Dec 9 2011

Six Sigma R.I.P.

If you google Six Sigma, you get the impression that it is a going concern, with all sorts of organizations offering training and consulting on how to implement it. If you dig just a bit deeper, you run into a Business Week article from June 11, 2007 entitled Six Sigma: So Yesterday? It explained how the best known Six Sigma icons, like GE, 3M, Home Depot, or Motorola were “dialing it back.” Whatever this may mean, it is difficult to imagine ambitious employees in a company showing enthusiasm for a program that is being “dialed back.”

The same article attributes the following statement to GE’s former CEO Jack Welch about Six Sigma: “Even if the concept is applied in areas where perhaps it shouldn’t be, it’ll be worth it in the long run.” It makes you wonder how he would have liked to work in such an area, with management knowingly pressuring him to implement an irrelevant method.

Now that the Six Sigma craze is over, there is no much merit in criticizing it. Ever since I was first exposed to it in the 1990s, I have perceived it as a welcome update of the now 90-year-old tools of Statistical Process Control (SPC), useful in industries where, if your process is mature, your product is obsolete. This applies in semiconductors and other high-technology manufacturing sectors, but not in mature sectors like automotive.

It never struck me as having the potential to be a revolution in business or comparable in scope and impact to Lean. Saying so 10 years ago made many people angry but I did worse: I put in writing, in an article entitled Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing that was published by the SME in a Six Sigma newsletter in July, 2002.

If you google Motorola +Six-Sigma, you learn that Motorola no longer teaches Six Sigma business improvement. Given that Motorola is where Six Sigma was invented, the equivalent would be for Toyota to dump Lean. Maybe it is time to dial down the Six Sigma training programs.

By Michel Baudin • Management, Technology • 40 • Tags: Lean, Management, Quality, Six Sigma

40 Comments

Patrick Maes
December 9, 2011 @ 2:01 am

Michel, I think you are spot on. I have been in management consulting for more than 20 years and I have, as you, all sorts of fads and fashions seen come and go: Total Quality, ISO, Kaizen, Process Reengineering, Theory of Constraints, Six Sigma, Lean… (all with capitals you see, because of the life or death importance ;-))
Each and everyone of them valid in their own right, but at times put in the spotlight in an isolated way. At the end of the day, they are all tools and methodologies to be used by management to get the best possible results. I have never heard of 1 miracle cure for every disease in a body. I guess the same goes for organisations – I tend to attach more value to the quality and wisdom of management on all levels of the organisations to identify (with the help of the appropriate approach or tools) either potential improvements or failures in system or process and then take the right preventive or corrective action. If staff, supervisors, managers and executives don’t share the passion to do well and do better, then the rest is just a toolbox with rusty hammers and screwdrivers…

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Robert H Meek JR
December 9, 2011 @ 5:48 am

Interesting. At the age of 66 I just got black belt certified, because here in NC 90% of the job ads I see want you to be a black belt.

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- Bill
  December 9, 2011 @ 6:35 am
  
  Robert,
  
  I feel your pain. I went back to school and got my MBA, was under the assumption that it would lead to bigger, better opportunities. (Education is never a bad thing), but it took me a long time to find a “slightly” better job than I had before getting my MBA. Plant closed due to economy,… I’m not looking to sharp with my expensive MBA, 3.7 GPA, 16 years experience in 3 different industries, many success stories of providing value to employers…. and unemployed for 20 months.
  
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Dave Patrishkoff
December 9, 2011 @ 7:04 am

I was using Six Sigma tools and techniques to solve several “mission impossible” problems in my early career and will continue doing that even if the name falls out of favor. The trick is to know what tool to use when and not try to sell Six Sigma, Lean, TRIZ or anything else as a solution for everything. My companies I worked for and my clients from over 55 different industries benefited greatly and still do benefit from what is now claimed to be “RIP”.

One of my blog posts tries to show that there are different tools to be used for different problems (http://www.leansixsigmaandbeyond.com/) and sometimes you have to blend those tools in special ways. I think it is short-sighted to say: “Let’s use Six Sigma instead of Lean or TRIZ or XYZ” or vice versa. The proper approach is to use the right techniques at the right time that are matched up correctly against the problem to be solved.

So let’s envision what will happen if we kill Six Sigma: We all go back to the popular Whack-A-Mole (WAM) problem solving technique or the other very popular GOFAAT method (Guessing One Factor At A Time), which is so common in business. I don’t think so! Those are bad options.

When my clients call me in for help because they are up a creek and their best people do not know what to do, I gather the data and information that everyone has ignored and analyze it in unique ways. You can call that analysis whatever you want but it gets the job done. The statistical techniques imbedded in Six Sigma will never die. What might change over time are better ways to use some of the imbedded analysis techniques to address enterprise-wide problems and not just individual problems.

It is scary if anyone finds joy in a possibility that something like “Six Sigma” could die. Does that mean the death to making decisions with data and accurate information?

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dbainc
December 9, 2011 @ 7:57 am

It is my understanding that Motorola stopped offering six sigma training because the process got too complicated. I facilitate a two day course on sis sigma for HR professionals and one of the points that is stressed is that in today’s marketplace you need to change your direction. we advocate first that the methodology is based not strictly on results but on the problem solving process. Many corporate executives use the problem solving tools but just don’t realize they are part of the Six Sigma process. Second, taking a page from the book Velocity we also advocate a combination of TOC, Lean and Six Sigma. Michael George in his book Lean Six Sigma for Service makes a strong point that Lean and Six Sigma are greater than the wholes of their individual parts.
So based on my feedback from the seminars, Six Sigma is not in a RIP mode, but rather has taken on a different focus since its origination. I see some really exciting things going on in the HR arena in regards to the methodology and more organiations see the correct road I think you will see more usage in the workplace.

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Michel Baudin
December 9, 2011 @ 9:10 am

Could you elaborate on the Six Sigma tools, methodology and problem-solving process you apply to HR?

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R Kester
December 12, 2011 @ 9:26 am

As stated above, continuous improvement is a core human trait. The methods, tools and ways used will be ever improving as well. Appropriately applied the “six sigma” tools help people manage the work of improvement. As for good judgement and solid application of the tools, that is more elusive.

Certification is the accepted way to communicate to others that you have successfully studied and can apply the concepts and tools of your profession (CPA, MD, RN, PE, etc.). Six Sigma credentials are the best we have thus far for demonstrating that an individual is “Continuous Improvement” capable and until a better system is available it will remain. Strongly recommend certification and continuous learning for anyone wanting employment.

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- Michel Baudin
  December 13, 2011 @ 11:41 am
  
  You are one step away from disqualifying any non-black-belt as an expert in continuous improvement. The two best continuous improvement coaches I know, however, are Hormoz Mogarei and Kevin Hop. They have learned it respectively from Toyota and Honda, and have had nothing to do with Six Sigma.
  
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Vincent Marchese
December 13, 2011 @ 7:36 am

If we look at all the programs that have been used in business over the years, there remains one single constant; Continuous Improvement. Six Sigma and all the other initiatives focus on examining the process and finding ways to improve it. So if we examine Six Sigma processes with Six Sigma tools, we are able to find inefficiencies and ways to improve them. Six Sigma is not in RIP mode, instead I see it as evolving as with every thing in life. It is a tool /process that can and should be used on itself to improve efficiencies and evolve to a sharper more accurate tool that is relevent to what business has become today. Do you look the same as you did 20 years ago? Are you better than what you were 20 years ago? I’m sure you have passed on skills and knowledge to someone, so when you’re gone, you’re not really gone, neither is Six Sigma.

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Mike Clayton
December 14, 2011 @ 9:26 pm

Six Sigma methods are better than the old TQM methods, and now that that has been proven, the hype is no longer necessary.
Lean methods are better than the old JIT methods, so same story.
TOC methods are better than simple Pareto, so same story.
Once the hype is “downsized” and the training becomes mostly free or inexpensive, then those ideas have WON. That does not make the ideas RIP, just the over-priced training companies and universities that sell certifications that cost too much.
So if you are just using this term to get responses, fine.
But the software support for the Six Sigma tools, including Simulation, Optimal DOE, and Relibility Modeling has improved greatly in past 10 years, so that the labels of the tools are more important than the label for the “methodology.”
All of these “methodologies” require some type of Project Management (something that TQM and JIT people ignored often to their peril.) So the DMAIC and the Kaizen Blitz standardized PM approaches did help to get teams better organized. And hiring professional statisticians did NOT pay off as well as hiring Black Belt engineers who came form the industry being served, in my experience of 52 years.
Nor did hiring Lean trainers from outside of the industry being served work as well as using Lean Senai’s from that industry, with the domain knowledge as well as the Lean ideas.

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Michel Baudin
December 15, 2011 @ 9:37 am

I wish I could agree wholeheartedly that all the more recent labels represent progress.
Could you say more about the improvement in software support? Are you talking about Minitab being today more powerful than 10 years ago, or about different tools? If so, what are they?
In the way I learned to implement Lean, the content of each project drives the way it is managed. If all your projects are organized as Kaizen Blitzes, you are restricting project scope to what can be done through Kaizen Blitzes. An implementation of Lean involves both projects that are too small for a Kaizen Blitz — like changing the position of a tool on an assembly work station — and too big — like changing the wage system. What you need is an array of approaches to project management, as well as overall program management.

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Christy Hollen
December 30, 2011 @ 6:04 pm

Christy Hollen made the following comment in the Continuous Improvement, Six Sigma, & Lean Group on LinkedIn:

Motorola may have stopped teaching “Six Sigma business improvement”, but they have not abandoned Six Sigma by any stretch.

Here is an article I found on this subject: http://www.supplychaindigital.com/procurement/motorolas-six-sigma-journey-in-pursuit-of-perfection

Here is a quote from the article:

“With that change, the Six Sigma program at Motorola Mobility transformed from a centralized effort with full-time resources to a grassroots effort where individuals use the methodology to solve everyday problems in their functional areas. Fostered by consistent and relevant training, and coupled with mentoring, these individuals have been able to use a range of techniques – from simple graphical tools to more complex analyses.”

Actually, I agree with this methodology, and is how I try to pursue Six Sigma initiatives where I work.

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- James Thornton
  December 30, 2011 @ 6:30 pm
  
  James Thornton made the following reply in the Continuous Improvement, Six Sigma, & Lean Group on LinkedIn:
  
  Christy – I like your response. The Six Sigma tools and methodology was around a long time before GE came along and repackaged them along with the management “belt” labels. Six Sigma will continue to be relevant even if it isn’t a “sexy” as Lean is now. Mainstream western business management has always had a “fad” focus on a different tool every few years. Their focus doesn’t take away from the value of the tool even if it may take away from the economy of those in the business of training in those tools.
  
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- Michel Baudin
  December 30, 2011 @ 6:33 pm
  
  Thanks for pointing out the article. What had originally caught my interest in Six Sigma is that it had some non-trivial technical content, centered on statistical design of experiments. I am saying this based on a 1990 Six Sigma training manual from Motorola University.
  
  It really made sense to attack the process capability issues of the high technology of the 1990s with more than the SPC tools from the 1920s, that were designed to work around the limitations of paper spreadsheets and slide rules.
  
  Ashton Kutcher looks awfully young in the video attached to the article. Other than that, I noticed the following two statements:
  
  “The program further evolved in 2005 when we added Lean concepts to the traditional Six Sigma framework…” What I have seen of “Lean Six Sigma” efforts in terms of content is 99% Lean, with the belt system added.
  
  “An example of this recently occurred when a supplier requested to increase the tolerance range for a component in order to meet the capability requirements (Cp/Cpk). The development engineer, who is Green Belt certified, pulled from her Six Sigma experience to examine the data using simple histograms and normal probability plots.” That is an example of Six Sigma? Or of the old SPC?
  
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  - Christy Hollen
    December 30, 2011 @ 6:35 pm
    
    Christy Hollen replied as follows in the Continuous Improvement, Six Sigma, & Lean Group on LinkedIn:
    
    So are you differentiating Lean Six Sigma and Six Sigma (generally) as mutually exclusive? What I took out of the article was that Motorola was focused on operational Six Sigma initiatives until they changed their focus to also include what I would call more grassroots process improvement. Lean could be part of that initiative, as could Six Sigma (if you are differentiating the two).
    Quite frankly, in my opinion, to only focus Six Sigma at the operational/management level is a failure in implementation. Six Sigma, again, in my opinion, to really be effective must be cultural from top to bottom.
- Tariq Zaman
  December 30, 2011 @ 6:39 pm
  
  Tariq Zaman replied as follows in the Continuous Improvement, Six Sigma, & Lean Group on LinkedIn:
  
  Some very valuable points raised from Christy. I’ve use lean six sigma in several organizations to implement change. As mentioned, top to bottom is very important but sometimes bottom up is also very powerful.
  Consider an organization without a lean six sigma vision (and there are plenty still without a consolidated vision). Now think of convincing senior people that they need a vision. Well by captivating the energy at grass roots it can be a very powerful tool to demonstrate the power of lean six sigma to create a vision which is aligned to use management tools to change.
  
  I guess what the message I’m trying to create is that there are varying degrees of vision, learning and change – degrees of freedom to become more competitive.
  
  I’ve enjoyed the thread so far. Looking forward to more comments.
  
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Marcel Power
December 30, 2011 @ 6:42 pm

Marcel Power made the following comment in the Continuous Improvement, Six Sigma, & Lean Group on LinkedIn:

Michel you stated “Given that Motorola is where Six Sigma was invented, the equivalent would be for Toyota to dump Lean.”

Given Toyota’s quality issues a while back, it appears that they may have dumped Lean in their pursuit of being bigger than GM!

Good argument, by the way.

r/
Marcel (from Boeing, way back when)

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Jim Dent
December 30, 2011 @ 6:44 pm

Jim Dent made the following comment in the Continuous Improvement, Six Sigma, & Lean Group on LinkedIn:

I was at Motorola from 1980 to 1985 when I was part of the creation of Lean 10X and Six Sigma was getting started. Total quality was the basis for 6-Sigma. Lean 10X was developed a methodology to eliminate waste an concentrate on standard work. 6-Sigma was developed as a tool to find out what can be improved in a process and implement those improvements. 6-Sigma was most applicable when the root cause of a problem was not known and the solution would be towards the complex side.

Mature companies have abandoned the “terms” Lean and/or 6-Sigma because these are now imbedded in the company culture; and are no longer a special process, but a regular way of working.

When Toyota had their big problem with the claimed accelerator problem; Ford and GM both had bigger defects/recalls occurring; but the US press down played these and highlighted the Toyota problems because it was more sensational and controversial.

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Dirk Janssens
December 30, 2011 @ 6:46 pm

Dirk Janssens made the following comment in the Continuous Improvement, Six Sigma, & Lean Group on LinkedIn:

When the crisis is over, I think lean is already old news.
Technical managers are waiting on SERVICE, because there is no technical people available.
The most company’s in Europe are not fat anylonger, but nog skinny, they have already the illness anorexia.

Financial, production and other kind of managers with no view in the sky has misused lean and six sigma for making more profit and bonus for themselves.

Use the metafoor for sportpeole, fat people and skinny people

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- Christy Hollen
  December 30, 2011 @ 6:48 pm
  
  Christy Hollen replied as follows:
  
  I disagree that lean will become old news.
  
  If a company is to the point of anorexia as you describe, I would categorize them with every other mismanaged company… doomed to fail. Lean is about productivity, but there is still balance.
  
  When the crisis is over, companies will have the ability to grow, and hopefully they will grow with lesson learned. Grow as much as you need to, but don’t get fat again. Companies who are willing to grow smartly will not become an instant victim of another significant downturn. Since they will grow smartly, they will be the most profitable ones and will have longevity in the marketplace.
  
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- Jim Dent
  December 30, 2011 @ 6:49 pm
  
  Jim Dent replied as follows:
  
  I do not see Lean ever going away. I believe it is here for a long time. Many companies fail at Lean for various reasons:
  – They treat it like a “program” not a company culture.
  – They try to copy what was successful at another company; but fail at learning how the other company executed it through cultural change.
  – Their Sr. Mgt has not embraced Lean; they only talk it (because it’s mandated from above), but they don’t walk it.
  – They don’t have the time for their employees to train/work on Lean each week – it will hurt productivity.
  
  Many successful companies don’t have a Lean program:
  – Because Lean is no longer a program, it’s principles are now embedded in the normal work culture.
  – They’re using the Lean principles, but are calling it something else.
  
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Feargal Judge
December 31, 2011 @ 7:45 am

Feargal Judge, in the Lean Business Process discussion group on LinkedIn, commented as follows:

I’ve always believed that six sigma is a bolt-on tool to be used in high volume mechanised industries ONLY after Lean practices have been embedded into an organisation, It is not really successful when used independently nor is it practical in manual operator-controlled process.

Workplace organisation and design through e.g. 5S, poke yoke etc. allied with operator self quality control will reap the most benefits for manual operations. There must also be a rapid and accurate performance feedback system so that the operators know as quickly as possible if there is a drift from expected output and quality standards.

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Marek Kozlowski
January 2, 2012 @ 11:39 am

Comment in the Lean Six Sigma discussion group on LinkedIn:

Define Six Sigma, if you mean reduction of process variation then it may just change the name but will never die.
It was TQM and now it is Six Sigma,

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Alan Brown
January 2, 2012 @ 11:40 am

Comment in the Lean Six Sigma discussion group on LinkedIn:

Like all methodologies that have developed from Industrial Engineering roots, Six Sigma continues to evolve. (For instance see http://www.supplychaindigital.com/procurement/motorolas-six-sigma-journey-in-pursuit-of-perfection for one recent commentary about SS evolution at Motorola.)

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Theresa Gruenwald
January 2, 2012 @ 11:42 am

Comment in the Lean Six Sigma discussion group on LinkedIn:

Hopefully no one finds joy in the possibility that something like “Six Sigma” could die. Speaking from a historical standpoint, I think the term “Six Sigma” has been around a long time and business leaders who are not LSS savvy, and have seen trends come and go at an alarming rate, are looking for the “next thing”.

I think it is a marketing gimmick to repackage or relabel “Six Sigma” in order to feed off that desire for the “next thing”. Will it work? It is already working (at least to some degree). I’ve seen two consulting groups in the past 18 months that have done just that, and the companies they were courting bought right in to it.

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- Michel Baudin
  January 2, 2012 @ 11:43 am
  
  I learned about it as the achievement of 3.4 defects per million opportunities in production processes, but it seems to have shifted focus from this goal. The success stories are not about quality but about dollar savings, and paint Six Sigma as a cost reduction tool.
  
  Here is a quote from one success story: “Both Six Sigma and Lean are proven concepts and have saved companies billions of dollars,” which drags Lean into the same category, of cost reduction programs.
  
  Did Toyota grow from nothing to the world’s largest car company by reducing costs? Did Wiremold grow 10-fold in a decade by reducing costs? Lean is about simultaneously improving all dimensions of business performance, not cutting costs.
  
  Why don’t the Six Sigma success stories emphasize quality improvement? Normally, you pursue it to make your customers happy so that your business grows, not to cut your costs.
  
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  - Theresa Gruenwald
    January 2, 2012 @ 11:44 am
    
    Comment in the Lean Six Sigma discussion group on LinkedIn:
    
    Michel,
    Good point about cost reduction programs. I think those companies (and individuals for that matter) that lump it in to cost reduction methods have not really embraced the true meaning of LSS.
    
    I venture to guess they have taken the ROI element and put far too much emphasis on it — determining if the cost of using LSS is providing enough cost savings to pay for that investment. BBs are paid well and there are associated costs of implementing solutions, so it makes sense that business excellence leaders are making sure the costs are worth the benefits.
    
    If that is ALL they become focused on, then it turns in to exactly what you’ve described.
    
    Does it mean Six Sigma is dead? No, it means companies and business excellence leaders are cherry picking what elements they want to employ. Technically, it means they aren’t using Six Sigma to the fullest. If anything is dead, it is the integrity of *implementing* Six Sigma, not Six Sigma itself.
    
    The pitfall here is that when business falters because it is focused entirely on cost reduction and not quality or improved customer experience, then Six Sigma gets blamed instead of those that didn’t embrace and deploy Six Sigma appropriately.
Alan Brown
January 2, 2012 @ 11:46 am

Comment in the Lean Six Sigma discussion group on LinkedIn:

I agree…Six Sigma’s death is in the implementation. Most recently, Six Sigma training and Certification programs are including Lean since reduction of waste leads to greater customer satisfaction as well as improvements in the bottom line. In fact, in most organizations who have a highly effective SS program, projects are approved for work based on the project assessment matrix that weights such goals as meeting customer needs, support of the strategic plan, high ROI, reasonable completion time, budget constraints, data availability and other criteria. Note, that the “best” projects likely include achievement of both customer satisfaction and ROI (not strictly “cost reduction”) goals, not just one or the other.

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Cristian Bleotu
January 2, 2012 @ 11:48 am

Comment in the Lean Six Sigma discussion group on LinkedIn:

In line to what have been previously mentioned, we should also considered that a succesful implementation begin by the Top mangement commitment, which usually considered to use Six Sigma due to a)customer pressure (large quality problems) or b)market pressure on price reduction (more often).(many other reason also apply of course)
When it is about a) there is a right focus which finally leads to cost reduction as secondary effects and I would say that there are high chances to be on the right path.
Dealing with b) situation , if starts strictly with costs cutting could easily fail if not considered as primary NVA the COPQ.
It looks like that it is not yet enough understood that reducing first the COPQ, you gain the customer satisfaction and in the same time pure NVA(rework, scrap) reduction (as well as sometime capacity release), therefore cost reduction too with the same efforts.

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Dave Patrishkoff - LSS Master Black Belt
January 2, 2012 @ 11:51 am

Comment in the Lean Six Sigma discussion group on LinkedIn:

These are all great comments you all made. I agree that Six Sigma is often used as the hired gun to reduce costs but it almost always gets those dollars by improving quality by defect reduction and scrap reduction (internal customer satisfaction) and is usually used in less cases to make external customers happy. Of the 1,000+ Six Sigma projects I coached belts on over the past 16+ years, well over 90% of those projects were aimed at making internal customers happy (cost reductions) and less than 10% were directly aimed at making the external customer happy. You can’t blame SS for that; management selects the projects and they want low hanging fruit with high ROIs. They often shy away from certain external customer satisfaction projects because they cannot put a dollar value on a happy customer and the COPQ is too difficult to calculate and justify.

I want to thank MIchel for starting this great discussion. I enjoy reading the feedback on this one.

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Daniel Lang
January 2, 2012 @ 11:53 am

Comment in the Lean Six Sigma discussion group on LinkedIn:

GE is always labeled as one of the greatest successes of SS. How do you respond to the following:

Six Sigma is not for the small guy-businesses of 1000 or less
Interesting article.
http://www.qualitydigest.com/nov01/html/sixsigmaarticle.html

Two facts really popped out at me.
* GE upped their claim of saving $1B through SS.

* GE spent $1B on SS infrastructure.

This is not a very good ROI

.

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Michel Baudin
January 2, 2012 @ 11:54 am

Dave Patrishkoff’s wrote: “They often shy away from certain external customer satisfaction projects because they cannot put a dollar value on a happy customer and the COPQ is too difficult to calculate and justify.”

This has always been the problem with cost-of-quality calculations. It is a textbook case of looking for your car keys next to light rather than where you dropped them. That the direct costs of failure, appraisal and repair do not begin to account for the true cost of quality is obvious from cases like tread separation at Firestone or sticky pedals at Toyota. Accountants may refuse to see it, but CEOs don’t have to put their heads in the sand.
In their business plans, they can and should make assumptions about the impact of quality on sales.

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JC Betancourt
January 2, 2012 @ 2:07 pm

Comment in the Operational Excellence discussion group on LinkedIn:

Thank you for sharing.

Lean focus on eliminating the waste on the processes while 6 Sigma focus on eliminate the variability on the process, which is also considered waste. Therefore, they complement one another.

The pursuit of excellence is being drive by innovation which helps move the companies to the next level, independent of trying to have other companies identity. Each organization has their own identity and can apply the tools needed to growth within their industry.

Toyota and Motorola, etc.. has giving us the tools it is up to us to use them effectively.

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Martin Haack
January 2, 2012 @ 2:10 pm

Comment in the Operational Excellence discussion group on LinkedIn:

Michel, not sure what your question is in regards to the article, but since it mainly refers to the 2007 Businessweek article “Six Sigma: So Yesterday?”
( http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_24/b4038409.htm ), it misses the point, just as the Businessweek article does. If one states that Six Sigma was meant to be “a corporate cure-all”, and that this methodology is in contradiction to innovation and growth, it just shows that he has no clue of what he’s writing about.

In a nutshell, Six Sigma is about improving process performance relative to customer expectations, by following a prescribed continuous improvement approach, with a focus on using meaningful data to get new insights. At no point in the deployment of Six Sigma does the methodology suggest that a company should abandon growth plans or innovations focused on developing and delivering new revenue streams. On the contrary, Six Sigma is an enabler, because it frees up ressources needed to pursue innovation- and growth-initiatives.

And in regards to the topic “Lean vs. Six Sigma”, I violently agree with JC: they complement one another.

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- Terence T. Burton
  January 2, 2012 @ 2:12 pm
  
  Comment in the Operational Excellence discussion group on LinkedIn:
  
  Agree Martin. Any single point improvement methodology is neither all inclusive or all encompassing. There is still an urgent need for Kaizen, Lean, Six Sigma, and other improvement methodologies in this challenging economy. Non of these on their own is a cure-all. They are very complementary and that is why we call it Lean Six Sigma.
  
  Saying goodbye to Six Sigma is a dumb statement. Failure is not Lean’s or Six Sigma’s fault. The real power of Six Sigma is not the statistics but the highly disciplined, structured, data-driven and fact-based approach to improvement. Saying “hello” to a fully integrated approach to improvement is the best way to improve (however still not a cure-all).
  
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Charles Lankford, MBA, CSP
January 2, 2012 @ 2:14 pm

Comment in the Operational Excellence discussion group on LinkedIn:

Well, in some circumstances you cannot apply Six Sigma to your core processes while you can apply Lean nearly in every situation!

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Eric Maass
January 2, 2012 @ 2:23 pm

Comment in the PEX Network & IQPC – Lean Six Sigma & Process Excellence for Continuous Improvement discussion group on LinkedIn:

Michel, you pose an interesting question…let me rephrase it as, “Can SPC become obsolete at an excellent manufacturing facility?”

Shigeo Shingo referred to SPC on output parameters as being something of long-cycle-time feedback mechanism; by contrast, Poka Yoke devices and source inspections / SPC at the sources provided a more immediate feedback mechanism.

This insight resonated with me — if we deeply understood the manufacturing processes, and knew what input or source parameters drove each and every observed and possible failure mode on the outputs, we could install prevention mechanisms (Poka Yoke devices, if you wish) and automated feedback systems on the inputs – and render the use of control charts on the outputs irrelevant.

Another alternative to SPC would be comprehensive, 100% inspection or testing for all outputs of all units, with a high gage capability / Kappa statistics for the measurement and/or inspection systems (that is, low alpha risk, low beta risk). If the final product could thereby be ensured of meeting or exceeding all customer expectations as reflected by carefully developed specification limits and specially crafted, clear inspection criteria, then the use of control charts could be considered irrelevant.

Happy Holidays to you and yours, and thanks again for posing an intriguing question!

Best regards,
Eric

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Chris Gates
January 2, 2012 @ 2:24 pm

Comment in the PEX Network & IQPC – Lean Six Sigma & Process Excellence for Continuous Improvement discussion group on LinkedIn:

Depending on the industry, I think SPC will continue to be useful even when we think we understand the process and think we have controlled the inputs. SPC will either confirm or contradict these beliefs. SPC is also considered one of the ways to challenge the validated status of an operation.

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Lean six sigma the oxymoron | Troy Taylor | LinkedIn | Michel Baudin's Blog
January 30, 2015 @ 9:23 am

[…] Six Sigma R.I.P. […]

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Mikel Harry
May 4, 2015 @ 5:50 pm

Michel, this is a very nice blog article — well written with a lot of appeal. Overall, I would have to say that many of your thoughts and understandings are spot on. However, on the flip side, I take exception with some of your other points-of-view. Nonetheless, all of your points make for great conversation and good material for debate.

By all means, keep up the great blogging.

Mikel J. Harry, Ph.D.
Co-Creator of Six Sigma
National Best Selling Author

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