The attempted integration of Six Sigma with other technologies is quite natural, although often unsuccessful.  Perhaps it is only instinctive that people try to blend the benefits of several different approaches into a single entity (per se).  After all, such a thing is seemingly quite rational.  More to the point, it is often believed that such a tactic will produce the capacity and capability to “kill several birds with the same stone,” so to speak.  In fact, it sometimes happens, but not very often.  Interestingly, there are some very fine examples of highly successful corporate “programs” that were founded upon the integration of other initiatives.  However, this is the exception and not the rule.

Unfortunately, most hybrid solutions wind up in the scrap pile – simply because they are constituted by a compendium of untested reasoning.  In this context, the many “good pieces of independent reasoning” are forcibly fit into some larger global plan, thereby resulting in disjointed and unconnected actions during full-scale deployment and implementation.  Of course, it is such discontinuity and incongruent action that leads to the formation of competing aims and functional sub-optimization.  When this happens, the overall plan starts to fall apart, thereby failing to deliver the promised results.  Naturally, this spells “doom” for the given program.

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