Six Sigma is a highly beneficial methodology for businesses and companies in any industry worldwide. Its purpose is to make a firm more successful by improving productivity and eliminating problems and defects. Although it has many benefits, a company has to have great communication to establish Six Sigma as a culture or strategy. In such a culture, everyone needs to be active and engaged in the processes and success of the company.

Quality and Quantity

Six Sigma requires high quality and quantity communication between employees. To do that, organizations need to fix their issues related to transmitting messages and reports between employee and their managers. Often, workers are overburdened with many e-mail messages, reports, and proposals that lack a key point. This makes it hard for workers to communicate and perform since critical information gets buried under thousands of files.

Implementing Six Sigma will only add more problems to a firm without fixing the communication problems. A company needs to fix those problems first and then implement Six Sigma to highlight the key points. This enables workers to understand and access the information easier and perform and communicate better. 

Companies can adopt communication skills training and protocols to help employees explain and transmit their ideas more efficiently. This training can enable employees to create plans and solutions rather than problems for other employees.

Customer Service 

Identifying the needs and goals of the customers can enable companies to increase their revenues and improve the quality of their products and services. Understanding and identifying them requires good communication between the company and the customer. This way, employees need good communication skills to obtain the information desired from the customer and transmit it further to others at the firm.

A sales team needs to have good communication skills to describe the features and advantages of a certain product or service as well as possible. Doing this can help companies attract more customers. 

Data-Driven Charts and Analysis

Unlike other quality testing initiatives, Six Sigma relies on statistics and mathematics to track progress and improve the processes of a firm. Six Sigma helps companies avoid speculations and useless conversation as everything is data-driven. People who use Six Sigma create graphs and charts to pinpoint problems and illustrate how to solve them. 

Teams need good communication skills to transmit the information well and explain how to implement the solution. This way, everyone aligns with the company’s goal and knows exactly what to do in each situation.

Communication skills training is important in using Six Sigma, as only then can every employee improve themselves and the organization simultaneously. 

For more information on our Lean Six Sigma training classes and services, please visit 6sigma.com.

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The Six Sigma Key Principles

• Focus on customer requirements: This can be an actual customer, or if you are applying the principles to a goal you want to achieve, it can be you as the customer.  For a business customer, you must define what quality is from the point of view of the customer. What is important to your customer when they purchase your product or service?
• Identify and understand how the work gets done: Use a value stream map to identify where waste is happening and help you see how the current process is working. For this, you need to collect specific data. To establish what type of data you will need, define the goal for this data. Once the data is collected, look for ways to improve the current process by finding the root cause of variation or waste.
• Manage, improve and smooth the process flow: Identity value and non-value steps in your processes. This takes constant monitoring since change is an ongoing evolution. Understand the non-value steps which create variation in your business process.
• Reduce waste and focus on value: This continues on what it takes to improve and manage your day-to-day processes. 
• Remove variation to stop defects: Which once again expounds on the improve and smooth the process flow, and reducing waste, thus non-value steps.
• Involve and equip others through collaboration, such as teams in the process.  
• Make the improvement in a systematic way using data.

For more information on our Lean Six Sigma courses and services, please visit 6sigma.com.

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Every team member should be acknowledged for a job well done; this alone lifts morale and creates loyalty. Now add respect to the equation and a monetary increase, and you have loyalty among team members and company culture. Six Sigma believes that employees are valuable assets. This is Six Sigma 101 and should be practiced.

The Happiness Factor Has Great Benefits

• Establishes company loyalty
• Increases productivity by 31%
• Less employee turnover
• Fewer absentees
• Increases the quality of the product, less mistakes, less variations

How is your company doing in the morale department? Use the DMAIC template along with some tools Six Sigma has to offer to find out. 

VOC: This is Voice of Customer but it can be used on your team. Find out what is important to them in the workplace. This can be done in an email survey with a few pertinent questions.

DMAIC 

Here’s a rundown of the DMAIC methodology:

Define Phase: Determine if a morale boost would increase production and decrease costs. This would include baseline measurement of current production at the beginning, and another measurement after one month of implemented change. The end goal is to determine just how important morale affects production.

Measurement: Of time to be taken during day-to-day processes at each step, then after the entire process is done from start to finish. Times should be recorded; use of a process map with times after each step would be helpful. Measurements must be recorded exactly at the same place in time of the process.

Analyze: Compare the baseline measurement before morale boost and then afterward to note the difference. We want to see if the team worked faster and with fewer errors when they are happy.

Improve: If there is a marked improvement in production, then for a period of time incorporate the change and fine-tune those changes for continued improvement.

Control: Maintain the new morale standard so that the team continues to excel but remember to monitor and adjust as needed.

This example was hypothetical, but it can be done and would be interesting if it were done. For more information on our Six Sigma courses and services please visit 6sigma.com. 

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Imagine big businesses such as GE (General Electric) that actually puts the customer first and foremost and makes a profit. In fact, GE takes customer service to a new level by keeping their promise of on-time delivery, great competitive prices, and putting out a great product based on what the customer wants or requires.

Key Core Concepts of Six Sigma

• Critical to Quality: Focuses on the attributes that are most important to the customer. 
• Defect: Failing to deliver what the customer wants.
• Process Capability: What your process can deliver.
• Variation: What the customer sees and feels.

All of the core concepts are very important, but the ones we are highlighting are ones that could be misunderstood, such as Critical to Quality (CTQ) and Variation. Let’s face it, if your customer isn’t getting what is important to him or her in your product or service, why would your customer continue doing business at your establishment? Getting what is important in the product is what your customer sees as quality. 

Variation in the product is never good; consistency is extremely important. Business processes should yield consistent products that are reliable. When Coca-Cola changed their flavor to the New Coke, there was an uproar. The consistent flavor of Coca-Cola that we all love is the reason we buy their product.

In a nutshell, if have adopted Six Sigma as your company culture, then everything that you do within your business should embrace Six Sigma’s customer-focused, data-driven philosophy. Otherwise, you won’t yield the results at its fullest.

For more information on our Six Sigma training courses and services, please visit 6sigma.com. 

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As many of you know, Six Sigma is not a one size fits all tool. But at the same time, it IS a one size fits all tool, meaning the template stays the same but depending on the specific information given and industry as well as the defining terms. This tool and template will transform to exactly what you need.

There are those who are nay-sayers and claim that Six Sigma will ruin any kind of creativity. But how could that be possible? Those of us who have truly studied and use Six Sigma, lean tools and methodologies know that the creativity used correctly in business will show up as a decrease in production costs, an increase in customer satisfaction, and a happier work environment, not to mention improved company loyalty.

So if the day-to-day processes at work have been thought of ahead of time, to eliminate waste which will increase production and reduce production cost, in an environment of united teamwork, a new idea might just evolve for a new product line. Six Sigma would actually promote some creativity within the organization, given that all other processes are working correctly and helping the business run more smoothly. 

Remember, with the day-to-day business processes that it takes to produce your product or service, you don’t want spontaneity, because that would cause variation.  Variation is not what your customers want. If Coca-Cola tasted different each time you had one, how would that work for you?

For more information on our Six Sigma fall training courses and services, please visit 6sigma.com. 

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Our answer? With businesses failing because of the high cost of materials and poor quality management (which can lead to loss of revenue through defects and long production times), there is a good reason why Six Sigma is important for any business in any industry.

The reason businesses fail is because changes occur, and what worked before won’t necessarily work in today’s work climate. These changes occur a little bit at a time; they are almost unnoticeable at first. Then before you know it, you are laying off perfectly great help because you are cutting costs in order to stay afloat. 

By implementing Six Sigma’s DMAIC methodologies, the following can happen:

• Cut process cycle time
• Reduce or eliminate waste 
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Reduce defects
• Eliminate expensive revising

Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control = DMAIC

By using Six Sigma methodologies, you are using the best template for working smart. The Six Sigma tools that are used are easy to understand, and so flexible that any business in any industry can benefit. Other than the cost of training, these tools do not cost any money. Six Sigma’s DMAIC is a great template for working smart; otherwise you’re doing just enough to get through the day.

The Six Sigma certifications, whether it’s White & Yellow Belts, Green Belt, Black Belt or Master Black Belt, is a great journey with the added benefits of having a community of support, as well as a fraternity or network of like-minded business people like yourself.

This all adds up to success in business and a nice network of business connections, not to mention the great knowledge you will have.

For more information on our certification training courses and services, please visit 6sigma.com. 

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While Six Sigma and Lean methodologies are synonymous with large Fortune 100 manufacturers and the like, we’ve also seen these methodologies work in smaller companies and other types of firms, such as professional services, where the genius is just as large as it is in the Fortune 100 companies.

Now we’d like to bring up that professional service firms deal with many industries and have to be well versed on each and every industry that they are working with and along side. In this case, the firm is selling professional services, so the service is the product.

The precision has to be exact so that their client can visualize exactly what the processes have to be even though each situation could be very different in the working world. The genius of using Six Sigma and Lean, as an integral part of the advice given to other companies, is no doubt the reason these companies have achieved such success.

In honor of all these hard-working people, we wish everyone a Happy Labor Day!

The 2018 schedule for 6sigma.com is currently available! For more information on our courses or services please visit 6sigma.com.

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Experience Is (and Isn’t) Everything

Using your Six Sigma project experience, you can demonstrate your capabilities. Simple Six Sigma testing, a staple of preparatory and deployment work, limits your ability to show off your skills. The truth is, every Six Sigma practitioner should be able to perform adequate testing. It isn’t very exceptional. However, practical work allows you to put your knowledge and experience to good use.

Employers, whether clients or your own company, can see the differences you are making. Six Sigma projects also allow you to use your creative abilities in a practical sense. Six Sigma is driven by its capacity to theorize and realize creative solutions to production problems. You can draw on your experience working on previous projects and for different companies. You can show employers what needs to change and how you intend to do it.

It’s also a fact that your level of experience isn’t always relevant. We’ve found that, in a scramble to gain market advantage, many companies are offering Six Sigma training and certification to staff members. If your employer chooses to invest in you like this, they expect you to make good on that investment. Many Six Sigma professionals use their certification in their portfolios and CVs to make a strong impression on employers. But, demonstrating your skills and experience can go a long way to achieving the same effect.

What Employers Want You to Show Them

Businesses seek out qualified candidates to fill Six Sigma positions, but, as they say, qualifications aren’t everything. In this case, your experience is what counts. By showing employers how and why you’re a valuable candidate, you are highly likely to succeed in the Six Sigma profession. There are many ways in which your experience can benefit you:

• Strengthening project teams. The best project leaders leverage their team members’ individual skills for the good of the project. Your experience can make you stand out to employers.

• Your ability to improve customer satisfaction. By getting to the root cause of problems, and driving creative solutions, you also contribute to improving customer satisfaction. Customer experience is critical for businesses. As such, Six Sigma professionals should understand how to leverage their skills to make improvements here.

• You can increase stakeholder confidence. The better equipped you are as a Six Sigma professional also increases confidence in company stakeholders. The more qualified and experienced staff your business takes on shows stakeholders the company is moving in the right direction.

• Improving team performance. Six Sigma exists to create improvements for business processes, and employees are essential elements of how Six Sigma works. Experience directing and managing Six Sigma workers will benefit you on any new projects. It will also show employers that you can be trusted to take the reins.

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