I love it when people in the office talk about what they can do to improve costs. Having said that, over the course of my career, I would say the majority of Six Sigma office projects I’ve seen should’ve never been started in the first place.

Is there variation in the office? You bet. Why is it one person can remember how to cancel a print job while the other waits for a novel to be printed before he realises he’s made a mistake? Why do you only need one pen when the person in the cube next to you needs eight to do the same job?

You, as many people I work with, would think the office atmosphere is ripe to reap the rewards of Six Sigma. I have seen projects geared to reduce office supplies, paper usage, color copies, shipping carriers, etc. You name it, I’ve probably seen it attempted to be done. And do you know what? The majority of the time, the projects fail.

While the ideas have merit, it’s execution of piloting office projects that set the stage for failure. The fundamental rule of Six Sigma is to pick projects where the factors can be controlled. When it comes to human nature in the office, it’s often very difficult to lock in changes unless you can error-proof the process (this puts the “Lean” in Lean Six Sigma).

For example, I remember a project to reduce shipment errors and costs by standardising with one company. Although the contract with the outgoing company was not renewed, its supplies were left in the mailroom only to have people continue to use them and the company charge a higher rate (because there was now no contracted discount).

Another example involved a project to reduce printing expenses. Printers had their defaults changed to print black and white on both sides of the paper. Access to color copiers was restricted to only a few employees. Announcements were even posted on copiers and printers. Sounds like a success, right? Wrong. Although some of the modifications did initially post modest savings, they were offset by sales and marketing re-printing the double sided materials into a single sided format. Another issue arose when legitimate stakeholders did not have access to needed copiers. In addition to the rework involved to grant user access, a wave of discontent swept through the office.

This leads me to my next point. If you want an office project to succeed, you need to involve everyone working in the office. Any value you think you may save by standardising office supplies will be quickly lost in productivity by the individual making the rounds to whinge and moan about how he can’t write with the inferior pen that was 17 cents cheaper than the one he used to use.

Lastly, in order for an office project to be a success, an adequate control plan must be in place and communicated. I’ve seen a project where a mini DOE on toner cartridges was conducted that clearly demonstrated the best product, only to have results overlooked because the person quit three months later and the supplier’s part number wasn’t uploaded into the ERP reorder system.

Controllable, error-proofed, customer focused and embedded. If your Six Sigma office project can’t use these words, then you may want to find another project.

I often find real world examples of process "improvements" staring me blatantly in the face. For example, I stumbled upon queuing theory in action at the local movie theatre.

Queuing theory is the study of how lines (or queues) are formed and dissipate over time. Examples of queues are everywhere: traffic at an intersection, restaurant lines during the lunch hour rush, dialling into a call center, etc. Queuing theory is a tool in the Lean Six Sigma toolkit. It aims reducing bottlenecks which contribute to time spent waiting in line (or in some cases, eliminating wait time completely).

Anyway, back to my experience at the move theatre…When I purchased tickets, I was asked if I wanted to sit in the front, middle, or back. I, like most of those attending the movie, chose the middle section. To my amazement, the ticket printed out an exact row and seat number (similar to what you would see on an airline ticket).As I took my seat, I saw how the rows in front of me and behind me suddenly filled up.

I can see where queuing theory could benefit the theatre from an efficiency and error proofing perspective. The computer knows exactly how many seats have been allocated to what movie and where in the screening room; a process that can assist in reducing the chance people from sneaking in to see an additional movie. In the movie I saw, occupied seating was concentrated to about 20% of the room, reducing clean up time for employees.

Although queuing might be efficient, is it always effective? In my case, the answer is no. Sure, I got to sit in the mid section as I requested. The saying “Be careful what you wish for” came to mind as I was surrounded in every imaginable direction by people. Given the option, I would have rather sat closer to (or even further away) from the screen if it meant I wasn’t breathing on top of the other movie goers. Further, if my husband and I had arrived a bit later and unknowingly requested middle seating, it is unlikely we would’ve been able to sit next to each other- a definite detractor of service.

There are many applications where queuing has been successful such as automated computer screens which direct you to the next available bank clerk, checkout line, etc., however under these conditions most customers assume there won’t be a significant difference in their experience. But when there are multiple factors critical to quality (or in this case customer satisfaction), foregoing the voice of the customer can actually decrease customer satisfaction. The key here is being efficient and effective. A good Lean Six Sigma project will weigh voice of the customer or Kano analysis alongside forecasted cycle time improvements and determine what the net effect is prior to implementing a solution. If customer dissatisfaction outweighs process improvements, then your customers, if given a choice, will be less likely to purchase your products or services. In my case, I think I’ll be selecting a different theatre next time.

Any seasoned Lean Six Sigma professional can tell you about the fruit tree of quality. At the bottom of the tree there is fruit festering on the ground which represents “just do it” kaizen and bare bones problem solving. As you move up the tree, you can begin to pick the low hanging fruit by utilising Lean tools with a sprinkling of Six Sigma. The middle of the tree signifies Six Sigma in its unadulterated form- this is where you break out the statistics and you can reap big savings as a result. Lastly, fruit residing in the top echelon of the tree can only be picked via robust design (i.e. Design for Six Sigma).

Many of you (including myself) were involved in Six Sigma deployments that began nearly a decade ago. In my case, the tree was there but the expectation was to use Six Sigma to harvest all of the fruit, with little regard to Lean or other quality methodologies. Because there was so much fruit, Black Belts had high expectations for cumulative project values and in some instances projects could be completed within a matter of weeks.

In my case after about five years of utilizing Six Sigma, solutions had been implemented for many major problems and some within the organization were questioning the validity of continuing Black Belt roles on a full time basis. Robust projects utilizing trials and Design for Six Sigma work tended to take longer than the average Six Sigma project. Value for work was moving from black and white hard dollar savings to a more abstract value.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? One of the key concerns for a mature Six Sigma organization is the point where it feels it is squeezing a lemon that’s out of juice. If you feel this scenario applies to you, I’d like to recommend the following advice.

Complacency is not an option. The processes you have now, no matter the sigma level, will unlikely be considered competitive ten years from now (and this applies to everything from software system design to manufacturing processes). When you pick fruit, it can grow back and when this occurs, it is never quite identical to its predecessor. Most things change over time and with that mindset, Six Sigma can take a proactive (and not reactive) approach to problem solving.

You don’t always have to pick the tree in an upward motion. Sure, it’s great to be a Black Belt who can claim a million dollar savings on a single project, however the more mature an organization is utilizing Six Sigma, the more elusive this type of fruit becomes. Yes, you may still be able to find value, however you may have to look down the tree. This is especially true in organizations where Six Sigma was implemented prior to Lean Manufacturing. Rather than picking a single, large piece of fruit, you may need to pick several smaller ones to equal the rewards. The projects can be grouped in a cluster around a common problem. You may also need to expand the traditional Six Sigma project team to include additional improvement practitioners from Lean and other disciplines such as capital.

Establish a cost pool to draw from. One of the tasks when defining a Six Sigma project is to estimate a financial value to justify the project. The ripest fruit in the middle of the tree is generally linked to hard value such as added production, reduction in headcount, etc. and can very easily be calculated. Move in either direction and the value of the fruit becomes more abstract. I have seen some corporations where these projects can be worked with a “soft savings” undertone, meaning there is an inherent value that is understood to be good for the business but may be difficult to quantify. However, if you work for a company that must show a financial impact to the bottom line, my recommendation is to establish a Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) or Cost of Non Conformance (CONC) metric. These metrics can be individual for department or a single value for the entire site. Rather than focusing on how much a single project will achieve in value, the metric value can be tracked on a monthly basis to compare performance with the prior year’s costs. For example, while working a project to reduce staff turnover may be difficult to financially validate (especially in a short timeframe), the work can feed into reducing COPQ costs for Human Resources which may include things such as relocation expense for new employees, costs for processing exit interviews, etc.

As I noted earlier, when you pick fruit off a tree, it can grow back. It may grow in a different location or may be slightly different in appearance, however it doesn’t necessarily mean prior Six Sigma work was unsuccessful. As a Six Sigma practitioner, your role is to continue picking the fruit. This may mean searching both up and down the tree. You may need to get others to help you collect it and you may also need to utilise additional tools for harvesting. You may even need to incorporate a new method to store its value. Just remember- as long as there is fruit on the tree of quality, there will always be a need for Six Sigma within organizations.

In Six Sigma we’re taught reducing variance is a good thing but is this really always the case?

Take currency for example. In the US all paper currency is the same size and the same color. By reducing variance I’m sure the US Mint has saved costs by having a standardized ink color, standardized cutting machines, etc. However, how does this benefit me as a user? When looking at a $5 and $10 bill twenty feet away, most people can not tell the difference. How many times have you had to thumb through your wallet to find the correct bill or worried you gave someone an incorrect note (or been accused of giving back incorrect change if you’ve been on the receiving end)?

Now compare the US currency with Australian currency. Each denomination of paper money is a slightly different size and color (note: while there are extra upfront costs to the process, they are greatly offset by reduced printing demand as the result of an applied plastic coating.).Essentially the country has error proofed (i.e. Lean manufacturing) its currency to the end user.

The point I’m trying to make is that sometimes in Six Sigma we focus so hard on reducing variance to cut costs that we overlook characteristics deemed critical to quality by the end user. Even though costs have been reduced, underlying problems still exist, leaving the customer to view the product service of sub par quality. By introducing variance as a possible solution, one may be able greatly improve customer satisfaction.

As I’m reading the newspaper, I notice two articles from different countries, Australia and China, both about eliminating plastic bag usage in retail outlets by the end of 2008. The Australian article focused on the benefits and did provide a few statistics, such as the number of bags used annually, estimated % decrease of landfill occupancy, etc. When asked if the government had looked into any alternatives to improve the environment, such as adding a bag tax to reduce consumption, the response was along the lines of “no, because those ideas won’t work”.

You can imagine what has happened since this announcement has been made. Customers are beginning to hoard plastic bags. Retailers are scratching their heads for alternatives (and contemplating additional costs associated with those alternatives). Basically complete micro-chaos has erupted because of a politician’s quick rush to judgment without a plan.

If there is one area in society that definitely needs an injection of Six Sigma, it’s politics. Just like the working world of business, people want a silver bullet quick fix that sounds good and will make people feel good. Politicians often open their mouths without performing due diligence and as a result only partially address an issue.

Let’s look at the situation above to determine what went wrong from a Six Sigma perspective. The first step is to Define the problem. “Plastic bags are bad” just doesn’t cut it. A more plausible definition would be something along the lines of “Country X uses Y plastic bags a year. By reducing or eliminating the number of plastic bags used, environmental problems x,y, and z will be improved.”

Also, adding a scope would be nice. Are we looking at a viable alternative for plastic bags or do we want to reduce all forms of bag consumption? Do we want to look at non-recyclable plastic bags or will all plastics be considered?

Next, the problem must be Measured. The Australians have made a good start by citing bag consumption and environmental statistics, however quite a bit of information is missing from this phase. What are the environmental repercussions from using an alternative such as a paper bag, cloth bag, plastic crate, etc.?

Measuring all encompassing data is essential for a successful Analyse phase, something the politicians have definitely left out. What does the data tell us? The answers should serve as the foundation for the Improve phase. In the article, the improvement plan is “to eliminate plastic bags by the end of 2008”, however no plan has been drafted on how to achieve this. Had the problem been more clearly defined and scoped, far greater leverage would have existed for improvement ideas. For example, if the word eliminate was replaced by the word reduce; I believe the target would be more realistic.

If your project doesn’t have an improvement plan other than a government ultimatum, it’s going to be really difficult to get your problem under Control and managed. Will shopkeepers be fined for using plastic bags? Will retailers be able to meet the demands of the government by the end of the year? Will cargo ships be searched and bags quarantined? These questions may seem far fetched, however they prove a point- initiatives, even those backed by the government, are more likely to fail when not thought through.

The most concerning flaw I found with government solutions to plastic bag consumption is that often it does not take into account the voice of the customer. While I believe most people are concerned to a degree about the environment, not having a plan to give customers viable options in a lieu of a plastic bag infringes on their freedom of choice. The “paper or plastic” question is virtually unheard of in Australia, even though paper bags are recyclable and can emit less greenhouse gasses when being produced. As a consumer, I would gladly pay a small bag tax to reduce usage, however the governments in question do not give me that option because “those ideas won’t work”. I would equate this to making project decision in the corporate world without including all key stakeholders in the department… and we know how that generally turns out.

In summary, if government leaders were to incorporate the Six Sigma methodology into decision making, key initiatives would be better defined, all relevant data would be analysed, and implementation of change would have less unanswered questions because the voice of the customer would be listened to.

I’m driving home from work yesterday and I noticed something different at the intersection by my house. A traffic camera has been installed just in time to give some people a not so merry Christmas present.

Traffic cameras, such as the one I saw, have been introduced as a visual control with the intent to improve safety. Reducing the amount of defects (in this case, an accident) sounds like a worthy Six Sigma project. In fact, studies have shown when placed at intersections, cameras can reduce the chance of drivers’ running a red light. Unfortunately, those same studies also concluded cameras contribute to a higher number of rear ending accidents.

Good intentions are not enough when defining a Six Sigma project. A key question when scoping a project should be “What are the primary and secondary metrics?” Most of us are familiar with a primary metric, a general measurement of how we will deem the project successful. This could be cycle time, throughput rate, added revenue, etc. However, for most projects, secondary metrics are just as important. The secondary metric serves as a “check and balance” to ensure your project has not created problems somewhere else in the process. For example, a project may reduce claim processing time in a certain department but creates additional work in the preceding department, resulting in an increase in the overall processing time (and thus defeating the point of the project). A key manufacturing example is ensuring production throughput increases (primary metric) without increasing the overall scrap rate (secondary metric).

The next time you are defining a Six Sigma project, remember traffic cameras. After all, you don’t want to complete a project to have a zero sum gain in the end.

Black Friday came and went and I avoided shopping for a number of reasons, mainly because I couldn’t be stuffed getting up early enough to get a great deal. Besides, knowing my luck, anything on my list would’ve sold out long before I arrived.

Unfortunately Christmas has not been the only time I’ve shopped only to find empty shelves or a product on backorder (when shopping online). What surprises me is that a large number of these retailers tout themselves as using Six Sigma. When you combine this with sophisticated inventory reordering systems (Lean supermarket pull systems), I sometimes question if the voice of the customer is heard or is just being ignored.

For example, there is a particular chain I try to purchase laundry detergent from. I say try because 80% of the time the shelves are empty. Sure, one could attribute the deficiency to lack of employees, shipment delay, etc.- all of which could be improved using Lean Six Sigma methodologies. But if the product is out of stock, the retailer knows I’m likely to continue with the rest of my purchases and will likely return (and increasing the likelihood I’ll continue to purchase more).

It seems to me problems such as the example above could be easily solved. So why do some retailers continually have unavailable items (even when not on sale)? Is there a conspiracy theory in retail to sucker the customer into coming back (and spending more than planned)? If you work in retail, I’d love to know your thoughts on this.

Most Six Sigma speak I’ve heard tries to categorize projects into “hard” vs. “soft” savings. Hard savings projects focus on cutting costs, increasing capacity, etc., while soft savings projects generally deal more with topics where dollar value may not be easily to quantify (e.g. environmental performance, employee morale, etc.).

However, there is another type of project emphasis that often gets overlooked. I’m speaking of enabler projects. I always tell people that Six Sigma is not about saving the world but rather taking pieces of a problem and solving it in smaller manageable chunks. For a great number of technical projects I have been mentoring lately, I’ve noticed enabling projects are needed before the hard savings work can be scoped and completed.

An enabling project can focus on needs such as measurement systems, pre trial screening work (if your project is very complex and will require evolutionary operations, DOE, etc.), and control studies. The enabling project in itself could be a stand alone Six Sigma project, depending on if a known solution exists for the problem. For example, Company X may have been sighted by a regulatory agency. The company knows it has a problem and is looking to Six Sigma, however no measurement system is in place or is defined. It is very difficult to “check” your measurement system in Measure phase when you don’t have one or know the ongoing extent of when defining your problem in Define phase.

The benefit to an enabling project is it reduces the chances of having roadblocks when you get to the point of doing improvement work on your key Six Sigma project. Another benefit is for those who work in a culture where there is a strong push to have projects expediently completed, you can get some of the work done in advance (and the time won’t be counted against your project).

My last article discussed the importance of verifying the sustainability of project work. Although there are many positives to living in a Six Sigma world, it does have a dark side- failed project audits.

My experience, dependent on my employer at the time, has been that anywhere from 10-50% of projects are not embedded into an organization’s culture at the time of a 12 month audit.

So why do projects fail? I’m sure there are countless articles and statistical analysis performed on this issue, however here are my thoughts…

• Change in Key Stakeholder Role. A new Project Champion, Process Owner, etc. moves into the role. Unless solid communication has been made, the value of the project can be ignored or unseen. Also, new blood may mean an absence of Six Sigma training, and as a result, the stakeholder may be oblivious as to what his/her responsibilities are in supporting the aftermath of a project implementation.
• Poor Project Definition/ Scope of Project. I’ve seen people try to save the world on certain projects, rather than breaking problems down into manageable “chunks”. Other projects have had their definition scope change and as a result the expectation of what the project will focus on/ deliver gets mis-communicated among staff, often resulting in a myriad of expectations for results that are often unachievable.
• Targets are too Ambitious. Again with the comment regarding saving the world. I think sometimes people get pressured into thinking they have to save “x” dollars every time they do a project and truly don’t due their due diligence when estimating the return on a project. If your employer has a set minimum amount of return for a project and you initially think you can’t achieve it, then it might not necessarily be the best Six Sigma project.
• Project not Linked to Plan. Especially when training new Black and Green Belts, I’ve seen what I call “feel good” projects. The belt feels good because he/she has come up with a good problem to solve. However, if that problem is not linked to a gap existing between the company plan, metrics, mission statement, etc. and the current state, then it may be hard to garner long term support of embedding any long term improvement work (combined with a role change this can be the kiss of death).

One final note- I have never seen a project fail because the wrong statistical tool was used. Although statistics are important, it’s generally people and their behaviors that will make or break the success of a project.

Most of us are familiar with the DMAIC approach to Six Sigma. But what happens after control phase is completed? The answer is verification. A lot of hard work has gone into the project and as a project leader you need to be able to walk away from an improvement that is embedded and is meeting its target(s). Here are my thoughts on verifying a Six Sigma project…

• Have a primary 3 or 6 month audit, with a 12 month audit serving as a secondary, follow-up audit. The early audit will tell you if project work has been embedded into the organization. The later audit can be used to verify maintainability and if financial targets were achieved.
• Audits should not be conducted by someone directly involved with the project, or employees in the department where the project was implemented. It creates too much inherent bias.
• Project metrics should be evaluated in terms of baseline (before project began), target values, and achieved results. Note: in a 3 or 6 month audit, it may be impractical to look at NPV, ROI, and other financial indicators. Additionally project costs should be factored into financial results.
• Additional detail such as project cycle time, project handover and lessons learned should be discussed.
• The audit should obtain feedback from those impacted about the project’s stability, functionality, and relation to any key planning measures (e.g. safety, maintenance, etc.)
• Once the audit is completed (including any action items noted and references on who/ where information was obtained from), a summary should be shared with stakeholders.
• I like to classify audit findings into one of four categories: Pass, Systems not Embedded but Targets Met, Targets Met but Systems not Embedded, and Targets not met and Systems not Embedded. For audits that do not pass, stakeholders should have consensus about the rating prior to the audit’s final publishing.