Synopsis – Chapter 8

The Roadmap for Six Sigma

Six Sigma helps an organisation in strengthening in four primary constituencies
for results – customers, leadership, employees & financials.
In terms of results, the customer takes the top priority. Four primary factors are
key to customer results
1. Core customer loyalty
2. Value added to the customer
3. Customer base reduction
4. Public perceptions of the company
Next only to customers, leadership is the most important criterion for results.
Four primary factors are vital to leadership results
1. Releasing the full potential of the employees
2. Transforming managers into leaders
3. Conveying ethics, trust & help
4. Gain sharing
Behind customers & leadership, employees are next in the rank order of
constituencies. It is quite understandable that a company cannot have customer
loyalty without a corresponding employee loyalty. Four primary factors are
essential in generating employee loyalty
1. Creating joy at workplace
2. Empowering the employees
3. Ratio of CEO salaries to line-worker salaries
4. Reduction of organisation layers between top management & the worker
Financials are important to gauge health of an organisation. They, however, are
lag indicators. Following primary factors give a good perspective on financials
1. Profit on Sales
2. Return on Investment
3. Return on Assets
4. Return on Equity
5. Market position
6. Value added per employee
The life-cycle of a Six Sigma initiative occurs in five major stages :
 1. In first stage, goals are established & infrastructure is installed. This is a
‘Initialise’ phase. As part of initialisation, executive training prepares the
executive staff & senior leaders by providing a comprehensive overview of
the Six Sigma deployment process & what to expect
2. In second stage, the initiative is deployed by assigning, training & equipping
the staff. The ‘Deploy’ stage begins with the selection of champions & the
first candidate black belts, green belts & yellow belts. Champions are
trained in the Six Sigma methodology, principles of implementing Six
Sigma, project selection & practices & tools. Infrastructure is deployed.
3. In third stage, the projects are implemented to improve performance &
yield financial results. In ‘Implement’ stage, the practitioners define & map
the processes, identify critical-to-quality indicators, collect performance
data & characterise the process performance.
4. In fourth stage, the scope of the initiative is expanded to include additional
organisational units. In ‘Expand’ stage, the lessons learned from the first
deployment are included in the revisions to the implementation plans
going forward.
5. In the fifth stage, the initiative is sustained through realignment, re-training
& evolution. In the ‘Sustain’ phase, the culture is self-healing. The Six Sigma
project is used as a hot-shot tool for addressing flare-up issues that emerge
from new initiatives & outside forces.
Training is a key ingredient to achieving success by following the Six Sigma way. A
model Six Sigma training curriculum includes
1. Orientation to the Six Sigma concepts
2. Leading & sponsoring Six Sigma efforts
3. Six Sigma processes & tools for leaders
4. Leading change
5. Six Sigma improvement basic skills
6. Collaboration & team leading skills
7. Intermediate Six Sigma measurement & analytical tools
8. Advanced Six Sigma tools
9. Process management principles & skills