Six Sigma Deployment Success Story

The company that I worked as Black Belt having about 110 operation site worldwide. Since Six Sigma is a corporate level initiative, therefore, the entire sites have to involve.

I had a change to work with Black Belt with others site. From their experience, I can sense that Six Sigma program was not so successfully deployed in most of the site.

Anyway, the site located in central region of Malaysia work quite successfully, from what the Black Belt told me, the main success factor of Six Sigma deployment in that company was from the vice president.

The VP believes the effectiveness of Six Sigma program, and he sees the blocking point to make Six Sigma program success. To ensure the success of Six Sigma deployment, he set the following target for the functional managers and engineers;

• All functional manager is responsible to ensure completion at least 2 Black Belt project and 6 Green Belt project from their respective department each year. Promotion, special incentive bonus is tied up with the saving achieved from the Six Sigma project.

• All engineers have to complete at least 2 Green Belt project as promotion or special salary increment requirement.

Because of the requirement, Black Belt in that company was fully booked by the managers and engineers. Black Belt in the company need not to spend much effort to drive the managers to work on Black Belt project.

Now you see, commitment from the top management is so important to ensure the success of Six Sigma deployment.

Managers & Six Sigma

There are several reasons that de-motivate managers to involve in Six Sigma project activities.

Some of the common reasons are;

• Managers are busy in their daily functional duties. There are not willing to spend more time in others activities that does not directly benefit their key function.
• No one likes to expose their weaknesses especially in the competitive environment. Most managers prefer to keep their departmental problem by themselves and solve it without involvement of external party.
• Politically, managers does not like to expose too much of their departmental information with others. Six Sigma project in general will disclose those information through data collection and analysis. Therefore, some managers do not really cooperate in the Six Sigma project activities.

Being a Black Belt, overcome the barrier is much more challenging than solving the actual problem. Usually, I spend most of my time to ding dong with this group of managers before I can get them to work along with me.

How to over come the human problem?

By nature, this group of people would not go to change their mind unless some one from the top management forces them to change.

That’s why I say, commitment from the top management is the key success factor for any quality improvement program deployment.

My Black Belt Experience

Being a Black Belt isn’t fun as what I thought. To fulfill the Black Belt certification, I have to complete at least 3 Black Belt project assign to me, conduct at least 5 class room training for Green Belt and helping at least 5 Green Belt to complete their Green Belt project.

No big deal for Green Belt training and Green Belt project, as I only work as a consultant. They will drive their project at their own.

The difficulties are those Black Belt projects where I have to work with managers from various departments to make change happen. Biggest challenge is not finding solution for breakthrough, but overcome man makes barrier that blocking the breakthrough.

If you are the department manager, do you like some one step in to point out the weaknesses in your department and tell you what to improve?

I guess the answer is quite straight forward to all.

This is the main reason, managers tend to set up barrier, try not to involve in any Six Sigma project activities.

If they notice I m going to point out something, immediately they will correct it without my acknowledgement. Sometime problem can be solved within a day, but I have to spend month to negotiate, or align with these managers in order to get thing done.

This is one of the reasons why most Black Belts leaves or go back to the functional operation once they get their Black Belt certification.

Black Belt

Six Sigma Black Belt are the peoples who expert in Six Sigma problem solving methodology. They are not only well trained in Six Sigma problem solving tools, but also in project management, people management, training and others.

In general, a Black Belt should be able to make improvement proposal based on the result of DMAIC data driven analysis.

A Six Sigma council member of my company sends me this article before I jump into the Six Sigma. It is very useful for those who wish to know what a Black Belt should know. Just drop me a mail if you wish to have a copy.

Tittle : Six Sigma Black Belt : What Do They Need To Know

Being a Black Belt is not as easy as what other people think. Especially in the organization that systematically structured and individual’s role and responsibility clearly defined.

Like TQM, Six Sigma program in most company is driving by a non functional department. Therefore, all the Master Black Belt, Black Belt were classified as support function.

If you are a section manager of your company, do you like someone (except your boss) step in and point out your departmental deficiency and tell you what to improve?

I will tell you my experience when I work with this group of people in my coming post….