The Six Sigma approach has recently been impulsively introduced by several organizations anticipating phenomenal results such as GE, Motorola, and AlliedSignal. Implementing Six Sigma may seem a promising prospect to many, but it does have its own set of problems and pre-requirements. Six Sigma can’t produce the best outcome for the company if the appropriate conditions aren’t in place.
Hence it is necessary to decide whether the organization is suited for this sophisticated quality control phase before introducing Six Sigma. Some of the critical factors which determine the readiness of your organization for Six Sigma are listed below:
Examine the Organization and its Demand for Quality Improvement
Until you go through more steps, you can reiterate the activities of the company, how it operates in its climate, what its strengths and needs are and how it will be impacted by potential improvements in efficiency to establish a successful action strategy. If this first step is not successful, no amount of know-how on execution can help your company achieve its target.
The shift in quality will not occur unless the forces which cause it are greater than those that resist it. Through raising certain powers, you as a boss have a way of assessing the preparation for transition in your organization.
In the method, there are a few approaches to remember as follows:
- Highlight the organization’s issues
- Finding evidence of apparent flaws and complaints from repeated customers
- Calculate the financial benefits from flaw-reduction
- Quantify staff dissatisfaction with the procedure underway
- Render freely available information
- Explain the preparations for modifications and quality standards thoroughly
- Making sure plans cover end consumer and industry incentives
- Start tiny and quick
- To determine this, project chartering in the data collection phases will be a supportive resource for you.
Training
There must be at least 1 Green belt, Black belt, and Master black belt in order to introduce Six Sigma. The following functions are:
- Green Belt: Performs the study of Six Sigma development projects and the rest of the work.
- Black Belt: Directs and organizes Six Sigma initiatives, proposes changes and plans to incorporate them.
- Master black belt: gives general guidance, and makes choices on which ventures to follow Six Sigma.
Six Sigma Green belt qualification courses usually take 1 week, while the black belt is around 2 weeks. A Six Sigma project is a project that analyzes and develops a method for producing goods of higher quality.
Alignment with the Project
If the Six Sigma method is introduced and the practitioners are educated, several ideas can then be produced for projects. The count of released projects has less meaning than their bottom-line impact. There are occasions when there is constant work in progress on many incomplete projects. Growing the presence of the Black Belt and Green Belt programs will specifically help to encourage a shift in attitude within the organization if the enterprise were able to steer clear of the pitfalls
When the staff is indifferent to team groups, they will find time management difficult. This leads to an excess of Six Sigma and therefore results in unfulfilled project outcomes. Where the projects are picked without any support from critical stakeholders or any buy-in from the management of the company that impacts the project adversely.
Therefore, it is important to determine how the proposals are selected before initiating Six Sigma. Linking the projects to the main market measures and the metrics is essential. Assignments that tend to be the “Feel good tasks” will contribute to the erosion of Six Sigma, as it does not bring any tangible benefit to a company.
Importance of the Communication Processes
Companies need to maintain consistency in internal correspondence systems that need to communicate the success of Six Sigma initiatives along with the critical outcomes and lessons learned. You should answer or accept a series of questions here, such as:
- How much do different aspects of the business interact with each other?
- With relation to such industry activities, does the organization connect okay?
- Does your single vertical feature in a separate silo within your business
- Does your business have an appropriate platform for broadcasting your good project?
If the organization has an effective internal contact mechanism, it will encourage Six Sigma and also speed up progress by benchmarking and exchanging best practices.
Ensure Management Buy-in
If led from the top down, a move will be necessary to get approval so that adoption will come from the bottom up. If the top management is not joining in and committed to improvement in productivity, nobody can expect the majority of the staff to do so. You should be motivated as part of the process, and given the requisite expertise and skills to take action and develop your professional fields of work. To identify, prioritize, and build the Quality Culture, leadership from the top of the company is required.
Educating, improving awareness, and cultivating constructive participation will be the first step to do. This job includes you getting a thorough knowledge of content principles, leadership abilities, and persuasion techniques.
Business Aptitude
Six Sigma Preparation includes Six Sigma specialists and others to use the unique resources and strategies known to lead to the project’s progress. Employees must be trained to use these methods and techniques in a fashion that fits within the company.
A crucial aspect of Six Sigma Preparation is getting the market aptitude to apply the different Six Sigma methods and strategies to their particular needs or sector. Inside the organization, it is necessary to have a market understanding to make suitable improvements. Understanding the advances that the company would potentially gain is crucial to implementing a good Six Sigma program. This is why having Six Sigma Training as a team within an organization is always favored.
Companies need to understand that delivering Six Sigma in an aggressive spree won’t yield it. Focusing on the considerations mentioned earlier to determine whether an organization is all ready to incorporate Six Sigma and transform operations is necessary to ensure performance.
To learn more about Six Sigma and how you can benefit from this concept, you can consider pursuing some of our popular Six Sigma certification courses.
Popular Six Sigma Certification courses that individuals and enterprise teams can take up are:
