Six Sigma Thesis - Six Sigma Works: Fact or Fiction

[tarheel]

Guys, I am working on a thesis proposal and I am considering something like "Six Sigma, Fact or Fiction" I was hoping I could get some real life stories or other material I could use from the users of this forum. I'm sure many of you have success or horror stories and I would appreciate hearing them. thanks. Also, please vote on my poll, I will use it in my paper.

[Wes Bucey]

Originally Posted by tarheel

Guys, I am working on a thesis proposal and I am considering something like "Six Sigma, Fact or Fiction" I was hoping I could get some real life stories or other material I could use from the users of this forum. I'm sure many of you have success or horror stories and I would appreciate hearing them. thanks. Also, please vote on my poll, I will use it in my paper.

I'm sorry - can't vote in this poll because we have never FORMALLY instituted a 6S initiative. For over 30 years, we have used techniques now claimed by 6S folk .

It's a shame the ASQ Forums are so antiquated and therefore unsearchable. There have been some very thoughful statements in the past three or four years about 6S, pro and con. ASQ also has a site (members only, sorry) for 6S at http://www.sixsigmaforum.com/

Bank of America is merging with Fleet Financial. They announced on October 27, 2003, they were going to implement 6S in working through any "kinks" in the merger.

[Sam]

Unable to vote. Have not used or considered a 6S program.

[Mike S.]

Dotto what Sam said. Sometimes all you need is a screwdriver, but I guess sometimes you need a hand-operated torque inducing device for slotted, spiral fasteners.

[CarolX]

Originally Posted by Sam

Unable to vote. Have not used or considered a 6S program.

Ditto here

CX

[Bigfoot]

A company I worked for decided to implement a 6 sig program in September 2000 throughout the automotive division. Champions were named, a Master Black Belt hired, BB candidates were selected. Much effort & expense in training the 8 BB candidates. Green belts were selected and trained for each of the 4 locations. Our site had 9 certified GB's, 1 Certified BB, & the MBB. As of April of 2003 there were only 2 GB's still working the program. 1 on their third project of which none had generated a sustainable gain. The other on their 2nd project with no sustained gain. All remaining GB's had left the 6 sig program, all of the projects selected were of marginal success or not successful at all. The MBB had resigned to accept a position as a VP of Ops with another company. The Certified BB was certified even though the projects that were run by him generated no sustained gain, failed to implement adequate controls so all that was acheived was a short term grab of $20k over 3 months. (Low hanging fruit?)However he has been promoted, twice!! Most of the other BB's experiences and results were similar to the above. Currently only 1 BB is still doing the program.

MHO is "Lack of Management Committment will inevitably lead to Lack of Results"

[ben sortin]

Everytime there is management commitment for the use of statistical methods to improve quality, the company improves quality.

[SteelMaiden]

My company started 6 sigma last spring. A big push to get people trained, 2 blackbelts, 4 green. After almost 6 months we started some projects. The projects were all things that have plagued us for quite some time and were being worked on (unorganized) at the time the projects were started. After two months, I cannot see that 6 sigma has done anything for us, other than information is more readily shared. Any improvements that have been made to processes is not because of what we are doing as a 6 sigma team, improvements are coming from things we started before the team was formed. There is a huge push on collecting date, which we should have had anyway, but no actual trials or evaluations have been done. Will we eventually have a better process? Probably, but I don't see that 6 sigma has given us anything that we shouldn't have been doing anyway.

The one thing that irks me most is the fact that management has totally ignored investigating problems and root cause analysis, and now that we have 6 sigma, they think that every thing that happens has to be handled using the 6 sigma methodology. Not to mention that not one of them has any training in 6 sigma.

Oh, well, time to get off the soapbox!