Basics

A Roadmap for Deploying Six Sigma in Small Businesses

Many experts have expressed doubts about the use of Six Sigma in small, or even in some medium-sized, organizations. However, while the approach to deployment must be modified, it is possible for small businesses to successfully implement Six Sigma.

Achieving Breakthroughs by Using Policy Deployment

How can a company properly plan and execute a strategy? Today's best model is a mechanism to align a company's resources to its most critical tasks. The model is Hoshin Kanri, known in the United States as policy deployment or strategy deployment.

Aligning Six Sigma with Objectives and Strategies

In a well-managed organization, objectives and strategies and continuous improvement are in alignment. Objectives enhance the efficacy of Six Sigma initiatives. And Six Sigma specialists can play an integral role in ensuring the execution of strategy.

Aligning Six Sigma with Organizational Strategies

Effectively translating a healthcare organization's corporate vision or mission statement into specific metrics is crucial to creating organizational alignment and driving performance across the entire enterprise.

Assessing for Lean Six Sigma Implementation and Success

Understanding its own operations and processes enables an organization to logically build out a Six Sigma implementation plan while mitigating potential risks of failure. This is the concept which drives the need for a readiness assessment.

Best of Benchmarking Research: Tools and Methods

iSixSigma Magazine is celebrating five years as a resource for Lean Six Sigma professionals. During those years, iSixSigma has produced research reports on aspects of deploying Six Sigma. Here we've compiled benchmarking data on tools and methods.

Best of iSixSigma: 2012

The best of iSixSigma 2012 features the highlights of this year's content – as determined by our readers.

Breakthrough Change: What It Means and Why It Is Needed

To understand what breakthrough means and why it is an important part of any continuous improvement program, it helps to take a look at the history of the term in regard to Six Sigma and how the concept fits with another familiar idea: control.

Cost of a Process with Poor Quality Can Be Very High

While it is possible to deliver a good quality product made using an inefficient process, a company does so at a high cost – in terms of an unacceptably high number of defects and a level of variation that hinders predictable process performance.

Creating a Fresh View of Six Sigma Data and Tools

The DMAIC and DFSS roadmaps provide guidance for using data to understand problems and get results in a wide variety of project settings. There are some situations, though, that can benefit from a broader view of Six Sigma capabilities and tools.

Define and Control: Bridge Between Business and Project

The Define and Control phases of DMAIC are integral to the Six Sigma project roadmap and provide a bridge between buisness and project. Six Sigma projects are business projects and Define and Control are first and foremost business responsibilities.

Eight Basics of Lean Six Sigma for Manufacturing Firms

In today's competitive manufacturing environment, it takes more than quick fixes, outsourcing and downsizing to consistently achieve growth and profit objectives. For companies to grow they need to master eight basics of Lean Six Sigma.

Follow a Structured Approach to Continuous Improvement

Organizations can follow a simple framework – the Awareness-Motivation-Competency-Implementation (AMCI) approach – to deploy a continuous improvement program that will help maintain structure but also achieve strong results.

Harvesting Value in Transactional Processes with Lean Six Sigma

In an era of high competition, with many companies facing a less-than-certain future, the need to increase performance in the eyes of the customer has never been stronger.

Importance of Assessing Readiness to Implement Strategy

One key to a company's success is an ability to assess its readiness to create or improve the processes underlying its strategy. Readers can help in the development of a survey-based methodology to measure 10 critical dimensions of that readiness.

It’s Not Common Sense…It’s a Sixth (Sigma) Sense

Some thought leaders in corporate America believe the answers to process improvement needs are obvious. Six Sigma proponents say if the solution is truly known, then by all means implement it...Six Sigma is for when the solution is not already known.

Managing for Continuous and Breakthrough Improvement

As a set of state-of-the-art tools for solving operations problems, Six Sigma can be used for both continuous and breakthrough improvement. What separates the two is the structure by which they are managed.

Managing for Results Using a Lean Six Sigma Strategy – A Conversation with… Nick Brownrigg, Chief Executive Officer of Masterlease

In a conversation with iSixSigma, Nick Brownrigg, the chief executive officer of Masterlease Group, offers his views on managing for results through Lean Six Sigma and a special deployment strategy.

Maturity Model Describes Stages of Six Sigma Evolution

The Six Sigma Maturity Model™ provides a formal description of the evolution organizations go through as they deploy Six Sigma. The model can be used for benchmarking, to assess strengths and weaknesses, and to communicate progress internally.

Measuring and Improving Service Processes with Six Sigma

Service processes can consume a large portion of a company's operating margin, so it is not surprising that Six Sigma efforts are often directed at these processes. Sensible measures of such service processes are a key to managing and improving them.

Middle-out Change is Difficult – But Doable

When top-down support is not available, mid-level executives who know the power of Six Sigma must take deployment into their own hands. Although it's a daunting task, with the right approach, training and leadership, middle-out adoption is possible.

Quick Tools for Six Sigma

Quick Tools for implementing Six Sigma within your organization.

Six Sigma – A Socio-Technical System

Six Sigma is both a social and technical system. To be effective, the social and technical systems must integrate and assist one another. This article features two case studies on failed Quality initiatives and how a socio-technical system balance would have helped.