Don’t make Six Sigma a massive “training” exercise. Six Sigma focuses on real, tangible financial results. You and your staff need to learn how to implement it and get started. You don’t need to send your employees to seminar after seminar to further develop their Six Sigma skills. Of course, they need to know what they’re doing, but once they’re trained as black belts, they’ll know exactly how and what they need to do to get at the money in waste and defects. That’s why you invest the time and money in training them. I’m not saying that people
Hard dollars Savings that are tangible—exact, quantifi- able cost savings, such as
reduced hours, reduced inventory lev- els, etc.
Soft dollars Savings that are intangi- ble—expenses that you avoid, such as not increasing hours, inventory, or physical workspace.
shouldn’t keep their skills current and sharp, just that they have to use what they’ve learned and put the theory into practice.
This is all about getting results in bottom-line profitability.
Don’ttake a “Big Bang” approach to Six Sigma. In other words, don’t train all employees at once to be Six Sigma practitioners.
Surgical strikes with the right people and the right projects are far more effective. Most organizations can’t manage a lot of changes simultaneously or support hordes of black belts or projects. So keep it focused, train selected people to get projects under way, and capture clear gains case by case. As you achieve results, other company divisions can embrace the methodology.
Don’tfocus resources on reworking training material. A big part of implementing Six Sigma is necessarily training. But, although you certainly want to train your people well, particu- larly your black belts, you don’t want to spend excessive time
“tweaking” training materials to fit your exact business model.
You should certainly relate training materials to your business focus, but recognize the overall and adaptable nature of Six Sigma and get busy applying it, not discussing it.
Don’t Tweak the Training
An excessive focus on reworking training information can really hamper a Six Sigma initiative. I recently realized just how much when I partnered with a major manufacturer of aircraft and other transportation equipment to implement Six Sigma.
The company was prepared to launch Six Sigma, the entire staff was ready to get started, and the momentum was strong.Then came the training material. Anxious to be sure that the material tied in with their industry and business, company leaders and managers focused almost exclusively on adjusting the material.Their rationale was that they had to tweak it to understand it better.This sounds logical, but nine months later, they were no further ahead in implementing Six Sigma and realiz- ing the gains. Just think of what they could have accomplished!
Continually reworking your training materials can be as costly as reworking your processes. Keep the focus on getting results.
Don’tlet the controller waffle about your savings calculations.
Controllers play an important role and must be included in your Six Sigma initiative at the outset. They need to know that your executive leadership expects them to cooperate and support your efforts. Controllers who refuse to acknowledge soft vs.
hard dollar savings can really hurt a Six Sigma project. Make sure you and the controller are in agreement on how you define and assign savings to your projects.
Don’tskip steps. It may be tempting to try to speed up a proj- ect by skipping necessary steps in Six Sigma, but it won’t yield the information you need to correct and eliminate the problem in question. Let the data do its job and tell the story—again, we need to stay in the realm of quantifiable facts and not deal in assumptions. You apply statistical measurements and metrics to analyze the issues so that you can prove with data, and not by opinion, why and how you can make lasting changes.
Don’tbe afraid to learn and use statistical tools. You need to understand and use statistical data and respect its value.
Statistics and statistical tools are essential to Six Sigma.
However, Six Sigma is not merely a statistical exercise; it employs such measurements to produce undeniable results.
You do not need to spend exorbitant amounts of time reviewing stats. With the systems and software available, you’ll have the
Show Me the Money!
Sometimes controllers can be Six Sigma barriers, as they fear their budgets will be cut if they report the money saved by your projects. For instance, in some companies, if a project saves
$10 million in a $100 million budget, the savings will be eliminated, forcing controllers to operate with a $90 million budget.You and your executive champion need to signal that the purpose of your Six Sigma projects is to save“hidden” money, not to eliminateit. Although you want to drive that hidden revenue to the bottom line, you will also use it in other areas.This way, Six Sigma projects work to reduce costs, not to slash budgets.When they understand, controllers will probably want projects to succeed as much as you do.
critical formulas and equations at your fingertips, so you can let technology and training work together to yield results. Your implementation partner usually provides such training systems.