Replying to LO29870 --
It is interesting to read, first, the Subject Line: Quality Circles, and
then the body of the message on Six Sigma. Quality Circles are an older
methodology of team learning used primarily by Japanese companies exposed
to Deming, Juran, Sarasen, and other US based statisticians and
consultants. Six Sigma, as proposed first at Motorla by Keke Bothe and
others, deals with SIPOC (Suppliers->Inputs->Process->Outputs->Customers)
and the statistical tools needed to analyze the systems and subsystems.
The sigma part of it comes fromt the early assumptions at Motorla that you
would have 3.4 parts per million potentially defective outputs of the
process if you could control the process to the point where there were 6
standard deviations between the Upper and Lower specification limits and
the natural control limits of the process. If your mean were constant,
this would be less than 1 ppm, but they allowed for + or - 1.5 standard
deviations mean shift. It was this hypothetical mean shift allowance
which created much controversy in the early eighties (more, perhaps at a
later date.)
Today, however, Six Sigma means much more that statistical tools. It
encompasses the behaviours, tools (six sigma and financial analysis),
learning cycles, and product and process development initiatives, in
effect, the overall system and the thinking which can be used to always
keep it moving towards excellence. A good introductory (and useful even
to experts) site is http://www.isixsigma.com .
In my current organization, we have deployed over forty champions
world-wide, with over 400 black belts (6 sigma practitioners), another
forty Master Black Belts (taught to teach and to deal with greater
complexity) and the goal of training everyone in the organization as a
Green Belt. Our system is known as "Value Based Six Sigma" and
concentrates as heavily on leadership and learning cycles as it does on
statistical and financial analysis. Most systems which are sustainable
are designed long these lines, the meetings held by the hundreds of teams
working towards excellence are similar to Quality Circles in their use of
the 7 tools of Quality and the 7 New Tools, but they go a lot further in
their teachings and learnings.
John
John Zavacki
ITT Industries, FHS
VBSS Champion
(740) 342-3523 ext. 338
US Cell: (614) 648-3001
Fax: (740) 342-0629
"In the past, man was first. In the future, the system will be first."
Frederick Winslow Taylor
--"Systhinc" <systhinc@msn.com>
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