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Six Sigma
-- Background --
A methodology that provides businesses with the tools to improve the capability of their business processes. This increase in performance and decrease in process variation lead to defect reduction and improvement in profits, employee morale and quality of product.
Six Sigma quality: A term generally used to indicate a process is well controlled, (±6 sigma from the centerline in a control chart). The term is usually associated with Motorola, which named one of its key operational initiatives Six Sigma quality.
Reprinted with permission from Quality Progress magazine.
© 2002 American Society for Quality
-- With C3 Inside --
IMT’s president, Robin Lawton, was a consultant to Motorola for ten years, starting in 1987. He began introducing IMT’s C3 concepts there at that time. What most people do not know is that Motorola did not call their Corporate initiative Six Sigma. It was (and still is) called Total Customer Satisfaction (TCS). Six Sigma was a component within TCS. What were called the Six Steps of TCS have an amazing similarity to the six steps Mr. Lawton introduced to Motorola and that are addressed in his book (see Products). We like to think there has been a C3-Six Sigma connection from the start. But Six Sigma in the late 90’s became more commonly associated with several characteristics:
- Process improvement
- Cost reduction
- Training of Black Belts as internal consultants fluent in statistical methods
- Deployment via projects
- Genesis in, and focus on, manufacturing and high volume operations
- Major initiative requiring senior management introduction and support
Six Sigma and C3 have much in common. Two strong similarities are the necessity to have active top management leading the initiative and reliance on deployment via specially trained teams. Nonetheless, Six Sigma with C3 inside is notably different in terms of the depth with which customer wants are addressed and the tools to do so. Here are a few key differences with C3 inside that make the C3-6S combination so potent:
- Emphasis is on improving customer outcomes first, product expectations second and process improvement third. (Six Sigma by itself largely neglects outcomes)
- Application is especially well suited to non-manufacturing organizations. This includes service functions within manufacturing, service enterprises and government.
- The concept of “product” is broadened (away from widgets) to include any deliverable created by work that can be made plural with an ‘s’. This makes C3 applicable at every level in every organization of any size.
- Customers are very specifically defined as having one of three roles. (Not done by 6S.)
- The “voice of the customer” uncovered by C3 differentiates the four (4) voices each of the three kinds of customers have, as shown in the top half of the 8 Dimensions.
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