The Six Sigma Revolution: How General Electric and Others Turned Process into Profits

Citation

Narasimhan, K. (2002), "The Six Sigma Revolution: How General Electric and Others Turned Process into Profits", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 68-69. https://doi.org/10.1108/tqmm.2002.14.1.68.1

The Six‐Sigma quality‐level has been successfully used as a strategic weapon by organizations such as Motorola since the 1980s, and General Electric and AlledSignal, in the 1990s. Proponents of this quantitative approach claim that this is the most popular quality improvement method as it fuels both effectiveness and efficiency. Unlike other books, which deal in depth with the quantitative approach, which might deter some managers, George Eckes deals with the strategic component of Six Sigma. He demonstrates in a simple language, with numerous examples, why Six Sigma is superior to other quality improvement methods and how to create the infrastructure for its successful implementation. He has written a companion book that shows how to create an atmosphere for the acceptance of Six Sigma, so that it lasts even after the person championing the movement has left the organization.

George Eckes is founder of the consulting group Eckes & Associates Inc., which specializes in results‐driven continuous improvement, Six Sigma training and implementation, organization development, and managing change. He has worked as a business consultant, educator, and author, and his clients include GE Capital, Pfizer, Honeywell and Volvo. He can be reached at eckesg@aol.com

This book comprises ten chapters. In Chapter 1 (11 pages), Eckes introduces the reader to the quality movement in the twentieth century. He shows how the Six Sigma approach has become the choice of managers intending to turn their companies into a world class organizations. He has also described the limitations of other approaches such as the quality awards and given statistics of the gains reaped by adopting the Six Sigma approach. Also given are the methods he adopts in his training sessions, which is to cover the conceptual, practical, technical elements of the various topics covered and highlight the concepts with real‐life examples from manufacturing, service and family applications.

In Chapter 2, Eckes briefly explains, with examples from his experience as a kind of marital therapist, the essential steps to strategic improvement, which are the same essential steps used for business process management. Though he mentions eight steps in the title of the chapter, only six steps are described. The six steps are: creation and agreement of strategic business objectives; creation of core, key sub‐, and enabling processes; identification of process owner; creation and validation of measurement “dashboards”; data collection on agreed dashboards; and creation of project selection criteria and choosing first projects that have the greatest impact.

In Chapter 3, the author briefly explains the importance of focussing on the customer, process, and employee to achieve improvement that impacts on profit. He also explains succinctly the difference between process improvement and process design. Also explained in simple terms is the concept of Six Sigma and the theory of variation. He provides an overview of the five steps of process improvement methodology used by GE Capital (a General Electric company). The five steps are define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC).

In Chapter 4, the author turns his attention to the tactical element of Six Sigma: building the team to manage projects. He emphasizes the importance of selecting a team sponsor, a leader, a consultant and other members based on their ability to improve the process, to ensure the project’s success. This is followed by an explanation of the three elements involved in defining the project: creating the team charter; identifying the customers of the project, their needs and requirements; and creating a high‐level process map for the project.

In the following chapter (the longest – 42 pages), Eckes deals with the three critical aspects of measurement. Why measure? What to measure? How to collect the required data. With the aid of an example from a hotel he explains what to measure, the type of measure, the type of data to be collected, how to define the measure in operational terms, the forms to use for data collection, and sampling procedures; before revisiting the Six Sigma calculations. He explains concisely yet clearly the difference between common cause and special cause variations.

Data analyses using histograms, process analysis using process charts, and root cause analysis in which the reason for the problems is discovered, form the topic of Chapter 6. The following chapter is devoted to explaining the application of the root cause analysis and the “five why” technique to arrive at the root cause of a problem. Also covered are the topics of validating root causes using scatter diagrams and verifying multiple root causes using design of experiments.

In Chapters 8 and the author deals with selecting need and want criteria, generating and selecting solutions, anticipating political, technical and individual resistances that could be encountered in implementing solutions; and controlling the implementation. In the latter part of Chapter 9, attention is turned to strategic elements of sustaining and managing Six Sigma as an ongoing initiative. In the final chapter he reviews ten ways in which Six Sigma initiatives fail and how to avoid mistakes.

To summarize, it is more apt to borrow from the foreword to this book by Perry Monych, President and CEO of GE Access, who says that reading this book is like attending one of Eckes’ seminars. Eckes has turned this cutting edge management approach into easy‐to‐understand language and GE Access have utilized the concepts to improve their performance.