10 Ways to Failure for a New Six Sigma Deployment

10 Ways to Failure for a New Six Sigma Deployment

The returns from a well-deployed Six Sigma initiative can be richly rewarding. The results of many business organizations stand in testimony to that. But the opposite also is true. Ten major points are critical to the success or failure of a Six Sigma deployment. Here the points are outlined as the 10 ways that a Six Sigma initiative can fail:


1- Lack of Commitment from the Top
2- Part-time Black Belts
3- Projects Not Linked to Organizational Objectives
4- Focusing on Quantity Instead of Quality
5- No Review Mechanism
6- No Visible Reward and Recognition Mechanism
7- No Infrastructural Support to Teams Working on Projects
8- Copy-and-Paste Deployment
9- Too Much Insistence on Statistics and Tools
10- Expecting Too Much and Too Soon

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Ref: www.isixsigma.com

Advanced Product Quality Planning

FUNDAMENTALS OF PRODUCT QUALITY PLANNING

Product Quality Planning is a structured method of defining and establishing the steps necessary to assure that a product satisfies the customer. The goal of product quality planning is to facilitate communication with everyone involved to assure that all required steps are completed on time.
Effective product quality planning depends on a company’s top management commitment to the effort required in achieving customer satisfaction. Some of the benefits of Product Quality Planning are:

• To direct resources to satisfy the customer.

• To promote early identification of required changes.

• To avoid late changes.

• To provide a quality product on time at the lowest cost.

Each Product Quality Plan is unique. The actual timing and sequence of execution is dependent on customer needs and expectations and/or other practical matters. The earlier a work practice, tool, and/or analytical technique can be implemented in the Product
Quality Planning Cycle, the better.

Ref: Advanced Quality Manual Planning Manual ( AIAG)

History of QFD

QFD was created by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry at Kobe Shipyards in the early 1970s. Stringent government regulations for military vessels coupled with the large capital outlay per ship forced Kobe Shipyard’s management to commit to upstream quality assurance. The Kobe engineers drafted a matrix which relates all the government regulations, critical design requirements, and customer requirements to company technical controlled characteristics of how the company would achieve them. In addition, the matrix also depicted the relative importance of each entry, making it possible for important items to be identified and prioritized to receive a greater share of the available company resources. Winning is contagious. Other companies adopted QFD in the mid-1970s. For example, the automotive industry applied the first QFD to the rust problem. Since then, QFD usage has grown as a wellrooted methodology into many American businesses. It has become so familiar because of its adopted commandment: “Design it right the first time.”

Common Misperceptions about Six Sigma

Common Misperceptions about Six Sigma	The New Six Sigma Approach
Six Sigma only applies in a manufacturing environment.	Six Sigma provides tools that enable teams to improve any type of process, both continuous and transactional.
Six Sigma is too complicated and requires a Ph.D. in Statistics.	Breakthroughs in desktop software and improved courseware enable teams to complete complex analysis and experiments quickly and easily.
Six Sigma projects can go on for months with no clear gains assured.	Clear project charters, upfront financial benefits analysis, and executive accountability ensure timely completion of projects as well as significant financial returns on every project.
Six Sigma projects add to employee overload.	Project prioritization and continuous management review ensure the optimization of team resources.
Six Sigma primarily focuses on cost reduction.	While cost reduction is usually an important outcome, all projects first focus on meeting critical customer requirements.
Six Sigma programs create more "initiative of the month" confusion.	Six Sigma can be the integrating force that brings current initiatives into alignment and focuses all initiatives on breakthrough business improvement.
Six Sigma is just another name for TQM.	While Six Sigma utilizes many TQM tools, these tools are applied for breakthrough business improvement and sustainable financial returns.
Six Sigma requires heavy investment, with no clear line of sight to return on investment.	Investments in Six Sigma projects are accretive—all projects are selected based on their ability to achieve clear return-on-investment goals

Getting Good Samples and Data

Statistics for Six Sigma Made Easy
by Warren Brussee

Issues in Getting Good Data

Manufacturing Samples and the resultant data have to represent the total population, yet processes controlling the population are often changing dramatically, due to people, shift, environment, equipment, etc.

Sales Sales forecasts often use sampling techniques in their predictions. Yet the total market may have many diverse groups to sample. These groups may be affected by many external drivers, like the economy.

Marketing What data should be used to judge a marketing campaign's effectiveness, since so many other factors are changing at the same time?

Software Development What are the main causes of software crashes and how would you get data to measure the "crash-resistance" of competing software?

Receivables How would you get good data on the effectiveness of a program intended to reduce overdue receivables, when factors like the economy exert a strong influence and change frequently?

Insurance How can data measuring the satisfaction with different insurance programs be compared when people covered by the programs are not identical?

Variation is a serious thing

Many parts have to fit together to make a product, like a cell phone. When engineers design the parts, they account for the fact that all parts will display some amount of variation as they are produced. Variation is the degree to which a part, product, service, or transaction differs from all others in the same class or category.

In the case of a phone, each class of parts, like the plastic casting, vary in size, weight, and even color. Just as the phone cases vary, so does the clear plastic display that covers the liquid crystal display. Then you have the many hinges, buttons, antenna, internal component, and so on. All these parts have to snap and fit together well if the phone is to perform its function to your satisfaction. In other words, you can only tolerate a certain amount of variation. A little too much variation and the phone won’t work property. A little more variation and it won’t work at all.

And we all know who’s going to end up with the bad phone, right?

Kaizen Adapting the culture

The Kaizen culture is one that requires discipline and dedication. It is not something that is isolated to management or non-management staff. It is a way of doing business. In adapting TFS culture to The Toyota Way, we should consider matching:
• Job related requirements, including:
o Ways to act
o Ways to think
o Key accountabilities
• Corporate goals
• Staff training and development
Human Resources will play a large roll in the facilitation and management of these activities. Translating The Toyota Way into meaningful actions is necessary to encourage and develop the people of TFS. Moments of truth where staff should encounter The Toyota Way are:
• Corporate, Business and Personal goals
• Induction and Orientation
• Job descriptions
• Training and Development
• Policies and Procedures

Value Stream Mapping Movie

Movie name: Value Stream Mapping

By: Bill Webb & Jim Bickerstaff

January 2007
http://www.TPSmethods.com/

Value Stream Mapping is a Lean technique used to analyse the flow of materials and information currently required to bring a product or service to a consumer. At Toyota, where the technique originated, it is known as "Material and Information Flow Mapping"

Implementation

1. Identify the target product, product family, or service.


2. Draw a current state value stream map, which is the current steps, delays, and information flows required to deliver the target product or service. This may be a production flow (raw materials to consumer) or a design flow (concept to launch). There are 'standard' symbols for representing supply chain entities.


3. Assess the current state value stream map in terms of creating flow by eliminating waste.


4. Draw a future state value stream map.


5. Implement the future state.

Benefits of Reaching Higher Sigma Levels

The Five Objectives of Six Sigma

1. To satisfy the customer

2. To lift internal performance

3. To enable better performance by better design

4. To improve the quality of purchased supplies

5. To reduce the costs

Six Main Benefits of the Sigma Breakthrough Strategy

Remarkable improvements in:

1. Processes

2. Products and services

3. Investor relations

4. Design methodology

5. Supplier relationships

6. Training and recruitment

Six Sigma tells you¹

• Your don't know what you don't know

• You can't do what you don't know

• You don't know until you measure

• You don't measure what you don't value

• You don't value what you don't measure

The New Warrior Class

• Green Belts

• Black Belts`

• Master Black Belts

• Champions

Six Sigma as a Methodology

Six Sigma Black Belt Handbook,
By: Thomas Mc Carty, Micheal Bremer,

The Six Sigma methodology builds on the Six Sigma metric. Six Sigma practitioners measure and assess process performance using DPMO and sigma. They apply the rigorous DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) methodology to analyze processes in order to root out
sources of unacceptable variation, and develop alternatives to eliminate or reduce errors and variation. Once improvements are implemented, controls are put in place to ensure sustained results. Using this DMAIC methodology has netted many organizations significant improvements in product and service quality and profitability over the last several years.
The Six Sigma methodology is not limited to DMAIC. Other problem-solving techniques and methodologies are often used within the DMAIC framework to expand the tool set available to Six Sigma project teams.

These include:

• Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ)

• Lean

• Ford 8Ds (Disciplines)

• 5 Whys

• Is/Is Not Cause Analysis

Utilizing the sigma metric and marrying this variety of approaches with
the DMAIC methodology, the Six Sigma methodology becomes a powerful
problem-solving and continuous improvement methodology.