What is Six Sigma and how it can be enhanced is a question that should be asked by organizations when undertaking a continuous improvement system.
Six Sigma and its Purpose
Six Sigma (SS) is a performance statistical measure or product or process performance that has opportunities for business management enhancements. Six Sigma is also a system for creating and executing process improvement projects that involve statistical and non-statistical tools.
Motorola originated 6 Sigma in the 1980’s. GE under the leadership of Jack Welch began SS in 1995.
6 Sigma improvement efforts address the following:
- Customer satisfaction improvement
- Reducing defects
- Reducing cycle times lead times
- Reducing variation
- Integrated quality improvement tool usage
- Improved end-to-end management of processes
- Enhanced process measurements and analysis
- Striving for near quality perfections; e.g., 6 Sigma Quality equates to 3.4 defects per million opportunities
- Process improvement roadmap DMAIC (Define-measure-analyze-improve-control)
- Design of Six Sigma roadmap DMADV (Define-Measure-Analyze-Design-Verify)
- Process improvement efforts are executed by Six Sigma Black Belts and Green Belts, who are trained in the execution of the DMAIC roadmap
- Process improvement projects are to have finance-verified quantifiable benefits
How can 6 Sigma be enhanced?
Organizations often have difficulty sustaining a SS deployment. Major reasons for this are:
- Process improvement efforts are not truly integrated within the overall business management system.
- Improvement projects are often selected from a list of opportunities that were not determined analytically by evaluating the business as a whole to determine where improvement efforts should focus.
Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) is a business management system that addresses these issues.
The 9-step IEE system is:
Lean Six Sigma provides a detailed improvement project execution roadmap that is documented in two Integrated Enterprise books:
IEE addresses breaks down silo improvement project efforts that often occur in process improvement programs, where this process enhancement work does not benefit the business as a whole:
IEE addresses the business scorecard and process improvement issues described in a one-minute video:
More Information on 6 Sigma and how it can be Enhanced
For additional information about six sigma and how it can be enhanced see:
- 6 sigma and how it can be enhanced: IEE Articles, Videos, Books
- Using what is SS and how it can be enhanced techniques to address the challenges of executives
- Integration of transitioning historical dashboard reporting techniques to predictive reports (10 illustrations) using SS and how it can be enhanced techniques
- How SS can be enhanced techniques within an enhanced business management system
- Integrating business process management (BPM) with six sigma and how it can be enhanced techniques
Contact Us to set up a time to discuss with Forrest Breyfogle how your organization might gain much from an Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) Business Process Management System and its enhanced process improvement implementation.