Is Six Sigma Dead? October 2011 Quality Progress Article Headline

BradM

Leader
Admin
Frankly, I was very surprised to see Quality Progress publish an article with such a blunt title. The link is probably for ASQ members only; not sure:

http://asq.org/quality-progress/2011/10/six-sigma/is-six-sigma-dead.html

From the beginning of the article:

There are reports from the field about the death of Six Sigma. The word is that it has been overused, has not brought its expected benefits and that newer methods, such as the theory of constraints and systems thinking, are replacing it.

Ok. Fair enough. Is this the case for the entire population, or just selected instances? Can we make such assertions about the entire Six Sigma discipline? Is Six Sigma failed from the start?

A 2007 study from the consulting firm QualPro showed that 53 of 58 large companies that use Six Sigma have trailed the S&P 500 since they implemented it.

Not sure about the cause/effect here. Just because the companies are lagging the S&P 500, I would not entirely attribute that to Six Sigma (or lack thereof). However, it could be stated that an organization who is supposedly saving money with Six Sigma, could at least keep up with industry performance.

This interested me:

Incorrect accounting methods. Most companies also suffer from using the wrong measures to determine Six Sigma results. Activity-based costing (ABC) and resource-consumption accounting (RCA) practices do not lend themselves to determining the value of a particular activity or resource to the revenue stream or customer satisfaction

While I agree that is a concern, it does sound a bit like a cop out. The quality industry suffers from this same issue. Here at the Cove, a day doesn't go by without a thread about determining the value of quality, measuring performance, etc.

If Six Sigma is eliminating waste and increasing efficiency, would that not be fairly easily estimated? If ABC Costing is being implemented, a successful SS project should be able to estimate the Activity Costs/ Activity, or both to show a cost reduction. Or... are Six Sigma projects really creating cost savings, from the perspective of the entire organization?

I guess I'm just asking if the author's take on SS is accurate, if the couple of mentioned issues are legitimate issues, and is SS worth saving?
 
K

Ka Pilo

Re: Is Six Sigma Dead?

Speaking purely as a six sigma observer rather than an implementer it seems to me that Six Sigma is now marginalised. Although this is not necessarily saying that ISO will be a proportional winner. I have a great respect for Six Sigma as a stand-alone solution for variation and defect reduction.
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Leader
Admin
To put it metaphorically, Six Sigma needs good soil, just as a flowering bush does. Stick it in sand with no nutrients to draw from (with poor resources and a weak strategic implementation but a lot of expectations from management) and one may think the thing is a dud, or that entire species of plant is no good. The less management understands how to properly support a robust system, the more disappointed they will be and inclined to think Six Sigma is itself a waste of time, and the less likely they'll understand even it someone tries to explain it to them.

Let's use some perspective here and harken back to the very early days. Motorola implemented the Shainin methods on a grand scale, applied them in a Total Quality system, then applied for and won the Baldrige Award based on their fabulous results. What came next was a bit of sleight of hand. When asked to share their success story (Baldrige winners are supposed to serve as examples and mentors) they picked and chose from the tool sets, then packaged and presented the resulting product as Six Sigma.

And that's when it started to unravel. Six Sigma is NOT Total Quality and has, since that time, been mistakened for a quality system to the point that Quality Managers get hired for their roles solely on the basis of Black Belt certification (I've known two). When they fail for whatever reason, people point to Six Sigma as a failure.

I never expected to be defending Six Sigma this way, but there you have it. We can move my remark to the controversial forum if you think we should.
 

Miner

Forum Moderator
Leader
Admin
As Mark Twain supposedly said: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated".

I would agree that many companies that dove into Six Sigma as the "cure for whatever ails ya" have had a high percentage of failures after picking the low hanging fruit. I would disagree that SS is dead. Companies that recognize that SS is not a cure all, but has its place to help solve complex problems are still in it for the long haul. I would argue that most companies that failed at SS probably failed at all of the other panaceas that they dove into, and will continue to do so in the future.

Regarding the survey, why are they quoting a 4 year old survey? Why not something more recent? It may be that the companies that lag in the S&P have a greater need for SS, and the ones leading do not feel they need it.

There are nuggets of truth in the rest of the article, but I have found that financial people can be pretty good at uncovering cost savings when they want to be. My company has been into SS for approximately seven years. While the implementation could have been better, it has continually improved over time. A key to success is to have active champions that select the right projects for the practitioners to work. We are continuing to generate hard savings, and that has kept management attention. It has not stifled creativity because we teach innovation tools as part of our Design for Six Sigma curriculum, and do not use SS where it is inappropriate.

The key thing for all to remember is that SS is not the only answer. It is one answer. Other approaches such as Lean, Theory of Constraints (which is as old as SS, not a new tool), Shainin are also good tools. A wise company can incorporate many of these approaches and use the most appropriate to fit the need, not "one size fits all".
 
K

kgott

I agree withyou here Jennifer. If we go back to Deming’s 7 sins, these problems are far too prevalent in western management.
· Reliance on quality control departments to solve problems
· False starts
· Inadequate training
· Expectation of Instant Results. ( I know it’s not a sin but for the purpose of my point it can be included here)

From what I have read on the subject it seems that approaches to new initiatives are an all or nothing situation. What’s happening with six sigma is the same with what happened with TQM. According to some quality people and many managers TQM did not work and six sigma doesn’t work either.

One could ask is the problem with TQM, Kaizan, Kanban, Six Sigma, etc etc or, is does the problem lie with management being guilty of Deming’s issues as listed above?

Remember a bloke called Steven Covey with his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? presumably his ideas didn’t work either, I haven’t heard his name mentioned since his book was published.
Perhaps someone should tell business leaders that a poor tradesman blames his tools. Perhaps also someone should ask business leaders what, in their view does work? Get the whip out again?
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Leader
Admin
I agree withyou here Jennifer. If we go back to Deming’s 7 sins, these problems are far too prevalent in western management.
· Reliance on quality control departments to solve problems
· False starts
· Inadequate training
· Expectation of Instant Results. ( I know it’s not a sin but for the purpose of my point it can be included here)

From what I have read on the subject it seems that approaches to new initiatives are an all or nothing situation. What’s happening with six sigma is the same with what happened with TQM. According to some quality people and many managers TQM did not work and six sigma doesn’t work either.

One could ask is the problem with TQM, Kaizan, Kanban, Six Sigma, etc etc or, is does the problem lie with management being guilty of Deming’s issues as listed above?

Remember a bloke called Steven Covey with his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? presumably his ideas didn’t work either, I haven’t heard his name mentioned since his book was published.
Perhaps someone should tell business leaders that a poor tradesman blames his tools. Perhaps also someone should ask business leaders what, in their view does work? Get the whip out again?
I dare not ask my top managers what works in their view. Some things are better left unsaid. It's enough that we've halved our QA department (along with the rest of the site's work force) and I can't get an answer when I wonder who is responsible for our SPC, MSA and FMEA programs now that our TS audit is coming up next week.

If I go farther I may say something ugly. But I want to end this day on a good note and a positive feeling; after all, I fixed my boss's Calibration web site today and installed a web form so in-house calibration records could be automatically sent to the calibration supplier - and he doesn't have to handle all that email traffic now that we have downsized out Calibration Technician. But oh, we're going to save so much money! :singtome:
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Leader
Admin
Now that you've got your ASQ Six Sigma certification you were able to accomplish this tremendous cost saving activity. Proof positive that Six Sigma is alive and well! :notme: :popcorn:
Ha, my tremendous cost saving activity (which I wrote up for my project) was reworking the Document Control process after they downsized the Admin and gave it to me along with auditing four systems (they since gave me a 5th one). Calibration is the one they gave to my boss... he could very well write that up but I do not think he has the metrics down.
 
Top Bottom