Category Archives: Lean Six Sigma

Six Sigma posts

Thanksgiving Notes

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This will not be a post about Six Sigma or personal development. It is a time for being thankful and telling those you love how you feel.

Things I am thankful for and people I care about:

My mother and her recovery from cancer surgery.
My wife who deserves recognition for putting up with me.
My grandson Caleb who brings light into every corner of my life.
My son and the difference his life makes with others.
My daughter-in-law whom I love as if she were my own daughter.
My job and the opportunities it gives me.
My friends. Special mention: Lonnie who gave me a job, Brian and Fadi who share my burden at work.
My readers, who follow my words agree or not.

The problem is that when making a list you will undoubtably leave someone or something off by mistake. If I left anyone out, please do not take offense. I am only a human man, flawed, but saved by Grace.

Personal Development and Six Sigma

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You might ask why I write about personal development on a website that is supposed to be focused on Six Sigma. This is a question that I hear from those who are trained in Six Sigma, but I rarely hear by those who are not.

The answer is that I see Six Sigma as a paradigm change for business people, not a just statistical business management program. At the end of the day, businesses are operated and managed by people. Any real change in the way things are done will happen at the people level. Failure to understand statistics will not cause a business to fail. Failure to understand the underlying, people focused reasons for why things happen in a business will lead to failure. The “why” is more important than the “what”.
Let me give an example. Business arrogance will cause a business to have a deaf ear toward customers and employees even if the business metrics show a problem. Six Sigma processes and statistics will not solve the problem of a manager who is not a believer or is protecting their turf. Therefore, a paradigm change at the individual manager level has to take place in order to bring business processes in alignment with customer expectations.

The majority of Six Sigma consultants are probably aware of the importance of existing corporate culture and its ability to adapt to the Six Sigma paradigm. At the same time, they probably do not know how to fix the problem and (or) are unwilling to walk away from the job opportunity. The resulting Six Sigma roll out fails because of failure to change the leadership culture. No one is happy as a result.

From a cultural perspective, the change is from the inside out not the outside in. No consultant can push change in an organization. Change is pulled. The impetus of pushed change comes from desire that is outside the organization. The impetus for pulled changes comes from the organization’s internal desire to change. This is where the rubber meets the road in Six Sigma.

Six Sigma and Business Acumen

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A common mantra in Six Sigma is to “make decisions based on data”. This is a flawed strategy that probably comes from Six Sigma’s dependence on statistical experts instead of business experts. A Six Sigma Black Belt or Master Black Belt is only as good as their business leadership skills. This is why a form test for Six Sigma certification will not work. A form test cannot measure leadership skills or business acumen. You need the full package to be effective. This is why so many Six Sigma initiatives fail. There is too much emphasis on math skills and not enough on business acumen and leadership.

Good business decisions take both data and business acumen. Data by itself can tell you what is happening, if you have measured the right things. Business acumen will enable you to measure the right things and help you to understand the “why” behind the data. Business leadership is used to lead change.
There is also the question of significance. Data can tell you statistical significance, but business acumen is required to understand practical significance. For example, a process change can produce a statistical significant shift in a product or service that is insignificant to the customer or business from a practical point of view.

To continue to be relevant to the business world, Six Sigma will have to become more business acumen and leadership focused.

You Are What You Expect

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What you expect from others becomes the minimum you will accept from others.

There are certain aspects of human nature that are predictable and usable by marketers. These behaviors occur whether we are aware of them or not. One of these is shopper/customer expectation behavior. When we tell a sales person what we expect, we are really telling them the minimum acceptable performance required for us to buy. In Six Sigma this becomes a critical to quality concern.

Whether you are in sales, Six Sigma or a relationship, knowing the expectations of the other party allows you to know the minimum level of performance expected. People who operate at or below this expected level are probably going to fail.

If you what to succeed in business and have quality relationships, exceeding expectations should be your goal. In life, we cannot always control our circumstances, but we can always control our effort.

What you expect from yourself becomes the maximum effort you will put forth.

A few years back, when the Orlando Magic played the Houston Rockets for the NBA championship, the series was a blow out. The Magic had a great season and talked consistently about “playing for the championship”. They accomplished that goal, which seemed to be the target of their season. The problem is that they played poorly in the championship series and were embarrassed by being swept. They met their expectations and could go no further.

This is another one of those unconscious behaviors mentioned above. When you set expectations for yourself, you have also set a target for your effort. This is why you should not set your expectations too low, or unreasonably high. Goal setting is a progressive thing. The healthy pattern is to set expectations that you know will change once you reach them. The satisfied person is also a stationary or static person. Becoming satisfied will stop your forward momentum.

Look at it from the good, better, best approach. If you believe that “good” is good enough, you are a minimalist and failure will plague you. If you think in the better category, that just makes you average, and though you have a somewhat higher probability of success, true excellence escapes you. When you think in the best category, you have the highest probability of success and excellence comes to define your efforts.

Content vs Context

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Whether you are involved in a Six Sigma Project or just talking with friends we are bombarded with information that has two components.  These are content and context. One is raw information about the “what” and the other is supporting information about the “why”.

Here is an example. A young man from Philadelphia shot and killed another man about a year ago.  This is content. The fact that he did this, as a soldier, in a fire fight in Afghanistan is context.  Content, as mentioned above, gives you the raw information and context helps you interpret the content.

When you grasp the importance of the relationship between content and context, you also begin to understand why listening skills are so important. As content information reaches your brain, contextual data is telling you how to interpret it.  As good listener will be critically analyzing the information to determine its believability, relative importance, the deliverer’s purpose, the meaning behind the words and what information is missing.

Marketers use contextual information to try to spin your interpretation of content information on everything from products and services to politics. Knowledge that this is happening and dealing with it appropriately is key to your personal success. Do you remember the Ivory Soap by line that stated that their soap was “99 % Pure”?  This is context without content. The question you should ask is 99% pure what?

In a Six Sigma project, contextual data is critical to drilling down to root causes. For example, simply pointing out that there is an increase in the defect rate of a manufacturing process is the content. Finding out that the defect rate spikes on the midnight shift when it is raining is the context. The drill down process can be represented mathematically as y=f(x)+f(x)+f(x)… . The progression from f(x) to f(x) is accomplished through the use of contextual information.

In sales, content information might be described as what product or service a shopper wants to purchase. Contextual information would be the shopper’s story, their buying motivation, budget and important product or service requirements. What this means is that as a business, you differentiate yourself from your competitors by way of context. The shopper can get the “what” from other sources. Context determines why they should get the product or service from you.

Making a Point or a Difference

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Telling someone they are wrong does not inspire them to do right. Instead, it usually creates an atmosphere of conflict. The problem has two faces. First, conflict tends to entrench people into their positions, even if they realize that they are probably wrong. Nothing constructive can come from a conflictive environment because people quit trying to find solutions and start trying to save face. Second, it is quit possible, and maybe even probable, that the person accused of being wrong may actually be right.

The point is that making a point is not the same as making a difference. If the truth be told, most of us would rather win the argument than make a difference. This is the sad truth within our culture. We vote and behave as if the processes of our lives were a game where the point was to score points and win, even if no progress is being made.

You might ask how this applies to Lean Six Sigma process improvement teams. Let me explain. When working in a team environment, the team leader must always be focused on keeping a constructive dialog that is not based upon scoring points. The hardest part of process improvement is to “lead” change. To make a difference. When team members are committed to making a difference, they are not keeping score. When they are keeping score they are not making a difference.

I have had to remove individuals from process improvement teams because their “point making” attitude was distractive to the team’s mission to make a difference. This will obviously not make everyone happy, but that is OK. Being a change agent is not easy, nor is it for the faint of heart. When teaching Six Sigma Black Belts, I always instruct them to ” Leave them mad or leave them glad, but never leave them indifferent.”

Case Study: Automotive Control Module Repair and Remanufacturing

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When customers think of automotive control modules, what comes to mind are engine control modules, transmission control modules, and body control modules. Some people are genuinely surprised to find there can be as many as 80-120 different control modules functioning in their vehicle, controlling everything from power windows to drive train components. As everyone in the industry knows, as fuel economy, emissions and safety become more important to shoppers; control modules will become even more important to a smooth operating automobile.
At the same time, the ability of repair shops to diagnose and repair control module problems is being challenged. Many shops do not have the proper scan tools needed to see deeply enough into the vehicle’s control module network to determine what is really happening there. In these cases, the shop is forced to diagnose the vehicle with circumstantial information instead of with the actual observation of vehicle network data. This is equivalent to looking at a “boot print” of the problem instead of actually seeing the boot. This drives questions such as:
• How do I know that the module is really bad?
• If I replace the module, will the vehicle start working properly?
• What can cause the module to go bad?
This is both a challenge and an opportunity for repair shops and the replacement parts industry. Two aspects of customer satisfaction affect every business: satisfaction with the product and satisfaction with the service surrounding it. This is the premise underlying the processes we sat up for Automotive Electronic Solutions (AES) to use in its business of repairing and remanufacturing automotive control modules.
In the case of control modules, the “service surrounding the product” challenge is to understand that the shop first needs a quality diagnosis, before the subject of quality replacement parts can take place. For AES, this is a matter of determining what level of service best fits the customer’s problem. Specifically, AES will ask about trouble codes and symptoms to determine the best solution for the customer. If the trouble codes and symptoms do not clarify the level of service needed, the customer can ship the module to us for internal component evaluation. This evaluation will determine what, if anything, is wrong with the module, as well as determining whether it can be fixed. This is a low cost, overnight service. From there AES can return the module to them with diagnostic notes, repair their original module, or remanufacture a replacement module for them. This reduces a repair shop’s risk in servicing their customer and allows them to control the cost of the service.
From a product standpoint, when a remanufactured module is needed, AES works with recyclers around the country to obtain core modules to work with. These are then remanufactured. The recyclers are an integral player in this process because they know the history of the source vehicle, which avoids potential problems resulting from incorrect part numbers and security configuration. To leverage recycler domain knowledge and help recyclers become a quality supply chain player, AES developed Core Module Configuration and Quality Inspection criteria. As a result, both the recycler and AES operate with fewer mistakes. Recyclers benefit from the ability to sell control modules in a low risk venue.
When AES delivers a repaired or replacement part to the customer, service quality is in play again. Along with the part, the customer receives instructions as to what other parts might need to be replaced in order to protect the repaired or replacement module, and installation requirements to protect their investment in the part. This includes what on-board programming may be needed after installation. Getting out in front of potential problems is the best way to reduce or eliminate customer dissatisfaction issues.
ASE also hired ASE Certified Master Techs to help customers with the details of module replacement and diagnosis. The end result is that when a customer service issue arises, AES has the internal domain knowledge to deal with it. This is another aspect of the service surrounding the product.
Lastly, AES defined what they don’t do. This allows AES to work within the limits of proven service abilities. It also helped to define what R&D was needed to expand the scope of their service.
The main intellectual take away for AES is this. Whether you are a recycler, repair facility, or a remanufacturer of automotive control modules, you operate in a process based industry. To become truly customer focused, your customer must be a part of the process. From a sales perspective, customers want to know that you care about their success as much as you do your own. This is true whether the customer is an end user, shop or warehouse distributor.

Making a Point or Making a Difference

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Telling someone they are wrong does not inspire them to do right. Instead, it usually creates an atmosphere of conflict. The problem has two faces. First, conflict tends to entrench people into their positions, even if they realize that they are probably wrong. Nothing constructive can come from a conflictive environment because people quit trying to find solutions and start trying to save face. Second, it is quit possible, and maybe even probable, that the person accused of being wrong may actually be right.

The point is that making a point is not the same as making a difference. If the truth be told, most of us would rather win the argument than make a difference. This is the sad truth within our government. We vote and behave as if the processes of our lives were a game where the point was to score points and win, even if no progress is being made.

You might ask how this applies to Lean Six Sigma process improvement teams. Let me explain. When working in a team environment, the team leader must always be focused on keeping a constructive dialog that is not based upon scoring points. The hardest part of process improvement is to “lead” change. To make a difference. When team members are committed to making a difference, they are not keeping score. When they are keeping score they are not making a difference.

I have had to remove individuals from process improvement teams because their “point making” attitude was distractive to the team’s mission to make a difference. This will obviously not make everyone happy, but that is OK. Being a change agent is not easy, nor is it for the faint of heart. When teaching Six Sigma Black Belts, I always instruct them to ” Leave them mad or leave them glad, but never leave them indifferent.”

Voice of the Business

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Some of the first questions that a business must answer are:

• Why do we exist?
• Who are our customers?
• What is our mission or purpose?
• What is our vision?

To understand the importance of the answers to these questions, we must first understand that different stakeholders in a business have different perspectives. The stockholders wish to get a return on their investment. Workers wish to get a good wage for their work. Managers and officers wish to meet the business performance metrics set forth by the owners (stockholders, etc). The community wishes to have a neighbor that provides jobs, pays taxes, supports the community, and has no negative environmental impact. These are just a few.

Understanding the answers to these questions from the stakeholders’ perspective helps to define problem areas within the business and its ambient environment. It allows the business to have clearer vision. In the final analysis though, there are two high level purposes of a business. In a capitalistic society, businesses exist to make money, to make a profit. Without this, the business would not exist. Secondly, when the business is profitable, it ideally gives back stability to the community in which it exists.

When a business correctly defines its problem areas, from the customer and business points of view, it is ready to take the next step to improve processes connected to the problem areas.

So what does process improvement mean to the business? It means lower cost, higher efficiency, and higher profits. These manifest themselves in higher customer satisfaction, improved market share, and larger margins. The tie between customer satisfaction and profitability is evident.

Similar metrics apply to organizations like non-profits. For them the metrics may be lower cost and higher efficiency. These may manifest themselves as lower dependence on outside funding and improved margins. The commonality between businesses and non-profits is that the focus is upon doing more with less, thus returning more margin to the stakeholders and more value to the customers.

These bottom-line metrics in a healthy business are in alignment with their strategic planning. Furthermore, when strategic planning is in alignment with customer expectations, improvement projects will improve customer satisfaction and profitability.