Changing the Name?

I have never found that the name was a major determinant of success of an improvement effort.  So, call it Fred for all that it matters.  Just show it works and get some improvements and maybe they will dedicate the name to you.

To clarify, the name of the deployment does not impact the success of the deployment.  I think you will agree there.  As for the Fred comment, that was what one client decided to call their effort because they didn’t want to associate anything Japanese, anything quality oriented or anything improvement oriented.  They had too many unhappy experiences in the past.  Granted “Fred” was a bit cute for my taste but it lightened up the deployment so they could focus on what was really improvement.  Now, if you want to call your deployment “The Death Star” then you can feel free to use my name.  Good luck on your effort.

CI man – I would call the efforts Continuous Improvement, rather than confusing people with Six Sigma. Too many people have too many different opinions on what Six Sigma is, or what it involves – but I’m pretty sure continuous improvement is widely regarded as the same thing worldwide – albeit there are different ways of going about it. By calling it continuous improvement, you leave out all the unnecessary debates, and can include any tools you wish without someone claiming its not a Six Sigma tools or concept.
However – I do also think that in order to market your improvement programme effectively, it may help to come up with some kind of name. Gaining employee buy-in to improvement efforts is absolutely crucial – so any name you come up with (why not ask employees to be involved in naming the programme – like a competition type idea) must be relevant – without being corny.
Like Darth says, the name is not as important as the content and substance of your programme – but it could help with the marketing.
Good luck
Davy T
 

Six sigma has been given a bad name by all the crap associated with it.
Continuous improvement in the true sense as used by Toyota, is far more useful.

Disagree?I’m  participating  nowadays in  the  Villanova’s BB Program.It  is really  excellent  and  very  comprehensive (including  most  of  the  Lean topics as well).SS is  not crap,unfortunatly some  few consultants and  companies have given this  bad  image due  to  their  ignorance and  stupidity?