Source: iqa.org

The Six Sigma Training concept grew out of various quality initiatives at Motorola in the mid-80s. The company's land mobile products sector established a single matrix for quality (total defects per unit) which dramatically changed the way management measured and compared the quality improvement rates of all divisions. Because all operations used the same measurement, the goal for defect reduction was uniformly applied to all activities.

Sigma is a statistical indication of the amount of variation in a product. A performance level of Six Sigma Training equates to 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A defect was defined at Motorola as anything that caused customer dissatisfaction; a unit was any unit of work (an hour of labor or a circuit board or a keystroke).

Making a change
Wipro Corp is one company which decided to change its tolerance level. Subroto Bagchi, then-corporate vice president of mission quality, explains the decision for the Bangalore, India, conglomerate: 'Our international software services' customers depend on us for mission critical applications which we run on their behalf from halfway across the globe via satellite links. There's no question of delivering anything less than perfect.'

If a company were to ask: "Why bother?"I would ask them what they would do if their main competitor announced that it was committed to delivering a vastly improved product with better service in half the time at the same price', says MU managing consultant Bruce Hayes. 'Sound familiar? It happened to Motorola, General Motors and others in the 1970S courtesy of Japan.'
Chairman AH Premji felt that Indian industry needed to upgrade its understanding and practice of quality to compete on the global market. He believed Wipro had to shift from a manufacturing view of quality to one which embraced it on all levels, so he established mission quality as an extension of his own office. Bagchi, then chief executive of a software exports division, was asked to lead the new venture.

He plunged into researching the methodologies adopted by Japanese, European and American companies. Executives had heard about Six Sigma Training via Wipro's partnerships with GE, so Bagchi attended a quality briefing at Motorola University in Chicago. This was followed by an MU team visiting India to conduct business systems analysis in November 1996. Results were shared with the top management of Wipro's five divisions and an 18-month plan was developed. The chairman and senior management had a six-day training retreat, before 12 facilitators, chosen from among successful line managers, were trained. Together with MU personnel, these facilitators trained almost 800 people between May and November 1997. This year, 1,000 more employees will be trained.

'The entire scenario is like the fractal geometry of a flower,' says Bagchi. 'Certified trainers train people who, in turn, train others, changing the whole way we think and work.' Wipro's corporate goal is to reach Six Sigma Training in every process that affects customer satisfaction by 2002.

Wipro reports successes in its first year. 'First of all, we now have a common language across our divisions. People now talk about the customer, defects, sigma level and a plan for continuous improvement,' Bagchi said. 'In India, many people have difficulty giving up the old and embracing the new but the mindset is changing. Six Sigma Training is making people look outwards, and we are shifting from an organizational focus to a customer focus,' he explained.

'Defects are steadily falling in cylinder manufacturing,' Bagchi says. 'In the fixed deposits area of our financial services division, we have a process in place to eliminate non-value adding steps and mistake-proof the system. We're projecting a 30 per cent cycle time reduction in our computer business. The estimated short-term gains will be six to eight times the total investment we put into Six Sigma Training .

Motorola SPS takes up the challenge
Before it began its Six Sigma Training programer, Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS) in Phoenix, Arizona was interested in continuous improvement, but tended to accept quality levels that merely mirrored its competitors. It was somewhat inwardly-focused, believing that things could not be made better, so when the company started using Six Sigma Training many people thought it was unrealistic. Craig Erwin, quality engineering manger at Motorola SPS admits: 'I was one of the people early on who wondered if we could get there. Once we understood our management was serious about it, we accepted the challenge.'

Six Sigma Training training is included in every new employee's orientation. For those who went through training years ago, the company is refreshing its drive with a combination of classes and renewed emphasis from senior management. Various customer satisfaction activities reward ideas and implementation. Motorola SPS also looked at changes in its thought and manufacturing processes to eliminate rework. In the short term, it saw some increased costs, but in the long run, the decisions allowed the company to improve processes and apply more effective controls.

Making designs more robust and reducing the opportunity for defects to creep into the final product is a one-time expense. If it is not done, the cost of repairs, re-work, excessive scrap and unhappy customers will continue throughout the product's life. Product complexity is growing exponentially, Future products, such as semiconductors and software will undoubtedly contain many millions of elements, hence the imperative is to reduce defect rates to a few parts per billion.

Although Motorola has made huge reductions in defect rates, it has not yet achieved Six Sigma Training overall. Motorola now considers itself a 5.7 sigma company. While Six Sigma Training is a noble goal, the rate of improvement is what is important. It has saved Motorola billions of dollars in costs (in terms of scrap and re-work), enabling greater customer satisfaction - the ultimate goal.

Wipro Corp. a diversified Indian conglomerate headquartered in Bangalore, reports that using Six Sigma Training over the past 15 months eliminated unnecessary steps and decreased re-work, leading to a gain of eight times the initial investment.

Citibank is wooed by Six Sigma Training Last year, Citibank senior management heard a presentation by a Motorola executive on the company's pursuit of quality. It examined the ways that various financial companies pursue quality, and decided to use Six Sigma Training . 'Six Sigma Training was appealing because it is pretty straightforward,' says James Bailey, executive vice president and corporate quality officer for Citibank. 'It also seemed like a program which would involve everyone.' Previously, the international corporation, which has banking centers in 200 countries, had made no universal effort in quality improvement. Various businesses and divisions within Citibank had tried different quality programers, but there was no universal language or method employed.

'Continuous improvement is our goal,' says Bailey. It started training senior management in April 1997, and so far has trained 2,000 people around the world. Five and ten-times defect reductions have already been realized: with a decreased response time for credit card applications and fewer errors in customer statements. 'We're on track. We're more customer focused. We know it's a long road,' admits Bailey 'but we've made a reasonable start and we are pleased.'

Another Six Sigma Training devotee is General Electric. Its 1996 annual report announced that: 'Quality improvement, under the disciplined rubric of Six Sigma Training methodology, will define the way we work.' A three-to-four sigma level, average for most US companies, can cost a company as much as 10-15 percent of its revenue. For GE, that would mean $8-12 billion.

GE undertook the programmer in late 1995, with 200 projects and massive training, then moved to 3,000 projects and further training the following year. In 1997, 6,000 projects were started. The $200 million invested in 1996 returned nearly that much in quality-related savings. GE estimates the additional $300 million invested in 1997 will deliver some $400-500 million in savings, producing an additional $ 100-200 million in incremental margins.

General Electric, which launched a Six Sigma Training initiative late in 1995, says the $300 million invested in quality improvement in 1997 will amount to $400-500 million in savings.

The first step
Other re-engineering programs often advocate tearing down an organization and rebuilding from scratch. MU's attitude and advice is to start where you are, build on successes and modify your current processes. Building and modifying is done using defect reduction, which encourages employees to relate more closely to one other, and cycle time reduction, which eliminates unnecessary, non-value adding steps in the processes.

Although there is no set procedure, and every organization has different strengths and weaknesses, the key components of the MU Six Sigma Training programmer are:

a goal of total customer satisfaction
a common language throughout the organization at all levels and at all functions
common, uniform quality measurement techniques for all business areas
goals with identical improvement rates, based on uniform matrices
goal-directed incentives for both management and employees
coordinated training in 'why' and 'how' to achieve the goal
Citibank. the international financial division of Citicorp, undertook Six Sigma Training in spring 1997 with the aim of reducing defects in its various divisions by ten times over the following three years. It already has seen reductions ranging from five to ten times!
'Mathematically Six Sigma Training is a known quantity,' says MU consultant Paul Zaura. 'As improvements increase, expectations increase. Customer perceptions will change and drive you to places you never knew existed. You also have to look at the soft stuff, the cultural aspects, and changing behavior,' Zaura points out. 'Many corporate cultures are fear-based: mistakes are not tolerated and people learn to hide defects. Six Sigma Training flourishes in an open and safe environment'.

TI's Randall says, 'Six Sigma Training really will work for anybody. It's management by fact, not emotion.' Six Sigma Training champions say there are many things to count and measure and benchmark regardless of the type of business, whether it is a solicitor's office or a car rental company. And within a company, you can look at various divisions - personnel, policies, warehousing, security, the cafeteria.

Six Sigma Training is a philosophy of continuous improvement and measurement to drive goals. Its concepts are not earth-shattering. It means talking to customers and finding out what the defects are. Consultants advise companies to work first on their big errors. Try to decide how they happen and how to correct them permanently Many companies, content with current quality levels, simply do not understand the real challenge of quality They need to determine not only the defect levels which customers experience, but also the internal defects which require re-work, additional inspections, and produce higher costs. Once you have a full assessment, then improvement can begin. And no cynic can quibble with improvement.