Six Sigma Process - Motorola - Essay Example

Running head: Six Sigma Six Sigma [The of the appears here] [The of appears here] Introduction Bill Wiggenhorn, then vice president and director of Motorolas training and simulation, expressed the philosophy of Six Sigma: "to get the process right the first time--but only do it if it is a value-added step." Six Sigma is a statistical concept that has been operationally defined by Motorola as not having more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. This standard is considerably higher than the quality standards used by typical companies. (D. Keith Denton, 1992). Six Sigma Process The only way Motorola can achieve this level of quality is to reduce dramatically the product variability that is common due to ineffective product design, lack of process control, and inferior suppliers. It will have to reduce cycle times and increase the level of both product and service quality. A coordinated effort is necessary to reduce variation in everything the company does, including office filing, typing, and so on. Some of the tools used include Statistical Process Control (SPC), preventative maintenance, vendor certification, and standardization and simplification of parts and production. An example of the coordinated effort needed was described by George Fisher, president and CEO, who explained the six steps necessary to achieve these lofty goals. All persons and departments must first identify the product or service they provide. His comments were in reference to the companys philosophy about customer service and quality improvement. In reference to customers they serve, employees should ask themselves, "What do I do?" The answer could range from manufacturing a tangible product to assessing something being communicated to those outside their group or department. Second, they should identify the customers for their product or service and determine what they consider important. Employees should ask, "For whom do I work?" and, to answer this question, ask each customer, "What product or service do you need from us?" and "Why do you need it?" Sometimes the answer to this question may be obvious; sometimes it is not. Third is a need to identify what the employee needs to satisfy the customer. Each person must ask, "What do I need to do my work better?" This question is the essence of trying to make improvements by eliminating, simplifying, or combining. Information can come from phone calls, physical equipment, or other data. Once people have determined their needs, they can then sit down with those who supply them with goods and services and determine what they need to do their work. The fourth step is for employees to define the process for doing their work and ask, "How can I specifically define my work?" Defining work means breaking down each operation of a job into steps and tasks and then identifying the detailed inputs and outputs for each step. This process can involve developing a flowchart and diagram of a persons present way of doing work, to see graphically what is involved and can help spot areas prone to error. Once this step is done, key areas can then be measured to see where too little or too much time is being spent. The next step is the critical design process. In this case, Motorolas objective is to make tasks as mistake-proof as possible and eliminate wasted effort. The central question for anyone wanting to eliminate, simplify, or combine is, "How can I do work better?" The answer might include eliminating or simplifying tasks, increasing training, or changing methodology--if possible, eliminating those steps that do not add value or at least simplifying or combining them with other steps. This change eliminates waste. The final step in Motorolas process to ensure continuous improvement by measuring, analyzing, and controlling the improvement process. Again a flowchart can be used not only to document changes but also graphically to show the total savings, regardless of whether one uses a flowchart or not. It is important for people continuously to examine how well they are doing their work. Among other things this step may involve tracking and recording the time it takes to do jobs. What is important is to find some way of measuring and evaluating what employees do, not accepting the status quo, always benchmarking the process, and then finding ways of improving efforts. This process of benchmarking and trying to continuously improve is Motorolas secret to improving performance. (D. Keith Denton, 1992). Evidence of Change To place Six Sigma in viewpoint, we started by conferring the early development of Six Sigma in the 1980s and after that its antecedents from the early twentieth century to the current history of TQM, JIT, as well as Lean. The Six Sigma of the late 1980s and early 1990s the first generation was part of incessant development or total quality efforts at companies that were guided for the majority part by quality professionals. These hard works often turned into islands of isolated change that died when unproven by the business leadership. What can be described the second generation of Six Sigma can be somewhat said to have first appeared at AlliedSignal in 1994, where it was directed by CEO Larry Bossidy. Hallmarks of the 2nd generation are that Six Sigma is part of the corporate business plan and is very important for achieving business objectives, with top leadership support and frequently intimate involvement. One more main difference from the first generation is that the second generation of Six Sigma initiates with the Voice of the Customer. In its first generation, Six Sigma process development methodology incorporated 4 rationally linked phases: measure-analyze-improve-control. In the second generation, throughout the GE Capital deployment in 1995, a novel first phase, define, was added, becoming the DMAIC methodology at the present used in most Six Sigma implementations. In the define phase, data is used to confirm customer needs as well as requirements and to make out the Critical-to-Quality distinctiveness for customer satisfaction. The define phase assures that the Voice of the Customer is fundamental to every Six Sigma project by adding thoroughness to the front end of the methodology. What makes Six Sigma striking is that it puts together a large amount of what we have learned regarding getting sustainable outcome in manufacturing and services. But in considering Six Sigma as part of that development, it would be an oversight to think of Six Sigma as about evolutionary, incremental progress. From the broaden performance targets put for Six Sigma projects to changing the mind-sets of the current generation as well as next generation of leaders through Black Belt and Master Black Belt training and thriving projects, Six Sigma is about immense paybacks and huge impacts on culture and leadership. The world is concluding that the way to turn into a superlative company is to build superior process performance, since that is what makes sure superior products and services for customers. Superior process performance makes the most of value for the customer and the shareholder. The magnificence of Six Sigma is that it can be applied time and again to get better processes or to plan new processes that incessantly line up the company with varying customer needs and wants. Change is at all times difficult. Well-known organizational structures and expert functional regions are dead set against. To alter the manner work is done in the hierarchical structures that are todays corporations, leaders have to drive the effort. An advantage of Six Sigma is that it needs leaders to be vigorously occupied in leading the chase of customer satisfaction. In addition, the initiative of process improvement through projects that is at the heart of Six Sigma is extremely influential for the reason that it leverages the human factor in change at both the leadership as well as the process levels. The people who work in the process turn into the change agents using the Six Sigma tool kit. Changing processes alter behavior. Though, changes in culture—the “compilation of overt and covert rules, values, and principles that are lasting and direct organizational behavior” can merely be driven by the organizations leaders. To effect cultural change with Six Sigma, it has to be associated with strategy and leader behavior. (Gerald I. Hahn, William J. Hill, Roger W. Hoerl, Stephen A. Zinkgraf, 1999). Here are few ways in which leaders strengthen the kind of culture as well as organization they wish to construct: • By what they focus on to, measure, and control • By their response to vital matter in the organization • By the means they mock-up the role, teach, and train • By their standard for rewards, endorsement, and hiring • By the queries they ask Process-centered organizations delivering products and services that congregate or go beyond customer expectations call for new management exemplars and new leadership skills. Becoming a Six Sigma company vs. a company doing Six Sigma, as Ken Freeman of Quest Diagnostics places it, is a journey of risk and challenge, however the risks can be counterbalance and the challenges met by two exclusive facets of Six Sigma: its capability to build up change leadership skills and its remorseless concentration on satisfying the customer. Quality inventiveness have come and gone. You might have been part of one either in your present job or a different place you have worked. Chances are these initiatives abortive for the reason that their implementation involved jumping instantaneously into quality strategy without building a plan for the tactics to work. A strategy can be defined as a plan or method for attaining some goal or outcome. Not like other quality initiatives, Six Sigma has a tactical component intended at not merely building up managements commitment to Six Sigma, however their active contribution. One of the troubles with previous quality initiatives is that the employees in a little while came to see the quality activities as naught more than a way for them to work harder. They saw how they had to revolutionize the way they worked and how they had to take part in teams, learning innovative concepts, however they didnt see organization changing. In actual fact, with some quality initiatives the workforce almost immediately saw that management would use the augmented work to cut back the organization. When experts would examine the outcome of a failed quality endeavor, high on the list of motives behind the malfunction was the lack of management support. Six Sigma is different for the reason that the work first and primary starts with management. Management of any organization is accountable for the tactic of how work gets done. As a management policy, Six Sigma is the plan or method for achieving the goals or outcome of the business. To better identify with how Six Sigma works as a strategy, lets first put you in the place of executive management. Your board of directors has specified you have 5 major tactical business objectives. They are: revenue, profit margin, customer satisfaction, growth and employee satisfaction. As the chief executive officer, your achievement will be determined wholly based on progress of each of these objectives. Traditional management points out that you have a group of vice presidents who handle a group of functions that expectantly drive achievement of these objectives. The focus of functional objectives contradicts the organization becoming world class. World class organizations have 3 most important focus areas: being customer focused, process focused, as well as employee focused. A process is a sequence of steps or actions that take inputs, put in value, and generate an output. Consequently, to make a Six Sigma strategy, it is the accountability of management to make out the key processes of their organization, evaluate their efficacy and effectiveness, and start improvement of the worst performing processes. Recognizing these processes is best made with your current reports. Part of the objective of brainstorming the most important processes of the organization is to edify management of the dangers of their present way of doing business. Therefore, when the key managers meeting in the same room and start identifying processes, they are at the same time identifying that there have to be a better way to run the business. every process owner in the first months of crafting the Six Sigma strategy authenticates the measures of effectiveness and efficiency for the process or processes they possess. Once the process owner identifies what are the more vital measures for their process, they are supposed to start collecting data on those measures. At its center, Six Sigma is running with fact and data. (Louis Grossman, Marianne M. Jennings, 2002). In the formation of the Six Sigma strategy, every process owner is needed to evaluate the baseline performance of the processes they own. Once the key measures of every process have been authenticated by the appropriate customer (s), four to eight weeks afterward baseline sigma for all process must be completed. Once all the processes have had their baseline sigma performance premeditated, a get-together is held where each process owner reports on their processes as well as their respective sigma performance. Why is this excellent news? If this occurs in your organization, management will start to see how they require beginning managing in a different way. Instead of just running financial statements or managing by reducing staff to meet profit objectives, management starts to see they have to start fixing the broken processes that make up the entirety of their organization. This eye-opening day is thus far one more reason why a Six Sigma initiative is different than preceding efforts. Personal View It is usually approved that more than half the prospect for improvement in a manufacturing company lies away from the manufacturing function. This prospect can be in so far as thirty to forty percent of sales. Improvement beyond manufacturing has been restricted in the past for at least 3 main key reasons: deficiency of definite processes, deficiency of process metrics and data, as well as deficiency of an appreciation for the significance of dropping variation. The introduction of Six Sigma methodology and information technology systems has revolutionize this circumstances, making possible organizations of all types to concentrate on improvement as never in the past. (Dick Smith, Jerry Blakeslee, 2002). The need for expanding the use of Six Sigma further than the factory floor turns out to be clearer when you reflect on the inclination within the business world. Three most important trends, closely associated to one another, are driving the world economy: relocation away from manufacturing-based economies, the quick growth of information Systems (IS), and rising global competition. The economies of the United States, the majority of Western Europe, and several other developed countries changed from an agricultural base in the 1800s and near the beginning of 1900s to a manufacturing base in the 1900s. This movement is recognized as the industrial revolution, and it brought intense economic as well as social changes. With the quick expansion of IS in the late 20th and now early 21st century, the world economy has continued to progress. For instance, the occupation of computer scientist did not subsist during the industrial revolution. Statistics and operations research, international finance, e-commerce, and consumer credit, music and entertainment are just a few instances of professional fields whose quick expansion has been made possible by advances in IS. The on the whole consequence of this development is that fewer and smaller amount of people make their living by manufacturing something. Professed white-collar jobs, for example accounting, health care, as well as computer science, are replacing the conventional blue-collar jobs on the assembly line. Efficiency progress and augmented use of automation carry on reducing the number of blue-collar jobs. Some of the vital players in the real economy that require benefiting from Six Sigma comprise the following: Financial services, Government, Educational institutions, E-commerce, Retail sales, Health care, Food service, Logistics and transportation and certainly, the list could go endlessly. By taking benefit of the newest communication and information technologies, GETS has built up value-added services, for instance forecasting and optimizing maintenance necessities, logistics planning, satellite tracking of locomotives and all that. Even a "smokestack industry" for example locomotives is revolutionizing from selling "widgets" to selling information as well as value-added services. The 2001 GE Annual Report observed that the total of contractual services agreements within GE arrived at the $60 billion mark in 2001. In the same way, General Motors at present make more money from financing than they do from selling cars. The public usually thinks of GM as an automaker; however it would be more correct to think of GM as a bank that as well sells cars on the side. Part of the holistic use of Six Sigma engrosses taking Six Sigma to each of these areas consecutively, rather than restricting Six Sigma to manufacturing. As well productivity and automation gain are dropping the cost of goods plus services sold. These gains further point out that you ought to look beyond manufacturing as well as operations for progress opportunities. The early implementers of Six Sigma for instance Motorola and AlliedSignal started their initiative in manufacturing and moved, sometimes gradually, to be validating Six Sigma across the organization. Note that starting Six Sigma in manufacturing, or operations of service companies, is a good tactic for the reason that process metrics are generally well developed and important opportunities for upgrading exist there. The objective ought to be to move the use of Six Sigma as quickly as possible to the rest of the organization to make the most of its benefits. (Christine Avery, Diane Zabel, 1996). Conclusion Becoming a world-class competitor able to compete with the Japanese or anyone else means continuously analyzing and organizing operations. Instead of separate and disjointed efforts, everyone must focus his or her efforts toward the same direction of eliminating, simplifying, or combining tasks so work is performed more effectively. There must be a clear strategy. In Motorolas case, it first identified how to please the customer. Once these needs were identified, then it determined how it stacked up against the competition. It is important never to accept the current situation. Business should always be in the process of updating its method of measurement, making changes, and improving the production of goods or delivery of service. Motorola provides a shining example of what can be done. The centerpiece of its philosophy is its Six Sigma quality program (Wiggenhorn 1988). It sets impressive goals, then maps out a way to meet those goals. Its approach consists of having all employees within the organization first identify what product or service they are providing, identifying specifically who their customers are, and then deciding what is needed to do a better job of satisfying them. Once these parameters are isolated, employees define, through flowcharts and other means, the process for doing work. It is then feasible to try to make the process as mistake proof as possible. In the final analysis, total customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction can occur only if business sets itself on the path of continuously trying to improve the service and products offered by getting to know its customers better. (D. Keith Denton, 1992). Reference: Christine Avery, Diane Zabel (1996). The Quality Management Sourcebook: An International Guide to Materials and Resources; Routledge, 1996 Dick Smith, Jerry Blakeslee (2002). The New Strategic Six Sigma: The Old Standby Quality Approach, Six Sigma, Can Change Your Organizations Culture to Drive Strategy Deployment and Business; T&D, Vol. 56, September Gerald I. Hahn, William J. Hill, Roger W. Hoerl, Stephen A. Zinkgraf (1999). The Impact of Six Sigma Improvement-A Glimpse into the Future of Statistics; The American Statistician, Vol. 53 Louis Grossman, Marianne M. Jennings (2002). Building a Business through Good Times and Bad: Lessons from 15 Companies, Each with a Century of Dividends; Quorum Books D. Keith Denton (1992). Recruitment, Retention, and Employee Relations: Field-Tested Strategies for the 90s; Quorum Books Wiggenhorn Bill (1988). "Achieving Six Sigma Quality." Opportunities 5, no. 2 (February): 2. Read More