization will choose to deploy Six Sigma, anything from quality to economics and shareholder value. Generally some mixture of these reasons will push the deployment with primary focus on one specific driver. The primary focus for the deployment will have a great deal of impact on expected accomplishments. For instance, if the purpose behind the deployment is primarily financial, employees should be told about the financial situation of the company and the need for improving the value proposition. If the focus is on improving quality, communications should contain an explanation of customer quality expectations and current level of performance to those expectations. Additionally, employees should understand their own roles in the deployment as well as those who will be leading the projects. And employees should know the expected outcome of projects. Six Sigma is primarily about changing the culture of an organization's problem-solving strategy. Culture change will succeed or fail in accordance with the quality of communication leading the process. Q: How can a company convince employees to fully support Six Sigma when process improvements and productivity increases may lead to fewer jobs? A: The message has to focus on the positive aspects of what Six Sigma can do for the company. Conversations should be directed to the positive opportunities provided by a Six Sigma deployment, such as how improving quality will lead to new business both with existing customers and prospective customers. There is a valid argument that in depressed markets, improved productivity can lead to headcount reductions. However, allowing the organization to dwell on the negative aspects of improving processes will not serve the employees or the company well in the long run. Shift the focus from why it cannot work, to how it can work. The most important thing is to make sure the leadership of the company stays positive. Remember, employees will be afraid of losing their jobs; one wrong word from the leadership team can undermine the process. If the leadership team cannot remain positive throughout the deployment, the employees will not either.

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Q: What should employees look for in their company's Six Sigma program to see that it is good for them as well as the company? A: Employees should look at the metrics being used to measure the success of the projects under way. Understand the focus for improvement, quality, scrap, yield and all the things that make the company a better supplier or that improve customer satisfaction. Another key indicator of the value of the project will be the focus on employee health and safety.

Employees will follow leaders who know how to manage; this includes the Six Sigma program. If the employees of a company do not trust the management in the basic day-to-day running of the business, they will not trust the Six Sigma deployment either. Using data can improve management decision-making but it cannot make bad managers into good leaders. Conversely, if employees trust their managers, they will continue to trust them through the Six Sigma process. One way to insure employee trust is to measure the participants of the Six Sigma program to the same degree we seek to measure our processes during projects. Measure not only the savings realized but also the level of team participation, communication and leadership being driven by the company's Black Belts and Master Black Belts. Q: Does your company have a policy concerning employees whose responsibilities may be affected by process changes? If yes, please describe it. If no, why? A: Employees whose responsibilities are affected by project improvements are redeployed to another area of the company. It has been the policy of our company to insure that the projects undertaken are not focused on headcount reduction. No company can guarantee that a Six Sigma project will never lead to a reduction in headcount, but undertaking a deployment specifically for this reason would be tantamount to setting the process up for failure. The first time a reduction in customer orders drove headcount reductions, the blame would be put on the Six Sigma program and all support would cease. Basically, all improvement processes have encountered this dichotomy. Any company's success rests on the skill of its employees. But can a company be competitive in its market and maintain the trust of its employees by providing employment even when the company is at risk? Q: Has Six Sigma had a positive or negative effect on employee satisfaction in your company? How do you quantify it? A: Employee satisfaction has greatly improved during the last three years of our four-year deployment. As with all new processes, the first year was spent in communication and building the understanding of the process. During the last three years, the company has built that understanding to a point that Six Sigma is requested by the employees of the organization in order to improve their processes. Of course, data speaks louder than conjecture. So we have an annual survey process to gather team member satisfaction data from all Six Sigma project participants. This data is used in our annual Black Belt review process as a key metric for overall rating. The feedback we get from the employees guides us to any deficiencies that need to be addressed, as well as providing us with an understanding of those outstanding Black Belts we have throughout the company.  Ask the Expert - The Topic: Six Sigma and Business Strategy Q: Six Sigma is often considered the "make or break" strategy for a business, but we see companies using Six Sigma both excel and flounder. Why? A: Six Sigma has proved it can deliver stellar results in all types of industries – service, distribution and manufacturing. Additionally, Six Sigma has proved itself in companies that ranged from thriving at the top of their peer group, to struggling to survive, to bankruptcy. But that's not the whole story.

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Efforts that are isolated in the organization, lack systematic implementation and lack key executive support are more likely to flounder. Six Sigma, without the proper infrastructure, will at best provide incremental gains and at worst will misdirect valuable resources. Q: How have you seen Six Sigma best deployed into an organization's business strategy? A: Six Sigma is best deployed into an organization's strategy when it is the "how to deploy" of the strategy. Starting with the organizational strategy sets the tone for the entire organization. We use the Hoshin planning process for our strategic plan development and the Kanri process as our periodic management methodology. Put together, this is the Hoshin Kanri process which roughly translated means "compass" and "directed." Hoshin plans help key leaders focus on the vision for the company, ways to drive the breakthrough strategies to achieve the vision and crisply defined tactics for each strategy. Metrics are assigned to define success and measure progress. Planning at every subordinate level is required to demonstrate how it is aligned to the plan above it, creating a cascade in which every strategy, tactic and metric can ultimately be connected to the company's master plan. An effective organizational strategy is surprisingly simple in structure. The beauty of a great plan is its simplicity. Transforming a complex annual plan into a concise document requires focusing on the critical few. In order to achieve the plan, the Six Sigma skill set and methodology are required to achieve the breakthrough goals. Some plans identify training and yield targets (yield is a measure of number trained versus number certified) for Six Sigma. The real linkage of strategic plan to Six Sigma is that it is difficult to achieve breakthrough goals in defects, speed and customer delight without using Six Sigma tools. Q: To be successful, does Six Sigma need to be deployed throughout a business, or can it be deployed in selected parts of a business? A: Six Sigma can be successful at either end of the spectrum – projectized or functional implementation versus an enterprise-wide holistic approach. The difference between the approaches is the magnitude of benefits and the probability of program longevity. Deploying Six Sigma in selected parts of the business will most likely realize positive gains. The issue is that there are diminishing returns. After the low hanging fruit is gathered, it becomes increasingly challenging to identify viable opportunities. All organizations are composed of intertwining and dependent processes. In our modern organization, few processes are completely stand-alone. There are linkages to reporting systems, suppliers, customers, business partners, regulators and multiple internal functions. For Six Sigma to truly become part of the organizational culture and therefore selfsustaining, a holistic approach is required.

A holistic approach requires the mapping of organization processes with functional interconnects identified. Six Sigma projects are executed with the good of the whole as a key underlying principle. Cross-linking the projects with a management tool similar to a management by fact (MBF) aligns projects and provides Belts with the big picture. Metrics are identified in a way that complements and accelerates progress. Q: If Six Sigma is not "driven by the top" (by the CEO), is it doomed to failure? A: Yes. It is always best when initiatives are sponsored and driven by the top of an organization. No level of effort can substitute the impact of top-driven initiatives. When the CEO is the driving force, results can be spectacular. Bank of America is an example. The bank's CEO, Ken Lewis, reports: "Using Six Sigma, our payment error rate has gone down 22 percent and we have increase payment speed tenfold in the same time frame. We have reduced the deposit error rate by 83 percent and increased customer delight...from a

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baseline of 41 percent to almost 52 percent. All of those have contributed to the addition of more than 2.5 million customers during this period." Driving Six Sigma from the top is only part of the story. Driving Six Sigma at the top is like driving a "how to" without the "what." The "how to" is Six Sigma, the "what" is a strategic plan – the two must be connected. Just driving Six Sigma creates a number of projects that may be isolated and difficult to connect to the needs of the overall business. Eventually, if the projects are not linked to achievement of overall business goals, there will be a hunt for hard savings. Six Sigma can provide so much more benefit to all the facets of the business. So for the most successful program, it should be driven from the top – both by the CEO and by the corporate strategy. Q: Is a Six Sigma pilot program beneficial or detrimental to a company contemplating deploying Six Sigma? A: A Six Sigma pilot program is not the ideal approach to a program startup. Nevertheless, with no other options, if properly managed within a tight schedule, significant value may come from a pilot. Pilot programs have typically been individual, disconnected projects focused on reducing expenses. This may set the perception of Six Sigma within the organization. It may be difficult to transition from a project-focused expense approach to a holistic improvement program addressing all facets of the business. Even though excellent projects may have been executed in the pilot, the perception of the program may already have been set. Six Sigma works best when it is integral to an overall quality program that addresses the entire business.  Ask the Expert - The Topic: Hiring and Training Black Belt Leaders Q: What are the skills, knowledge or traits most often possessed by successful Six Sigma Black Belts? A: Successful Black Belts overcome virtually all barriers to successful project completion. That includes even such basic problems as poor project selection, lack of Six Sigma infrastructure, poor Champion support and lack of data. A company seeking to select or develop successful Black Belts, should start by looking for a person with a well-balanced set of leadership, analytical and project management skills. Within the leadership category, successful Black Belts candidates are results-oriented and particularly strong in people, thought leadership and change management skills. For instance, Black Belts must be confident enough to lead any team of subject matter experts and senior leaders on a Six Sigma project. They are hands-on go-getters who have records of driving results. In addition, they have the ability to see downstream impacts throughout the entire firm. Finally, they are eager to accept the role of change agent, and have the ability to facilitate change through strong listening, influencing, presentation and communication skills. In terms of analytical skills, successful Black Belts usually make sound and solid decisions based on data. They dig deeper into the root cause of a problem. They are not satisfied with recommendations that are not supported by data. They ask the right questions…and keep asking questions. They do not give up. The biggest mistake companies make when selecting Black Belts is to put too much emphasis on the candidate's ability to run statistical analysis. Having an affinity for statistics, math and science remains important, but, with friendly statistical software so available today, running statistical analysis is not as challenging it once was. What is essential is the ability to understand data being analyzed and make the right decisions. In general, Black Belts with project management experience perform better than candidates who have none. Either formal training or strong experience in project management will provide Black Belts with the tools required to effectively run meetings, establish goals, define roles and responsibilities, assign tasks, close issues, resolve conflict and move projects forward. There is a direct relationship between effective project management and project cycle time. Black Belts who combine a well-balanced set of leadership, analytical and project management skills with strong knowledge of the Voice of the Customer and other disciplines such as legal, compliance, marketing, finance, operations and technologies are more likely to succeed in their Six Sigma journeys.

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Q: Who do you find perform better, Black Belts with business backgrounds or Black Belts with quality backgrounds? A: Black Belts with business backgrounds generally perform better because they have a broader perspective of their companies, industries and marketplace. They understand the big picture in terms of finance, compliance, legal, risk management and marketing. Black Belts with quality backgrounds do not have experiences that provide that same broad business perspective. This is because most companies make quality departments back-end operations, at the "end of the assembly line." The misconception that quality departments are "cost" drivers versus "revenue" drivers limits the department's personnel. Regardless of the Black Belt's background, a company should expect a Black Belt to close major competitive gaps by either enhancing the customer experience or generating positive economic profit. Q: When hiring Black Belts or Master Black Belts from outside your own company, what qualifications are most important to you? A: The three most important qualifications are: 1. Experience in Six Sigma methodology and tools 2. Overall Six Sigma deployment knowledge 3. Cultural compatibility Trying to assure the proper level of expertise on the first two qualifications, many companies make the mistake of thinking it is enough for candidates to be "certified" belts. Unfortunately, the lack of certification standards for Black Belts and Master Black Belts has contributed to an increasing number of candidates who, even though certified, have not mastered Six Sigma skills. For example, it is possible to find certified Black Belts who have never used any statistical software during the Analyze phase and/or do not understand what a project primary metric is.

Companies should look for hands-on experience in DMAIC, DFSS, Lean, TRIZ and other Six Sigma complementary methodologies, as well as experience using statistical and flowcharting techniques or software. Asking the following questions will minimize the risk of hiring unqualified-yet-certified belts: • • • •

How many Six Sigma projects have you completed? How many Six Sigma projects have you coached? What are the three most critical Six Sigma issues? What are the three Six Sigma success factors?

Finally, it is important that hiring managers take cultural compatibility seriously. To avoid the problem of belt attrition due to lack of cultural fit, hiring managers should develop a belt-position profile to reflect the company's unspoken rules and corporate culture. Q: How much and what type of experience would you like Black Belts to have before you would feel comfortable hiring them? A: The level of expertise of a Black Belt or Master Black Belt depends on the number of completed projects, number of belts coached and overall teaching experience. Having completed or coached a minimum of 10 projects for Black Belts and 20 projects for Master Black Belts would be considered enough. If a candidate has fewer completed projects, obviously, the hiring manager should find out why, and take that into account. The extent of a candidate's teaching experience can be an indication of their Six Sigma knowledge. But the kind of teaching is noteworthy. It does not take the same knowledge to teach awareness training as it does Black Belt training. Because both Black Belts and Master Black Belts are change agents who share knowledge with other employees, they must be able to deliver Six Sigma training at different levels.

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Q: What is your opinion about company-issued Black Belt certifications versus third-party (non-company) certifications? A: The certification process is inconsistent among both company and third-party vendors. On one end of the spectrum are certified belts who took an on-line test with no classroom attendance or Six Sigma work experience. At the other end are certified belts who have weeks of classroom attendance, two to twenty completed projects, a test with a 90 percent minimum score, an interview in front of a board, and several hours of teaching and coaching. Simply, a person can get certified in a matter of hours or years. Any certification process – be it by company or vendor – is shaped by the needs, strategies and requirements of the company for whom the belt is being trained. Therefore, companies considering hiring from outside should plan to understand what each candidate underwent to earn certification, and information about the company for which they were being certified. The screening process to select the best candidates should be tough. In addition, I have these final recommendations: • • •

Companies should develop their own rigorous certification process that others will recognize. If a third-party vendor is used, its role should only be one piece of the certification process. Any third-party vendor used should be one that is well known and respected by the Six Sigma community.

 Ask the Expert - The Topic: Six Sigma – The Way We Work Q: Jack Welch, former CEO and chairman of GE, made the phrase "The Way We Work" popular among employees by associating it with the company's Six Sigma initiative. Do you think he was successful in internalizing Six Sigma in all work processes and people at GE? A: Jack Welch was successful in making it "the way we work." In all probability Six Sigma is not in all GE work processes and it probably should not be. From a change management perspective, there is a model that identifies various groups in an organization: 15 percent will change anything any time, 35 percent are early adopters, 35 percent are late adopters and 15 percent say "over my dead body." I have not seen anything to substantiate the percentages, but the four groups definitely exist. In most organizations, doing a good job with the first three categories is sufficient. When approximately 85 percent have institutionalized a change, the last group will either drift over or the culture will alienate them to the point they look for other options. From a Six Sigma and Lean perspective, you do not want to expend resources on all process. Unless you are completely leaned out, you will end up wasting resources improving non-value-added work. That is a losing strategy. Q: What are the most critical factors involved in changing business processes so that Six Sigma is part of the "organization's DNA"? A: At an organizational level, they are alignment and accountability. A clear vision or burning platform supported by effective strategies is absolutely critical in setting expectations for the rest of the organization. Vertical and horizontal alignments get everyone on the same page. Vertical alignment assures that the people are lined up with the vision. Many companies talk about this but few do it well. Horizontal alignment makes sure the processes are lined up with the customers. Most companies don't seem to realize this type of alignment is critical. When expectations are clearly deployed throughout the organization, there has to be accountability. Another GE mantra is "make your numbers." Your GE-to-English dictionary translates that as accountability. At the personal level, the issue boils down to leadership and the ability to demonstrate the following elements to send a clear and consistent message that Six Sigma is how we do business here: 1. Setting Focus – Demonstrates a relentless, consistent, unwavering view of the importance in

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driving continuous improvement actions via Six Sigma. No blinking when the tough choices have to be made. 2. Structure – Leadership teaches, coaches and makes decisions via the same structures that all other organization members abide by – DMAIC. Leadership walks the talk and shows it every day in their actions 3. Discipline – Leadership demonstrates an unwavering discipline in fact- and data-gathering through DMAIC versus decision making with hunches/personal feelings. Leadership is fluent in Six Sigma and participates in teams. Leaders demonstrate discipline and role model Six Sigma for everyone in the organization. 4. Ownership – Ownership is demonstrated through a strong knowledge of the DMAIC tools, the key questions frequently asked, and the care taken to nurture further Six Sigma growth in the organization. 5. Resource Allocation – Leadership makes sure that everyone in the organization has the needed resources to take the Six Sigma actions necessary to do every job better and eliminate waste. Leaders challenge the way resources are allocated, always verifying that projects are being worked on and given the resources that will allow the projects to add to the organization's overall performance. 6. Involvement – That each employee can say: "I am just as involved as leadership in Six Sigma actions. Leaders routinely ask me questions about the black or green belt project I just completed. I know what other continuous improvement actions/wins have happened in my site because my leadership communicates with me regularly." Q: Some very successful salespeople view the Six Sigma methodologies (DMAIC and DFSS) as limiting their creativity. How can Six Sigma be incorporated into a salesperson's processes? A: The operative words are "successful salespeople." The ones who seem to push back the hardest, when you look at the numbers, are not the top people. The one-to-one contact between a salesperson and a customer is very dynamic and fluid. It offers the least opportunity for improvement in terms of effort and probability of success. If you have a successful salesperson, the intelligent strategy is to put them in situations where they can do what they do best. Work on marketing data and strategies, inside sales and lead qualification – that will put a successful salesperson in the most advantageous position. The followup to a successful sales opportunity is equally critical. That process needs to be flawless. It will create the opportunity for additional sales to an already-satisfied customer and a reference for new customers. It is typically the least expensive sale so there is business leverage in optimizing that process. In Six Sigma terms there is no logic in tying up a successful salesperson in a process that does not deliver what was sold. That is rework and a waste of a valuable resource. Q: Can you think of any role or function within a business that wouldn't benefit from internalizing Six Sigma into the way they work? A: I have never seen a process yet that did not have some opportunity. The more important question is "is there a business benefit?" Business benefit defined in the context of voice of the customer, voice of the business, voice of the employee. When I was at Motorola in Sequin, Texas (USA), I had the opportunity to brainstorm with a group of janitors. They felt they had been left out of the Six Sigma effort. They had chosen to focus on clean restrooms. We defined defects and a measurement system. They collected and analyzed data. It was a lot of fun and worked well for them. When you get that level of "pull" from the organization, then you are doing things correctly.

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Q: At some point, can an organization that has internalized Six Sigma give up the name "Six Sigma" and have the same culture, which, in fact, is just the way they work? Have you seen this happen anywhere yet? A: If a strategy, any strategy not just Six Sigma, over the long run is dependent on providing some false deity that people rally around, it hasn't been institutionalized, i.e. enrolling people in the idea that it is the most efficient and effective way for them to think or behave. There is a saying that "no result + a good story = a result." It is a little sarcastic but if you are dependent on the Six Sigma title for a result, you are probably still running on the good story. I have not seen it recently. There is a commercial advantage to participating in a Six Sigma initiative. If you have read The Deviant's Advantage, you can definitely recognize the transition from a fringedweller's methodology to a more ritualistic approach. It seems to be caught between "the next cool thing" and "social convention," so the title has become more robust. When I was asked to consult with AlliedSignal Automotive in 1995, I had trouble figuring out what I was being asked to do. I had been gone from Motorola for three years and the name "Six Sigma" was not that well recognized in industry. The methodology was still the way I approached a problem regardless of the type of industry I was working in. You get to the point where you aren't worried about if it is Lean, TQM, Six Sigma, TPM, etc. You are just doing the job. The companies where I have worked didn't really care what I called what I was doing, provided there was a successful result.  Ask the Expert - The Topic: Six Sigma Adoption and Cultural Issues Q: What employee adoption issues are associated with a new Six Sigma deployment? A: The most common response from employees deploying Six Sigma is, "Here we go again!" Organizations that pursue improvement opportunities have often used other methodologies. The common question is: "What makes Six Sigma any different from the other initiatives we've tried? Why does this work any better than the programs we already have in place?" There is often skepticism in the advertised benefits of Six Sigma; average cost savings of $250,000 per project seems like a lot of money, especially when it can add up to billions of dollars saved over several years. Effective deployments require full-time support from Black Belts, as well as significant time from others supporting Black Belt project teams. Providing those resources, and getting the day-to-day work done without the people deployed to do Six Sigma, often creates anxiety. A company asked, "Does Six Sigma apply here? It may work if you're building pagers, but what about the kind of work we do?" Even among organizations with similar products and processes as companies that have successfully deployed Six Sigma, there is a strong conviction that they are somehow different so it won't work here. Without the support of senior leaders, change initiatives are destined to fail. When employees see that their leaders are not providing the resources and necessary support for the deployment, they have an excuse not to support it themselves. Q: What strategies work well when it comes to training employees and convincing resistant employees to adapt to new ways of working? A: The ultimate convincer is success – achieving the goals and objectives that have been identified by the organization as critical for their continued success. However, just telling stories of successful projects doesn't necessarily get all employees excited about Six Sigma. At one financial services company, there was significant discussion at the outset of the deployment around the integrity of results. They put financial gates in place to qualify projects that truly created bottom-line results, and then audited the projects one year after completion in order to ensure the results lasted. The audit verified that the results were real. Communicating the criteria surrounding projects and their subsequent success created credibility with those outside of the deployment. Another company created financial incentives for project results; not just for Champions, Black Belts

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and their teams, but also for the area where process improvements were made. The entire organization had a piece of variable compensation at risk for Six Sigma results, which created interest and support for the deployment. Communicating success stories with the intention of generating enthusiasm for Six Sigma does pay dividends. Any initiative that is not understood will be viewed skeptically. Sharing stories and encouraging participation in the effort excites those involved. Our experience shows that employee satisfaction scores are higher for those involved in Six Sigma than the rest of the organization. Q: Do you recommend that companies review their culture before implementing a Six Sigma initiative? How is that review used when assembling their deployment plan? A: Absolutely. A Black Belt working projects can deliver significant savings to an organization. However, without the support and focus of the organization, a Six Sigma deployment will not alter how people behave and solve problems, and thus, achieve the substantial improvements that successful Six Sigma deployments offer. There is no one right way to deploy Six Sigma. The infrastructure and support for a successful deployment should be contingent on the culture of the organization, and the context of the times that Six Sigma is deployed. An understanding of the culture and context offers insights into opportunities and barriers to address when trying to gain the support of employees in embracing Six Sigma. Culture is defined by the norms and values – both formal and informal – that an organization lives by. Understanding the cultural readiness for a change initiative will facilitate decision-making around the topics of Black Belt selection, retention and repatriation. This cultural readiness knowledge will help shape all aspects of a successful deployment. Q: How can companies maintain a positive culture and momentum for Six Sigma as the initiative matures and employees turn over? A: The Six Sigma methodology is most successful when integrated into a company's business strategy, and not deployed merely as an off-the-shelf tool kit or a set of training sessions. Though many corporations initially consider Six Sigma only for profitability, they quickly learn that Six Sigma is the best business transformation program available today. The real benefit of Six Sigma is the culture change to becoming a customer-focused, fact-based, data-driven organization. The ultimate measure of Six Sigma success is when your company can say "It is the way we work."  Ask the Expert - The Topic: Six Sigma and Return on Investment Q: Why do you think people hear stories about companies failing to achieve adequate return on their Six Sigma investment? A: We hear stories about these failures because they occur. The question is why do they occur? One significant reason a program doesn't achieve targeted returns is a lack of senior management commitment. Invariably when this is lacking, the initiative becomes a training exercise characterized by poorly conceived or poorly supported projects rather than a plan to drive business results with projects based on relevant business cases. Training is expensive. A big expense with no focus on results yields little or no returns. If I were tasked with a Six Sigma project which management wasn't fully supporting, I'd scale back my expenses to match to the number of good projects I could convince well-intentioned Champions to support. By driving results on

These kind of improvements can impact a company's intrinsic value, thus creating shareholder value well in excess of any project savings. To assign value to such improvements, one must look to more sophisticated valuation theories such as Economic Value Analysis, which addresses shareholder value in a more significant way. Q: What are the critical success factors in achieving a satisfactory ROI? A: The most critical success factor is project selection. If ROI is your objective, you have three variables with which to maximize it – lower the investment,

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those projects while maintaining low expenses, I'd ensure a high return on investment which I would market internally to gain the senior support needed to ensure success of a larger expenditure. Q: How do you measure Return on Investment (ROI) in a Six Sigma initiative? A: The return on any investment compares the costs, or investment, over time to returns over time, discounted by a risk-adjusted rate to take into account the value of money over time. Due to the tremendous impact of Six Sigma, the most sensitive variable in this calculation is the returns, and not the costs. Returns can be segregated into hard and soft savings. Hard savings are those that are more easily traceable to actual cash, like reduced waste or headcount reductions. Soft savings are those that are less "bankable" like reductions in cycle times. While hard savings calculations are pretty much the same from project to project and company to company, there is tremendous room for interpretation with soft savings. Common and simple errors in calculating soft savings are things like counting gross sales improvements rather than the net from sales, or measuring working capital reductions rather than the reduced financing costs. But even with all the room for interpretations and mistakes in soft savings, not to develop an accepted methodology for assigning value would disregard a significant source of benefits.

raise the annual returns, or reduce the time in which gains are achieved. The most sensitive variable is raising targeted returns. Returns are a function of many interrelated variables. Some of these are the quality of the training event, the quality of the candidates, senior management support and the size of the opportunity. But I would argue that the most sensitive variable is the selection of projects. The success of projects is most dependent on alignment to the company's initiatives, assuming the initiatives have been correctly aligned to stakeholder concerns. In its simplest form, the initiative could be cost savings. Of course, once again, targeting strategic goals that redefine the company can have a much greater effect on the returns on an initiative. A good program will hit enough hard savings projects to achieve an acceptable ROI, move to goals with even greater impact, such as revenue projects that can change the company's growth rate, and finally, move to goals aimed at redefining the company's competitive position. Q: In this tough economic climate, why should companies spend money on Six Sigma? A: Quite simply, there are few investments that can provide the same rate of return. However, once the low hanging fruit is harvested, the success of the implementation becomes more about alignment to the right problems – and that is a more difficult objective.

Whether hard or soft, one interesting observation is that few organizations calculating returns differentiate between one-time and recurring savings. Recurring savings obviously are worth a multiple of one-time savings and should be counted by calculating the present value of the related cash flows over the time period they recur. I think organizations don't do this in the interest of being conservative, but they don't realize how conservative it is. However, the greatest difficulty in measuring ROI in any performance improvement initiative is assigning value to non-cash-yielding improvements, like if the initiative boosts sales growth rates or advances the company's competitive position.  Ask the Expert - The Topic: Starting a Six Sigma Initiative Q: What can an organization establishing an Office of Six Sigma/Quality learn from the companies which have been most successful at setting up such offices? How did those companies go about it and with how many people typically? A: Full deployment is often suggested as the best way to initiate Six Sigma; however, it is typically better to grow into an overall system. In the real world, most companies don't have the bandwidth to

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create an infrastructure that can support a very large, instantaneous Six Sigma deployment. A small but committed force of the right people given the proper authority can do wonders to get things started. Companies which are successful implement a system that builds upon the lessons learned and successes of others. Approaching initial implementation of Six Sigma through a pilot program has advantages; however, it is essential at the onset that the right people are involved, doing the right things. Companies that have successfully implemented Six Sigma share some basic characteristics – committed leadership, use of top talent and a supporting infrastructure. This supporting infrastructure involves a formal project selection process, a formal project review process, dedicated resources and financial system integration. However, the Six Sigma implementation team can encounter significant resource restrictions. Frequently, a major limitation is that only part-time resources are to be used. This can lead to the training of Green Belts or Black Belts, who will have little, if any, infrastructure support. Teaching Six Sigma and Lean tools without the suggested infrastructure will not provide a satisfactory evaluation of Six Sigma. A pilot assessment not only needs one or more Six Sigma projects, but also must include dedicated resources and a formal project review process. To assure this, top-level management should agree at the outset that the pilot program will include a Six Sigma infrastructure modeled after other successful deployments, and will include well-defined measures to judge the pilot project's success. As part of this pilot program, a Six Sigma steering committee needs to be created to manage the overall Six Sigma process. A Six Sigma director, who is a well-respected change agent within the company, should be chosen. He/she needs to believe in the concept of Six Sigma and have the drive to make Six Sigma successful. The Six Sigma director needs to be a dedicated resource. Exceptions to this rule are justified only for small organizations. The steering committee should carefully select two to ten employees who will be trained in a public Black Belt workshop, where each trainee is a dedicated resource for the completion of assigned projects. Regularly scheduled on-site and/or remote coaching sessions also should be conducted between four separate weeks of training. A project coaching session should include the project's Champion, team members and process owner. The sessions could be conducted remotely but the frequency of coaching should emulate a full-scale deployment; e.g., weekly report-outs. Scheduled monthly executive presentation times should be established where the steering committee, sometimes with the aid of teams, presents the Six Sigma pilot status with quantifiable results. Upon completion of a successful Six Sigma pilot, the scale of the deployment is simply expanded to other areas of the business, incorporating any lessons learned from the pilot session. Q: What magnitude of resources/dollars should be committed for the first three years of a Six Sigma initiative? Is there a rule of thumb? A: If Six Sigma costs anything, something is wrong. Six Sigma is an investment upon which organization and personal existence/excellence depends. When Six Sigma is implemented correctly, it should yield a return of at least 20 times the investment in three years. When setting up an infrastructure, companies can easily become penny-wise and pound-foolish. For example, companies might insist on saving money by using Black Belts who are part-time. With this approach, projects

can fall off the Black Belt's plate, resulting in project completion difficulties. Companies can achieve a much larger return on investment with dedicated resources. It is important to get the right people involved doing the right things. In addition, organizations need to view Six Sigma as an implementation methodology that does more than just pick and complete projects. The implementation of Six Sigma must impact how people think and perform their day-to-day work. Wisely applied, Six Sigma metrics and improvement strategies can get organizations out of the firefighting mode and into the fire prevention mode. For this to happen, organizations need to measure the right thing and then report it in a fashion that leads to the right activity. Q: Does a Six Sigma organization need to be run by a Master Black Belt or a Black Belt to be effective?

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A: Making it a requirement that the leader of a Six Sigma organization be or become a Master Black Belt or Black Belt can lead to the selection of the wrong person. The leader of a Six Sigma organization needs to be familiar with the tools and methodologies of Six Sigma and Lean. He/she needs: • • • • • •

To be able to look at the big picture and orchestrate activities that get the right people involved doing the right things. To be able to ask the right questions. To be able to motivate people so that projects are completed in a timely fashion. To understand the overall Six Sigma project execution, step-by-step roadmap and check sheets for project completion. (This understanding is necessary so that he/she can lead practitioners into doing and completing the right tasks in a timely manner.) To practice and demonstrate Six Sigma methodologies in his/her day-to-day activities. To be able to understand and convey the methodologies and benefits of Six Sigma to others.

A high mark in all the above skill-set categories is hard to find in any one individual. Real-time coaching of a Six Sigma leader who has all the right interpersonal relationship skills can be an effective compromise. With this approach, a Six Sigma coach works with the leader on the improvement of his skills so that he/she asks the right questions or directs practitioners to the correct application tool. This approach can be more effective than hiring or reassigning a Black Belt or Master Black Belt to run the operation. Q: Must a new Six Sigma initiative be promoted by upper management? If so, how would you recommend it be communicated? A: Advocacy selling of Six Sigma can originate at any organizational level; however, the effectiveness of such promotion increases when originated at the executive level. It has been said that the only reason people change is either to seek pleasure or avoid pain, where stimulus from avoiding pain is larger than seeking pleasure. GE employed both of these methods in their rollout of Six Sigma. People had to change or they would be terminated – the painful stick. In addition, a system was set up so that people who accomplished tangible results with Six Sigma were rewarded – the carrot. The creation of a burning platform – a visible crisis – is an effective approach to convey the importance of instituting systematic improvements to the enterprise. The necessity of change should be presented in such a way that it is not only easy to understand, but readily internalized. The presentation should show that when there is an alignment of Six Sigma work with business needs and/or operational metrics, both existence and bottom-line excellence can be achieved.  Ask the Expert - The Topic: Six Sigma Vision Q: What should a company's vision be for their Six Sigma initiative? Should it be to target 3.4 defects per million opportunities for every process? A: Creating a vision for a Six Sigma initiative requires a good understanding of the Six Sigma methodology, its intent and its benefits. Without clearly understanding its benefits, the corporate vision could miss its true objective. For example, one company understands Six Sigma as a DMAIC, and therefore, a five-step methodology. For another company, Six Sigma is understood as a strategy to dramatically improve business. Is Six Sigma a strategy, a methodology or a hammer? GE sees Six Sigma as its DNA, Motorola sees it as a "culture thing" and Honeywell sees it as a standard of excellence. Born as an approach to accelerating improvement, promoting employee teamwork and achieving total customer satisfaction, Six Sigma was initially criticized for its unrealistic target of 3.4 defects per million opportunities, then analyzed to its limits and finally institutionalized at many corporations. Six Sigma is now generally comprehended as a strategy to improve corporate performance through continual reconfiguration, and a methodology for dramatic improvement, employee innovation and operations resulting in the best product or service at the highest profit. With this understanding of Six Sigma, the corporate vision must look beyond the number 3.4. The vision must incorporate the philosophy, the methodology and the expected outcome. The vision needs not be a glamorous statement. Instead, the vision must be a set of words that relates to a particular corporate culture and a new direction to produce better corporate performance through a dramatic improvement in operations, and yet abiding by a company's core values. At Motorola, the incubator for Six Sigma, vision also included beliefs, goals and initiatives.

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Q: Do all Six Sigma companies have roughly the same vision? Can you provide an example or two from your clients? A: It is interesting that there is great similarity in the key words of many vision statements. But if correctly developed, each vision statement is born from a different feeling -- a feeling specific to a company, its people, its objectives and commitment to the initiative. Sometimes, vision statements may not even include "Six Sigma words." However, their intent reflects a commitment to achieve dramatic improvement. Here is an example of a vision statement: Vision: Leading provider of integrated test systems, and engineering and manufacturing solutions to meet customers' outsourcing needs. Initiatives: 1. Integrate all locations seamlessly. 2. Implement Six Sigma methodology to achieve excellence. 3. Manage projects well for efficiency and profitability. 4. Implement a Business Scorecard to manage business by facts. 5. Grow business to achieve company's mission. 6. Create a fun and learning environment for employee growth. Here, no specific mention of Six Sigma is included in the vision statement; instead, Six Sigma is mentioned in an initiative aimed at realizing the vision.

Q: A number of experts say companies should show "quick wins" when implementing Six Sigma to build support. Is this the right approach? A: When I was at Motorola, we started Six Sigma with small or quick wins. However, the corporate commitment to implement Six Sigma was not contingent upon the success or failure of those small wins. Instead the purpose of small wins was to learn more about the methodology before institutionalizing it. Unfortunately, some companies play for quick wins as a way to avoid making the big commitment to the Six Sigma initiative. Those companies are indecisive. They have not done their homework, and have fears about throwing away money in the Six Sigma basket, just like they had seen it done in the past with TQM, ISO 9000 and many other similar "programs of the year." Instead, I suggest that a CEO or the leader of the company must first learn a lot about Six Sigma, its benefits and its methodology. The most important aspect is to understand Six Sigma's intent. I believe if various methodologies are implemented in accordance to the original intent, the results are guaranteed sooner or later. If the commitment is only in compliance with the methodology and not the spirit or intent of Six Sigma to achieve better results, then the consultants, subject matter experts or statisticians take over and success is no longer guaranteed. Six Sigma and strong leadership lead to many quick as well as big wins. So, quick wins are good, but they must be sought only after an absolute commitment is made to Six Sigma. Q: Many people dislike vision and mission statements. What would you suggest to be an appropriate and beneficial alternative for them? A: Vision or mission statements with audacious words and without supporting action items become slogans. The slogans stay as long as the leader stays. As soon as the leader leaves a company, the slogan bites the dust and the vision becomes blurry. Each corporation must have a vision to communicate its future direction and expectation to its employees, suppliers and customers. How it is communicated depends upon the company's leadership style and management systems. Rather than in a statement, the vision could be communicated using visuals throughout the company, leadership actions and interaction with employees. People dislike vision and mission statements when the statements do not seem to relate to them, and when they do not translate into relevant actions. People love corporate vision and mission statements

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when they are communicated and executed through passionate management commitment. In addition to vision statements, progress towards realizing a company's vision also must be communicated to employees. That is best done through measurements, such as Six Sigma Business Scorecard or other Dashboards.  Ask the Expert: Deploying & Implementing Six Sigma How long should a Six Sigma implementation take? As little time as possible. However, when executed smartly, even an aggressive implementation will take 12 to 18 months to feel like you're out of the "initial implementation" phase. From the time you make your decision to proceed, you need to train the executive team, establish support systems, train champions, allow sufficient time to select training candidates and first projects and then proceed through the first round of Black Belt training. That will take a minimum of six to eight months, and of course you're not done. To truly answer this question, we need to provide a definition of done. Does it mean, "I'm done with consultants and I do my own training?" Does it mean X projects completed? Or does it mean, "My Company really feels like a different place to work - we're seeing a real change in the culture toward one that has a greater appreciation of quality, approaches problems in a more structured manner, and is more data driven in its approach to decision making." Expect that to take 18 months for a small company or business unit, and three-to-five years for a large organization. Q: Do you recommend a phased or "big-bang" deployment approach for your clients? A: Either is acceptable, but what I don't like is a "pilot" program. Telling people you're piloting something is like saying, "you have the power to kill this if you don't give it an honest effort. If it doesn't go well, we'll quit." That can turn failure into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Compare that to a phased approach in which we agree where we're going, we're just going to take it one step at a time. That's alright, but don't go too small. If the implementation isn't big enough to maintain the focus of the senior management team, you're going to have problems. I prefer to see a deployment no smaller than a single profit and loss center which means someone has the authority to say, "this is how we're going to do it," and then stick with it. I see a lot of consultants sell clients on the big-bang. Why not? They make more money. But many companies find the implementation of Six Sigma much more challenging than they anticipated. There's a general rule of thumb - train 1% of your employees as Black Belts. But for most companies, that's just too many in the first year of a deployment. It's not a question of how much money you want to save; it's a question of the bandwidth of an organization. Take, for example, a company of 10,000 people. The 1% thumb rule comes to 100 Black Belts. Now consider that each Black Belt will work on an average of two projects at any one time and each project to be supported by six team members. That would equate to 1,300 people leading or supporting Six Sigma projects. It's more than most companies can manage. So you need to establish the right pace and scope of deployment and unfortunately, there is not canned answer to the question. Each company is unique. Q: Do you suggest building an implementation team that consists of your own consultants as well as a company's internal personnel? A: A company has to assign its own people. For one, they don't want to be beholden to consultants forever, but secondly, consultants are not leaders within the business - they're consultants. In fact, the more heavily weighted toward insiders the better. Consultants should be used to provide guidance and experience, but what's different about Six Sigma as compared to other types of consulting is that the goal is to teach companies to solve their own problems - not to hire consultants to solve problems for them. So there should be a disproportionate number of inside team members.

Q: At what point does a client typically become self-sufficient in their Six Sigma initiative? A: Again, depends on the client. Some say, we want to be training our own Green Belts in a year, Black Belts in 18-months, but we'll never train our own Master Black Belts. Others say, "We focus on our core business and outsource training." In most cases, clients want to be self sufficient in a year

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but find it takes closer to two in reality. The key is that your initial plan takes into account your goals and is designed to get you there. If you want to do your own training in a year, you can't wait until Black Belt certification is complete to decide who your Master Black Belts will be, you have to identify them almost from the beginning and start providing them opportunities to practice teaching. For most companies, training Green Belts internally makes a lot of sense, training Black Belts internally makes sense for bigger companies, and training Master Black Belts rarely ever makes sense. As for management team members, such as champions, you need someone very effective to teach internally, but it can be done.  Ask the Expert: Integrating Lean And Six Sigma What is Lean? Lean is a methodology that is used to accelerate the velocity and reduce the cost of any process (be it service or manufacturing) by removing waste. Lean is founded on a mathematical result known as Little's Law: Quantity Of Things In Process Lead Time Of = Average Completion Rate/Unit Of Any Process Time The lead-time is the amount of time taken between the entry of work into a process (which may consist of many activities) to the time the work exits the process. In procurement the Things in Process are the number of requisitions, in product development the number of Projects In Process, and in manufacturing the amount of Work In Process. Lean contains a well-defined set of tools that are used to control and then reduce the number of Things in Process, thus eliminating the non-value add cost driven by those Things in Process. The Pull/Kanban system puts a cap on the number of things in process, thus putting a cap on the lead-time. Lean also contains tools to reduce the quantity of things in process including setup reduction, total productive maintenance, 5S, etc. For example, setup reduction allows the reduction of the time spent on producing a quantity of any given offering or product, reducing lead-time without reducing the completion rate. The Lean methodology has a bias for action, leveraging Kaizen to rapidly improve processes and drive results. Q: Why should Lean be important to Six Sigma professionals? A: Whereas Six Sigma is most closely associated with defects and quality, Lean is linked to speed, efficiency, and waste. Lean provides tools to reduce lead-time of any process and eliminate non-value add cost. Six Sigma does not contain any tools to control lead time (e.g., Pull systems), or tools specific to the reduction of lead time (e.g., setup reduction). Since companies must become more responsive to changing customer needs, faster lead times are essential in all endeavors. Lean is an important complement to Six Sigma and fits well within the Six Sigma DMAIC process. Additionally, the Lean Kaizen approach is a great method that can be used to accelerate the rate of improvements. You need to improve quality so you can achieve maximum speed, and you need to do the things that allow maximum speed in order to reach the highest sigma levels of quality. In other words, you need both Lean (speed) and Six Sigma (quality) principles and tools to drive improvements in ROIC and achieve the best competitive position. Q: Can you provide an example of how Lean coupled with Six Sigma would help address a transactional process issue? A manufacturing process issue? A: The processes of all companies and organizations must: 1. Become faster and more responsive to customers 2. Achieve Six Sigma capability 3. Operate at world class cost Only the combination of Six Sigma and Lean can fulfill all three goals. In any process, Lean Six Sigma creates a value stream map of the process identifying value add and non-value add costs, and captures the Voice of the customer to define the customer Critical To Quality issues. Projects within the process are then prioritized based on the delay time they inject. This prioritization process inevitably pinpoints activities with high defect rates (Six Sigma tools) or long setups, downtime (Lean tools). In manufacturing, a further benefit results from a reduction in working capital and capital expenditure. We have found over the last 15 years that these methods apply in virtually every kind of

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process from healthcare to financial services to energy to manufacturing.

Q: What role can Lean play in a company that has already started implementing Six Sigma? A: Lean will add another dimension of improvement in process speed and reduction of non-value add cost. Further, by accelerating process speed, Lean provides faster feedback and more cycles of learning enhancing the power of Six Sigma tools. For example, an L18 Design of Experiment might require about 100 separate runs to optimize parameters and minimize variation. Reducing the lead time by 80% will allow the fractional factorial design to be completed five times faster. In addition, the Lean Kaizen approach allows Black Belts to implement rapid improvements whenever possible.  Ask the Expert: Large & Small Deployments Implementing Six Sigma: A financial decision or a strategic one? Implementing a company-wide initiative like Six Sigma is best accomplished when it becomes part of a strategic plan. A strategic plan is a long term (3 - 5 Years) business plan which defines the long term goals and resources required to achieve the goals. More than likely it is also a financial decision that led to selecting Six Sigma as the long term initiative. Most organizational long term plans are financially focused. Goals do not become part of a plan unless they will achieve some financial benefit for the company. So it seems that you cannot have one without the other. Although Six Sigma projects can and are, completed in a few months, creating a customer focused, Six Sigma focused company requires multiple projects over a number of years. Without management on board with a long term plan, the implementation of Six Sigma could be derailed too early to gain the true benefits. Benefits such as enhanced customer loyalty, reduction in costs of poor quality, improved profitability, and greater shareholder value, will not occur in the short term (less than one or two years). To achieve these benefits management must be able to devote resources long enough to gain the results. Only initiatives that are part of the strategic plan will survive long enough to reap these benefits. Q: Can all companies -- large and small -- save money by implementing Six Sigma? A: All companies can save money by reducing the causes of defects in products, deficiencies in services and processes, and by improving sales through greater customer satisfaction. However, a small company (less than 100 employees) will have fewer resources available than a larger company (1000 employees) to complete projects. The magnitude of improvement will be different between large and small companies. A small company also may have a lesser need to improve than a larger company. Small companies have fewer employees wearing "multiple hats" when carrying out tasks in a process. With fewer employees involved there may be fewer deficiencies to improve on. A larger company will have multiple employees and functions involved, creating complexity and possibly a greater amount of deficiency in the processes. The main difference between small and large companies will be how to train employees in the tools and techniques of Six Sigma. The short term costs for training and the length of time to complete projects may take longer than in a large company. This mainly occurs because smaller companies cannot free up too many individuals in a short period of time to make the improvements. Q: Are there other reasons to look to Six Sigma besides financial ones? A: If an organization's Six Sigma effort is only focused on costs savings it will be missing a valuable opportunity. Institutionalizing Six Sigma means having an organization become so knowledgeable about its customers it can create a competitive advantage. Knowledge of what is critical to customers becomes the focus of improvement projects. By focusing on customers and eliminating problems for customers an organization it should be able to reduce costs and enhance customer satisfaction. By having products and services designed with the customer in mind should lead to improved sales. The combination of the two will provide a solid financial return for the organization. Focusing on the cost side will be a short term benefit only.

Q: What should a company interested in deploying Six Sigma look for in a Six Sigma consulting company?

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A: With 24 years of service Juran Institute has tried to focus on this question to make sure our clients gain the benefits of its improvement initiative in the least intrusive and most sustainable way. When selecting a consulting firm one should look at the firm's history, credibility, integrity and the ability to transfer knowledge. For history: understand how the consulting firm originated, what kind of experiences have they had, who were their customers. For credibility: check to see if the firm is well written about in the journals, frequently invited to speak at conferences, and if they sustained a good track record of results for other clients. For integrity: ask the firm's competitors what they think about the firm they want to select. Good firms are not only liked by their clients but also by their competitors as well. A firm speaking badly of a competitor most likely lacks the integrity needed to develop good relationships with. Transferring knowledge is an important aspect of a successful consulting firm. One should evaluate if the firm gives you the tools, techniques, and materials necessary to operate without the consulting firm after the initial implementation. Q: Who should Champion the Six Sigma deployment within a company? A: Champions at all levels are key to deploying and sustaining a Six Sigma initiative. However, to gain a credible start the Champion should initially come from top management. The candidate must be well regarded in the organization and understand the key business drivers in the company. Most of the Six Sigma Champions come from operations, finance, quality or office of the CEO. In most cases a senior executive is assigned the task of leading the initiative. For projects a good Champion is one who will lead the way for a Black Belt. Challenge the system, remove obstacles. These Champions are usually mid to upper level executives willing to challenge the status quo and have the authority to do so. In a small company the owner may be the Champion and the executive staff may be the Black Belts. So it is important to not make a generalization as to what makes a good champion.

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