Six Sigma contributes to the success of a business that implements its strategies. Six Sigma concept has taken the world by storm and mastering it could propel your business performance to the top. Its principles are designed to solve any hurdle that you might face in business. The core concepts of Six Sigma focus on leveraging data and facts to excel the performance of businesses and make them profitable for the years to come.
If you are planning to get your employees certified for Six Sigma, then let's get you familiar with the key concepts of Six Sigma that make a difference in the success of a business:
The process control is the vital Six Sigma concept that helps in the standardization of the operations. The end goal of the process control is to sustain the improvements made in operations. It solely focuses on the product's CTQ to achieve the stable functioning of the operations. Its aim is to prevent the error that creates nuances in operations. Long-term quality service could be achieved by implementing process control in the system.
A defect is a countable characteristic of a product/service that fails to fulfill the needs of a client. This is where Six Sigma strategies help by identifying and eliminating the defects from the product or service. Eventually, it saves time that's get wasted on rectifying defects and helps contribute to a defect-free service/product that meets the clients' expectations.
The CTQ works the way up to identify those issues that affect the end quality of the product/service. These elements directly impact the customer's purchasing decision. For instance, if a car manufacturer that sells quality cars but at a low price ends up going out of stock for a period of time, the potential customers might turn to its competitors that sell quality but at a higher price to fulfill their demand. Six Sigma strategies identify these factors and improve them.
Variation is defined as a gap between the final and expected outcome. Though practically it’s almost impossible to produce the output with zero variation, still, it should stay in the permissible limits. The Six Sigma principles help control variation to a point by making key changes required in man, material and machine to produce the output that doesn’t affect the client’s critical to quality requirements.
The DMADV concept focuses on designing new processes rather than improving the existing ones. It helps in complete redesigning of the product or service that’s driven on customers critical to quality.
The Final Thoughts
Six Sigma paves the way to achieve the highest output by using state-of-the-art Six Sigma concept. At the end of the day, all products/services need to meet customers' requirements for their existence in the market. With its key concepts, Six Sigma helps these products/services achieve the CTQ demanded by a customer.If you want your employees to be skilled and produce the quality that exceeds the clients' expectations, arranging for the Six Sigma training could work wonders for your success.
Searching for an online institute that could help your employees gets hold of the Six Sigma concept? At SKIL, we have the best Six Sigma certified trainers to help your employees in a better way.
Want your employees to get hold of Six Sigma concept and acquire Six Sigma certification? Read the key concepts of Six Sigma that helps you gain traction in business if your employees master them all. Visit SKIL to know more about Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Six Sigma Certification, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Lean Certification, Project Management etc.
Prelude: Let’s learn about Lean’s 5S principles for your workplace organisation.
There are files all over your desk, there are consignments waiting to be finished and you’re yet to assign responsibilities to your team. It’s an absolute mess!
Does this seem like a familiar situation? Then you’ve come to the right place. Allow us to demonstrate how Lean 5S principles could be used to make your life at office much better!
The 5S’s stands for –
These 5 phases of the 5S principles can dramatically change the decorum of your workspace. Let’s find out how!
“Sort in and sort out,
When in doubt, move it out”
This phase is concerned with identifying needed and un-needed items at your workspace. Firstly, you need to identify area and team members to implement 5S. Asses your present condition, take pictures and prepare a “as is” layout. Assign a red area for all the un-needed items, attach red tags and move them to the red area.
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“A place for everything needed,
And everything needed in its place”
This phase would involve brainstorming with your teammates and deciding on a work flow between steps. Re-design the layout if necessary. Create a clear picture of the Aisles, material storage, work stations, Sign boards, Labels, SOP/WI.
“Cleaning with meaning”
Brainstorm with your teamto discover best ways to maintain the workplace clean and shining. Prepare a shinecalendar- How to clean SOP’s. Shine calendar should elaborate – What, Who, When. Finally, prepare visual cleaning SOP’s.
(Download the Productivity Excel sheet to keep a tab of the process)
“What systems do we need to maintain first three S’s?”
When the first three S’s are implemented at your workplace, the next step is to develop a standard and a schedule for the whole organization. Visually display 5S’ maintenance standards and make it an integral part of the company culture.
Would Lean knowledge and Certification help us in this process?
“System/policies to sustain ‘5S’ culture”
The most important step of the 5S principle is to sustain the developed standards. In order to do this, you need to align 5S principles to the company’s policy, vision and mission. Train and engage everyone on applying 5S concepts. Develop and implement 5S RACI. The final step would involve conducting cross functional audits. Identifying and overcoming gaps continuously.
Applying these 5S principles would ensure that your workspace is Lean and clean!
Do you think Six Sigma tools could help in this process?
Let’s Find Out - Six Sigma Certification | Lean Six Sigma Black Belt | Lean Six Sigma Green Belt | Lean Certification | Project Management
After exploring the Six Sigma measures in HR (link), today we’ll be looking at a tool that’ll resolve your problem if you’re spooked out during a recruitment process. SIPOC!
It stands for –
S – Supplier
I – Input
P – Process
O – Output
C – Customer
SIPOC is a high level process flow diagram in Six Sigma parlance, which helps you to identify key input, outputs, suppliers and customers to the process in scope. It is a spook proof formula in HR used to identify key members who should participate in the problem solving efforts.
Consider an example, where a HR manager is asked to handle the recruitment process in a company. He would have to follow the below mentioned steps to ensure that his HR team handles the process smoothly –
Step. 1 – Identify the new hire and the budget.
Step. 2 – Schedule and obtain approvals.
Step. 3 – Execute the schedules and coordinate.
Step. 4 – Get feedback, evaluations and approvals.
Step. 5 – Go live with the plan.
(Do you think he needs a SWOT analysis?)
The major problem with the plan is that the HR team doesn’t really have a clear picture of the input, inventory, personnel and the processes involved. This is where SIPOC comes extremely handy! It provides a brief description of the suppliers, inventories, internal inputs processes involved, output, internal and external customers.
The following SIPOC diagram was used by the HR manager which helped them identify and define their problem. The manger went on to use Six Sigma principles and a DMAIC approach which helped him and his team to ensure that the recruitment process was conducted with great efficiency.
Did Lean Six Sigma knowledge help the HR manager? Find out!
The next problem was the presence of various quality issues within the team. The HR manager was puzzled!Find out how Lean Six Sigma expert Prof. SK came to the HR manager’s rescue. What tools did they use to eliminate the problem? (Link 7 QC tools)
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When Sreenath’s HR team was asked to monitor recruitment processes and attrition in his company, they would try to manually assess each process through methods which can rather be considered as out dated. He was petrified with the results and called for a team hurdle. Under such circumstances, his team suggested him to call in their friendly neighborhood Prof. SK.
Lean Six Sigma expert Prof. SK was invited to their office and was served a cup of filter coffee from the local canteen. He realized that the quality of the coffee was extremely bad. While, trying to control his temper and moving towards trashing the coffee, he came to a startling realization! Quality and control! They could use the7 Quality Control tools which would cater to every process in their firm. He primarily assessed each process –
Based on the trends in attrition, taking into account areas such as Years of experience, whether desired raise was given or not, Background qualification, Behavioural background and Relationship with manager, Prof. SK prepared a Checksheet. A classic tool which is commonly used for data collection. The checksheet would give them a better picture of reasons for attrition.
Click here to learn how Prof. SK implements Lean and management tools
Luckily, the Histogram is used for distribution analysis. It came to their aid as it provided an excellent solution to analyze the recruitment time for a L3 level employee on a scale of number of days.
While explaining the Pareto principle, he showed them how they could categorize the missing information into particular fields and identify the fields which are significant contributors.
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A Scatter Diagram was used, which shows us whether there is a relationship between two variables. Performance on a scale of 5 was plotted on the Y-axis, years of experience was plotted on the X-axis.
Based on the diagram it was established that there wasn’t much evidence to establish a relationship between performance and experience.
Data was collected and plotted for the last 100 candidates processed.
(Want to learn how to apply Lean Six Sigma in Human Resource Department?)
After a hard day’s work, Sreenath and team decided to show their appreciation to Prof. SK for his timely wisdom by treating him to a cup of coffee in Star Bucks, which he seemed to have relished with a broad smile and a stroke of cream on his mustache!
Want to be certified in Lean and Six Sigma?
Follow This Guide - Six Sigma Certification | Lean Six Sigma Black Belt | Lean Six Sigma Green Belt | Lean Certification | Project Management