This process was just brought to our company seven months ago. We are now expected to save a few million per group, however, the individual groups have had no six sigma training. We are a service industry with several departments within. It was simple for the departments who produce the final product to identify and achieve savings, however when you got down to applying six sigma to the departments who support the production departments, the savings were slim, mostly because all savings had been accounted for by production. This made it difficult for the support organization to find a fit for six sigma. I equate this difficulty to holding a elementry school teacher accountable for saving the school a million per year. She could save a little by purchasing students books and school supplies with out-of-pocket funds, but not much will be saved in modifying the way she teaches. And if each year she is expected to increase that savings, 2 million next year and 3 million the year after that, eventually she will run out of methods to squeeze out more savings. The majority of her savings are dependent on the school board making modifications. And if the teacher spends most of the day trying to come up with more ideas for savings, she will soon be spending less time doing what’s more important, teaching. What I am saying is that when it gets down to the person on the bottom of the deck, six sigma savings are limited. Big companies are letting go of good people because of this.
