subject: Six Sigma As Part Of The Business Management Strategies [print this page] Six Sigma As Part Of The Business Management Strategies
In today's highly competitive business environment, companies relay on many business management methodologies and tactics to ensure the success of their activity. The rising need of preserving resources and minimizing production costs yet increasing the quality of goods and services demands even better management strategies. There are lots of methodologies developed, which can benefit the organization and control of work processes in companies. Most of them combine statistical, analytical and researching techniques, the mastering of which requires in almost every case employees training. Such system is the Six Sigma business management strategy. It has been developed in the early 1980s by Motorola in order to drastically reduce the defects in their manufacturing production. A defect in Six Sigma methodology is defined by process that does not meet the customer's specifications or that could lead to a product, which doesn't meet those specifications. Initially the Six Sigma strategy was applied only in manufacturing and the sole goal was to improve quality so the aim was to achieve 3.4 defects per one million (DPOM) or better. It is called the Six Sigma because of the scale measuring the short and long-term improvement of acceptable DPOM, the sixth level, which would be the 3.4 DPOM. There is also a seventh level where the DPOM equals almost a zero but most corporations aim at achieving a level six as it is near perfection. Main aspects of this strategy are the reducing of process variation, understanding and researching the process itself, finding weak spots by gathering all the necessary data, measuring and analyzing it and as a result achieving a more controlled and structured work process. It is crucial to the success of Six Sigma that all company employees take part in the improvement and achieving of the selected goals. The Six Sigma system works by completing projects one by one which at the end would bring the company to the final goal. These projects require the implementation of roles for every participant and they all have fancy names like Champions, Master Black Belts or Black Belts. These experts come from within the company starting with the top-level management or the Executive Leaders whose purpose is to define the problems and create the vision of improvement. Then come the Champions spreading that vision among the company's departments, the Black Belts are the people who actually focus on executing the developed projects. The Six Sigma methodology doesn't teach anything new, it simply helps members of companies' top management levels to diagnose any possible problems they may have in the working process and to improve effectiveness while saving and reducing expenses. The novelty in this particular business management system is the structure and organization of the people. As a result it improves not only the quality of service and goods but also the working environment within the company. By creating teams, which follow a certain hierarchy, and giving each and every member a clear view of the pursued goal it also improves the managing of the staff that leads to even better and faster results.
