Six Sigma Definition, derived from TQM

I will not explain again all bullet points of Six Sigma or TQM, but solely focus on the differences in order to get a deviated definition of Six Sigma. By this I will focus on both, theoretical aspects as well as thoughts which occurred when dealing with the topic itself. These differences will be split in three dimensions: Strategy and Leadership; Culture, Organisation, Roles and Education; and Improvement and Tools.

 

Strategy and Leadership

Compared to TQM, Six Sigma is …

• a knowledge based management concept, which supports improvement of the concept itself.
• a clear chain of steps through all organisational units reaching a pre-defined strategic goal. Reaching a performance goal is not the end, but permanent monitoring.
• a concept which not only focuses on manufacturing or production, but also on service and other business agendas.
• not just for legitimacy reasons, but for becoming and staying competitive. It is the starting point for new performance levels. From this day, performance and quality are visible in everything they do.
• a management philosophy, which strongly includes the commitment of all management levels.

 

Culture, Organisation, Roles and Education

Compared to TQM, Six Sigma has …

• a clear organisational structure and organisational infrastructure, which exists next to the “normal” line-functions. Therefore, Six Sigma employees are professionals in defining and improving processes.
• a role structure within the organisation depending on the experience and educational level of the staff.
• has the power to use the employees knowledge to improve the whole organisation.
• a broader organisational focus. As there are no functional boarders, it is possible to mention, that Six Sigma is more “total” than TQM. There are no projects in isolated chunks.
• the power to change the corporate culture of an organisation, as education and training are a prerequisite for working within Six Sigma projects (1% of the workforce receive four weeks of training and their subsequent full-time commitment to improvement projects as black belts. 99% of the workforce gets an introduction to the system in order to gain the understanding and the commitment).

 

Improvement and Tools

Compared to TQM, Six Sigma is …

• is a structured way without offering too much free space in improvement tasks. The goal of near-perfection is known and visible.
• an overall method, including the re-design of processes (DFSS), improvement of processes (DMAIC), ongoing process management and ending with permanent control benchmarks. Instead of that, TQM implies the focus on stabilising rather than improving processes.
• focused on the vital few problems. Additionally, through permanent training and education, Six Sigma improvement teams are in a position to define these problems.
• equipped with a variable toolkit and knowledge depending on the problem to solve. Therefore, the danger of wrong used tools is limited.
• trained by professionals who are accredited by the ASQ (American Society of Quality) as well as by the ESQ (European Society of Quality).
• in a position to improve the concept itself, as knowledge management plays an important role.

 

Summarising, Six Sigma is a managerial committed, pre-defined goal, which has to be reached through a clear chain of steps for re-design (DFSS), improvement of processes (DMAIC), on-going process management and monitoring. It is a management system creating an organisational structure and infrastructure next to line-functions, which includes the transfer of a Six Sigma-toolkit through permanent training depending on people’s experience and educational level. Instead to Six Sigma, TQM stand for a composition of different technical systems, focusing more on production processes than overall processes. It is seen as external solution with unclear organisational implications and an unclear goal. TQM trainings mostly focus on the toolkit and not on the overall context or pre-educational differences.

 

Six Sigma’s Impact on Organisation and Processes

The aim of Six Sigma is to solve identified problems. The following paragraphs should discuss this and additional facts in detail:

 

Six Sigma has different impacts on organisations and processes. Why? Such companies do no longer see their environment in a kind of vacuum, but as a complete process. When having identified a problem in the sense of Six Sigma, the whole process will be checked. Similarities with the theory of Rugman and D’Cruz’s Flagship Firm model and its meaning of avoiding borders to suppliers, customers and consumers, as well as thinking in processes can be identified. Changing from a product to a process focus and therefore changing from fire-fighting to a long-term perspective can be seen as advantage.

 

Switching from external to internal advisors is significant, too. In the meaning of Six Sigma, an in-house implementation offers a deeper entrance to identify problems, to necessarily information and hidden knowledge as well as to unleash the full potential of the management concept itself. In that way, Six Sigma follows a completely new approach in the world of management concepts by shaping an organisation’s structure and processes on a long-term perspective. Therefore, Six Sigma companies take out 1% to 10% of their line staff in order to work on cross-functional Six Sigma projects. This rule is something completely new, when talking about management concepts. Most companies are used to pay for external consultants, but they are for sure not used to establish a permanent in-house consultancy. Nevertheless, those employees have special knowledge, mostly tacit knowledge, gained through many years of experience as specialists. Combined with knowledge on specific Six Sigma methods, high benefits can be realised.

 

Due to the fact that 1% of the staff is bound in Six Sigma projects, organisations will have a further small “hierarchical pyramid” within the original one. This sub-organisation is strongly specialised, cross-functional and process focused. This could be seen as a big advantage in the meaning of improvement as well as an over organised business. Sure, the Six Sigma team members can focus on core activities, cross-functional matters and take “experts on demand” profit from such a person’s specialised knowledge. In such a case maybe the problem occurs that routine tasks will not be fulfilled, when an “expert on demand” cannot be replaced by a colleague. This implies the danger, that routine tasks become second priority and companies focus on solely on improvements and forget daily business.

 

From an improvement point of view, Six Sigma stands for a very disciplined and structured method. Separating an improvement process into clear structured parts as Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control is an efficient way to analyse causes and solve problems. Maybe, this leads to losing creativity and abandon revolutionary steps, too. The three added improvement steps stated by Harry may lead to confusion and therefore non-acceptance. Complexity is increased up to an unnecessary level. Moreover, these three steps are, in the understanding of this thesis, already included in the standard DMAIC process itself. Complexity itself is a risky issue especially in this case because the concept already offers a quite high level of complexity itself. This complexity makes it extremely important to prepare the employees with the correct knowledge in order to interpret findings out of a DMAIC process. Otherwise substantial benefits cannot be realised. Avoiding pre-solutions, as stated within the Six Sigma chapter by Matlasek and therefore, trying to be absolutely objective in the starting phase is a big advantage. In that way, the internal consultants are still open for other possibilities and other perspectives. Different individuals use different approaches due to the mentioned pre-knowledge and come to different solutions by starting with the same information. The fact of such a disciplined and structured management concept, as well as the avoidance of pre-solutions strongly implies the idea that employees have to adjust themselves to the concept, ways of improvement, and tools. They need to learn and keep the learning on an organisational level due to the standardisation.

 

Referring to Goldstein’s theory, it is especially the non-equilibrium situation that leads to change, not the structured one. Nevertheless, such a clear way of working may have the power to lead to transparency and to quantify processes, costs and outcomes which offers the management a necessary basis to lead an organisation.

 

The goal to specialise 1% of a company’s employees shows that this management concept strongly recommends focusing on a company’s human capital and their knowledge. But it means high investments to train 1% of the staff in the Six Sigma methodology. This is a modern idea and can be seen as big advantage, as other management concepts do not address the importance of acceptance, commitment and understanding. The training plans help to provide the organisation with the core success parameter, knowledge. Nevertheless, a standardised training plan also leads to failure, as standardised training sessions do not suit everybody’s pre-knowledge. Based on this understanding, further selective, individualised training is a necessity to leach the full long-term success-potential. Especially the Measure stage leads to the risk of gaining variation from the measurement system itself instead of the process. This risk can be minimised by focusing on the mentioned selective training sessions based on the Six Sigma employees’ pre-knowledge. Clearing the delta between the expert’s and the user’s level and filling the gap is of great importance.

 

When going deeper into the realisation phases, Six Sigma offers a lot of different tools, statistically and non-statistically, in order to quantify and create transparency of organisational processes. Not all 50 tools are a necessity. In contrary, this mass of tools may lead to wrong use, confusion, and miss-understanding as well as again a loss of people’s creativity. Even when being a professional in using these tools does not seem to be easy. Especially the statistical tools require a lot of statistical pre-knowledge for both, using and interpreting. Therefore, miss use and wrong interpretation could be the result. During the research it was found out that employees, trained in Six Sigma normally use about 5-10 different tools which they understand best. All the others are not used, partly due to miss-understanding, partly due to not having acquired the appropriate knowledge to use them correctly or just because they are not aware of the tools’ utility. These facts automatically limit the possibility to realise the full improvement potential.

 

Summarising, there are a lot of advantages when understanding Six Sigma’s impact in organisational structures and processes. Nevertheless, some weaknesses have been investigated which have to be kept in mind. Most of them may be abandoned through selective training and supporting employees’ understanding. It definitely offers a high level to quantify processes due to the structured methods like DMAIC or DFSS. At the moment Six Sigma is absolutely state-of-the-art, but the value of process orientation is just average. The organisational structure itself is strongly influenced, but not the complete organisation. There is no change from a functional to a complete process organisation. Six Sigma creates a functional structure within the company. Only the improvement methods follow a process approach, but not the organisational structure. Nevertheless, Six Sigma is a step forward in the world of management concepts and improvements.

 

Pühringer D. (2011): "The Six Sigma Method"