Abatement of Business Risk Is Key to Six Sigma
A closer link to executive thinking
From this perspective, Six Sigma has the capacity and capability to deliver concurrently customer and provider satisfaction, the key ingredients of business success. The third vehicle for delivering breakthrough, managing for Six Sigma (MFSS), is the unde...
Six Sigma Focuses On Improvement Rates
Entitlement can be reached below target performance level
In other words, the aim of Six Sigma as a management methodology is to reach entitlement for all 12 factorial combinations of quality at a rate of Six Sigma. Translated into a simple percentage, this would equate to a 78% annualized compounded rate of imp...
Questions Lead, Answers Follow
Six Sigma performance metrics help point the way
In the language of Six Sigma, these questions are shown in Figure 1. As a business leader, I can guide my organization to answer each of the 384 possible questions represented by the chart. In summary, it can be said that Six Sigma is a quest for the qual...
Framework for Business Leadership
Breakthrough Strategy makes factorial dimensions of quality visible so managers can close capability, capacity gaps
A corporate leadership team uses the Breakthrough Strategy to make visible the 12 factorial dimensions of quality (see Figure 1). Whereas the dimensions of quality form the "what" of quality, the Breakthrough Strategy forms the "how." The executive team c...
Column: Frontiers of Quality: Six Sigma Leads Enterprises To Coordinate Efforts
Previous quality efforts have failed either to be widespread and co-ordinated, or to be demonstrably...
Six Sigma Leads Enterprises To Coordinate Efforts
A cure for the confusion of alphabet soup
As we look at the matrix this time, our goal is to see how traditional management initiatives interface with the Six Sigma understanding of quality. As quality evolved into the '80s, its focus expanded to include the availability aspects of business, such...
The Quality Twilight Zone
Six Sigma provides tools for crossing the chasm between customer and provider satisfaction
In Figure 4, we see a hypothetical example of one company's performance gap for each factorial combination in relation to the Six Sigma goal and entitlement sigma targets. After all, a Six Sigma part is of little value in a four sigma system, unless for s...
A New Definition Aims To Connect Quality With Financial Performance
Focus on the business relationship
Quality is a state in which value entitlement is realized for the customer and provider in every aspect of the business relationship. Instead of a singular focus on conformance to standards (a.k.a. customer satisfaction), Six Sigma companies strive to det...
Six Sigma: A Breakthrough Strategy for Profitability
Statistical tools and interventions can lead to major cost reductions and quality improvements. The six sigma strategy is a key to such breakthrough improvements. It involves measuring the capability of processes to produce services or products that...
