The Customer, Six Sigma Style

The Strategy of Six Sigma

In Six Sigma, a strategy is created for a tactic to work. Executing a strategy often begins with management, which unto itself is a strategic weapon of sorts.

However, many organizations never felt that management itself had to change in any way. In fact, when experts in the field would analyze failure in an organization’s effort to improve quality, lack of management support and encouragement was one of the top reasons. This shifted with the implementation of Six Sigma practices, and management became a major instrument of change for the organization.

In the Customer Hot Seat

After reviewing current reports, and having brainstorming sessions, management will identify what key processes are involved in running their organization.

Then management will assign process ownership to each of the key processes in the organization. This is a sort of “mini-boss” to that assigned process. It is their responsibility to get measurements of effectiveness and efficiency for the process they “own,” so to speak.

The process owner also becomes the “customer” to the preceding process. So, let’s take the example of a fast food restaurant chain, and their key process of food preparation.

The food preparation process owner is the customer of the food ordering process, so each process owner becomes the customer to their supplier, creating a link. This is done for every key process in the company.

Creating this chain of customers and suppliers within the company’s key processes makes the organization high performing, since one process is dependent on the other. Since all key processes have customers, and those customers have requirements that have to be met, it becomes easier to see what is working and what isn’t.

Here’s a simple example: if you remember back in your first algebra class, your teacher wanted to see each step of your equation. So, even if you got the correct answer, she would mark down for a step that wasn’t done right. Folks, that’s an example of a Six Sigma concept at work.

A Little Six Sigma History

This concept follows some of the practices first coined by Dr. Mikel Harry, often referred to as the “godfather” of Six Sigma. He was a trained engineer who knew statistics; he noticed that there was too many variations in the processes within the company, which was neither efficient (took too much time) nor effective (led to poor customer service). This led to Six Sigma, as we know it today.

Six Sigma has saved Fortune 500 companies billions of dollars, by creating a method for a company to be efficient and effective. Six Sigma has inadvertently made billions more by increasing the number of customers; when a company has a great product or service word gets around fast. General Electric was the first to completely implement Six Sigma, and went on to make it the most successful management philosophy in all of history.

Six Sigma works for any size company in any industry and it can do the same for you.
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