An Idea Based On Personal Experience

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

William A. Foster, quoted in Igniting the Spirit at Work, Daily Reflections.

Quality is a vast and subjective concept and defining Quality is like beauty, everyone with a different idea based on personal experience. Quality gurus like Deming, Juran, Crosby, etc have been in the field of Quality form past century. Joseph Juran quality is defined as fitness to use in terms of design, conformance availability, safety and field use. Quality has been an important aspect that the companies started to focus on from the Second World War. Quality is description of culture, attitude and organization of the company. Total Quality Management is one of the management concept which emphasises on continuous effort by the management as well as employees of a particular organisation to ensure long term customer loyalty and customer satisfaction (Lawler). TQM has gained popularity as a management philosophy and companies have implemented it to gain a competitive advantage in the market. TQM is viewed as a category of technique if a solution to management fads described as customer focussed solutions and uniquely as the only innovation in management techniques in the last seventy years (Boaden, 1996). Authors like (Ross, 1994) described TQM as thinking about quality in terms of functions of enterprises and is a start finish process. It integrates various functions of an organisation at various levels. TQM concept believes in involving every employee in the process and working towards a common goal of Customer Satisfaction. It ensures that every employee works towards improvement of work, Culture, Process, services, systems, and so on to ensure Quality(Leaford;, 1992). All the management philosophies talk about altering the company’s performance provided they are followed as per the guidelines. But in the modern changing world the practices carried out by companies to gain the competitive edge over the market has been changing and TQM provide the light in the darkness to deal with the changing the world. Customers have become more demanding in case of quality of the products and the international markets are fierce with competition to achieve the upper hand over rivals.

Six Sigma is another management philosophy that is being used by various organisations to overcome the quality issues in production. It is a quality improvement approach that believes in minimising the mistakes, maximising the value and aims in getting closer to the targets. It is a deterministic thinking process which means being proactive about the quality at all stages of production. Six Sigma performance is a statistical term for process that produces less than 3.4 defects per million. It is a quality improvement, a methodology, and a measurement playing a major role in both manufacturing and service industries evaluating the capability of the process to perform defect free (Revere, 2006). Six Sigma breakthrough strategy combines improved metric and a new management philosophy to significantly reduce defects thereby strengthening the firms market positions and improving the profit line (Schroeder, 2000). It involves designing, improving and monitoring business activities to minimise or eliminate waste while optimizing customer satisfaction and increasing financial stability(P S Pande, 2000). It is customer focussed and is capable of attaining quality improvements by reducing wastes in the form of variation in the process. Lean and six sigma are popular contemporary process improvement methodologies intended for companies that strive for operational excellence(Maleyeff, 2005) with the idea of cross fertilization and a merger of two methods to create a room for some more (Marcus Assarlind, 2013) Such a merger is termed as Lean Six Sigma or Lean Sigma. Researchers like(Nave, 2002) stated that Lean and Six Sigma are the same thing but (Spedding, 2010) through their research examined that Lean is more related to strategy and a driver towards improvement and Six Sigma helps attain these improvements through its tools and techniques. Many researchers term combining lean and six sigma can be fruitful using of them as a supporter of other when on method the lead role.

History: Quality control has its history started and was developed from industrial revolution(Ross, 1994). Industrial revolution pushed in a need of checking the quality as the customers were becoming demanding. The concept of Quality control came into existence in the 1950’s and gained its popularity by 1980’s (Leaford;, 1992). Quality was considered more important than anything else as due to increasing customer awareness. In the study carried out by (Boaden, 1996), the concept of TQM traces its roots in Japan after the World War Two. It was a common thought developed for Quality Control claiming its origin in the manufacturing sector which after gaining popularity was applied to almost all the organisation. Edward Deming, one of the early pioneer who popularized the importance of Quality Control in Japan in the 1950’s. According to Deming, Quality must be built into the products at all stages in order to achieve the highs levels of excellence (Ross, 1994). Joseph Juran, Quality guru implied that Quality is the responsibility of the management by effective planning, organising and controlling to achieve excellence. His work was broader in nature and came up with the concept of Managing Business Process Quality concept which implicated the cross functional quality improvements in the organization. Armand Feigenbaum gave a the concept of Total quality control and is supposed to be the fore runner of Total Quality Management (Ross, 1994). He basically came up with a system of integrating the efforts of various groups or functions of an organization to develop maintain and improve quality. Six sigma has a well documented origin as compared to TQM. It was formulated by Bill Smith a reliability engineer in 1986 when Company MOTOROLA was reported with bad quality problem in products. "Motorola, American electronics giant where a goal of improving all products – goods as well services was established focussing on the improvement rate and in particular, that simply better may not be sufficient. The approach clearly focussed all the resources including human resources on reducing variation in all processes like manufacturing, administrative processes and all other processes. To program was called as Six Sigma as it gave a clear measure on the improvement work. The word sigma is sigma is used as it represents statistical measure which is related to the capability of the process, that is, the ability to produce non defective products / units / parts" (Bengt Klefsjo, 2001). Carl Fredrick Gauss (1777-1855) introduce the concept of the normal curve or distribution which was later used by Dr Walter Shewhart for the introduction of three sigma in 1922 stating that process intervention is needed when the output went beyond this limit representing the process yield of 99.973 per cent and a defect rate of 2600 parts per million (Mahesh S. Raisinghani, 2005).

SUCCESS RATES :TQM was implement by Xerox as a competitive strategy. Included the programs like bench marking reduced supplier base and forming leadership teams (evans – correia, 1991). Mercedona, leading supermarket in Spain undertook Total Quality Management in 1990s enabling the management to take multidimensional approach and looking for excellence along the companys entire chain of value creation by maintaining a clear focus on the market and customers emphasizing total service quality (Wharton.Universia, 2008). In 2007 Mercedona earned profit of € 336 million, achieving an annual growth rate of 25.2 percent, shooting up to fourteenth place on the global ranking with a recorded profits upto 34 percent higher than the last decade (Wharton.Universia, 2008). Similarly many companys around the globe reported a significant gain after the implementation of TQM. In India, RPG Enterprises saved $ 2 million in poor quality cost in the year 1996 followed by $24.4 million saving reported in the year 2000.(BPIR.com) In UK, Neptune Limited, a precision machining company reported of fruiting the benefits of TQM in term of Improvements in communication and work sections, breaking the barriers in work sections, improved awareness, developments in internal / external customer culture and reduction in conflicts.(BPIR.com) An Automotive springs Manufacturer in UK accounted an improvement in reduction of defective parts from 5661 ppm in January 1998 to 478 ppm in April 1999 after the implementation of quality programs in the company.(BPIR.com) The implementation of Six Sigma has been possible with the complete support of Top management and has a documented effects in the company’s financial reports. Various companies like General Electric, Motorola, Allied Signals, Citibank and Sony has successfully implemented the methodology of Six sigma and has reaped the fruits in terms of economic well being. GE 1999 annual report stated no financial gains in the year 1996 when Six Sigma was implemented but till 1999 it flourished and reported an economic benefit of $ 2 billion.(Anthony, 2002). Motorola started the Six Sigma revolution and bagged the Malcom Baldrige award in 1988 with financial saving of $ 2.2 billion in reducing cost of poor quality( such as reduced scrap, Rework, warranty cost etc). (Anthony, 2002) Other companies like AlliedSignal, Citibank, Sony followed the footsteps in implementation of Six Sigma (Banuelas, 2001). Gabor (2001) studied Ford Company according to his finding Six Sigma had an upper hand over TQM when company embraced Six Sigma in 1999 and expected process performance improvement about seventy per cent and thereby cost saving in the range from $ 200000 to $ 250000 (Gabor, 2001). Lawrence Bossidy, CEO of AlliedSignal implemented Six Sigma making financial targets formidable and easy to achieve.(Schroeder, 2000)

TOOLS and TECHNIQUES: Every management philosophy has a strategy which is understood and followed by the organization it is being implemented. As stated by John S. Oakland in his book on Total Quality management, Total quality Management is an approach to improve the effectiveness and flexibility of the business as a whole.(Oakland, 1993) He explains that to achieve Total Quality every person in the Organisation has to be made accountable for their own performance, committing to attain quality. It is neither a cost cutting or productivity improvement method or device but is concerned with the changing the attitude and skill so that the culture of the organisation becomes one of preventing failures and norm is operating right at the first time (Oakland, 1993). During the visits to Japan Dr Deming gave a chain reaction as per the figure below:

Quality control uses various statistical techniques to measure the operational performance of the organisation. Variety of tools is available to implement TQM strategies. The implementation of TQM strategy is explained as sitting stool which inevitably need to focus of the three legs i.e. Employees Customer and Processes. (Barnes, 1994)

CUSTOMERS

EMPLOYEES

PROCESSES

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Figure 1: TQM Implementation strategy

These three legs of stool need constant attention other would create an imbalance in the organisation. The Seven-P Process explains the process of implementation of TQM in an organisation which are Positive Commitment, Planning, Participation, Process Control, Problem Identification, Problem Elimination, Permanence(Barnes, 1994). There are seven old tools and seven new tool that are being used by TQM

Seven Old Tools

Seven New Tools

Cause and effect Diagrams

Relation Diagrams

Histograms

Affinity Diagrams

Pareto charts

Tree Diagrams

Scatter Diagrams

Matrix Diagrams

Statistical Process Control

Matrix Data Analysis

Deming Cycle

Previous Decision Program Charts

Quailty Costing

Arrow Diagrams

Table 1: Adapted from (Barnes, 1994)

Other tools like Failure modes and effect analysis, Quality Function deployment and Taguchi Methodology are also used effectively by management to keep a check quality.

Six Sigma follows a systematic and standardized strategy DMAIC (Define – Measure – Analyze – Improve – Control ) for problem solving. The method or strategy has been used and formalized to improve each and every process to improve the effectiveness and efficiency in the industry. It is applied by highly trained professional which is followed step by step to a breakthrough benefit. Define phase sets the objectives and aims for process. Measure phase deals with understanding the process, validating the data accuracy and determining the process capability. Analyze phase is concerned with determining the relationship between input, output and screening the potential causes of the errors. Improve phase is more action based and deals with determining, validating and implementing the solution to achieve the desired objective. Control phase is sustaining the results by use of different process control methods and monitoring the performance of the process set. At times another phase R ( Recognize ) is placed which mainly deals with choosing the right problem to solve or a need to improve before defining the problem.

Six Sigma encompasses around a simple equation called as "Breakthrough Equation":

Y = f ( x ) + ϵ

Y = Outcome

f = deterministic function

x = Input factors / pieces

ϵ (epsilon) = presence of error.(Corporation;, 2005)

There are four domains of activity to which six sigma can be applied. First, Thinking for breakthrough focuses on improving the performance of every employee. Second, Processing for Breakthrough deals with improving the processes existing with greater involvement of employees. Third, Designing for Breakthrough focuses on improving designs for the new processes. Last, Managing for Breakthrough deals with driving and supporting the activities of above three domains. (Mahesh S. Raisinghani, 2005) explained some of the commonly used tools in the implementation and success of Six Sigma. These tools are bifurcated into process optimization tools and statistical analysis tools. Following is the list of all the tools in each toolset.

Process optimization tools

Statistical analysis tools

The SIPOC (Supplier-Input-Process-Output-Customers)

Basic Stats

CT (Critical to) Tree

Plots and Charts

Modelling

Time Series

Simulation

ANOVA ( Analysis of variance )

Cause & Effect Matrix

Tolerance Analysis

Fishbone Diagram

DOE ( Design Of Elements )

Capability and Complexity Analysis

Process capability analysis

Plans

Regression

FMEA ( Failure Mode and Effect Analysis)

Multivariate analysis

Measurement systems analysis

Reliability and Survivability

Exploratory Analysis

Table : Adapted for (Corporation;, 2005)

Processes optimization tools enable you to design stimulate and optimize the processes with a goal to see how the work is performed and determine the problematic areas / processes. Statistical analysis tools make help in order to analyse the collected data and convert it into knowledge to make decisions. Each toolset has its own subset of tools which help in either optimization or analysis of the process. Various software’s are available in the markets for analysis which counts over 120 software programs are available supporting six sigma but the leading software’s are Minitab, JMP, Excel .(Corporation;, 2005) Process optimization tools are categorized in two classes, 1: Business Plan Analysis (BPA) which enables you to modelling, process mapping, simulation and analysis 2: Business Process Management (BPM) enables to connect information system and measurement and control functions.(Corporation;, 2005) Commonly used software are Traxion, iGrafx, SigmaFlow, Visio, Varyx, 3-Cs Explorer.

Similarities and Differences: (Roy Andersson, 2006) published a research paper which significantly describes the similarities and differences between TQM, Six Sigma and Lean. This part of the essay will describe the various similarities and difference based on the methodology used by the above stated researchers. These researchers used different areas such as origin, theory, tools, methodologies, effects and criticism to bring forth the distinctive similarities and differences in the two concepts.

TQM and Six Sigma share a common aim if minimising the wastes and resources while improving the customer satisfaction and financial stability.(Roy Andersson, 2006) Both the concepts originated in the quality evolution in Japan after the World War II (Dahlgaard;, 2001). TQM became a very popular notion in the 1990s as it was associated with the prominent figures as Deming and Juran but then term was not used as TQM. Six sigma originated at Motorola which spread with the same name to the other organisation whereas the term TQM had no such origin. Considering the studies of researchers like George (2004),(Klefsjo, 2000), Six Sigma majorly focuses on accomplishing no defects and TQM also focuses on the same issue but with an objective of overall customer satisfaction. (Klefsjo, 2003), (K. Magusson, 2004) studies suggest, although TQM and Six Sigma approaches are a lot in different. Six sigma works its way right from the top management and has its full support for the improvements as managers understand the economic impacts well as compared to others. TQM emphasises more on commitment and employee involvement rather than the economic impact. Both the concepts involve employees and have a commitment to full fill but a slight difference in the approach adapted. TQM has a lot of methodologies under a single concept (Hellsten and Kelfsjo, 2003) but improvement cycle is the most commonly used methodology (Lindsay, 1996) which is composed of PDSA phases. Six sigma has two major improvement methodologies out of which the first one emphasis on existing processes and the second one focuses on the new processes. TQM and Six Sigma Methodologies are cynical and have similar phases and one could argue that the methodologies in six sigma are further development of the Improvement cycle, developed by Shewhart and Deming. (Roy Andersson, 2006) Both the concepts have statistical as well as analytical tools which again gives us point of similarity in a generic manner but when we discuss in depth we get the point of distinction. TQM has tools which are either statistical or analytical base among which seven quality control tools and management tools are being applied commonly. Six sigma being a development of TQM has variety of tools which range from design to management tools and from very simple to advanced statistical tools giving quality a more statistical approach.(Roy Andersson, 2006) Talking about effects of the methodologies on the organisations, Hellsten and Kelfsjo (2006) describe the main objective of TQM as customer satisfaction. (J. A. Elkof, 1999) research shows that there is a positive correlation between customer satisfaction and the financial results in companies. Six sigma and TQM have a common emphasis on customer satisfaction the only difference lies is the priority. For Six Sigma the first and important priority is economic saving and then is Customer satisfaction. As per (Singhal, 1997) and (Hansson, 2003) TQM organisations outperforms similar to the organisations regarding the financial indicators. But (Roy Andersson, 2006) differ in opinion as the six sigma does not actually improve customer satisfaction which is supported by Ericsson in Boras. Criticism is the last point of differentiation between Six Sigma and TQM. Various researchers researched on TQM and Six Sigma to find out what is the major similarity and difference in both the concepts.(Bengt Klefsjo, 2001) state that Six Sigma supports all the six values of TQM and argue that it should be seen as a collection of tools and techniques supporting the view of TQM.

Application : SAMSUNG: From the evolution of quality management system right after the World War 2, various companies have been putting efforts in implementing various improvement strategies to gain a competitive edge over its competitors. Pioneer implementation of Six Sigma, Motorola in 1986 completely revolutionized the quality management system being used all over the world. Six Sigma was now used as a management philosophy and a problem solving methodology ((Rowland, 2003; Islam, 2004; Weiner, 2004)) helping to take decision, get ideas and systematic solution for problem that prevailed in the market. It exerted an effect on cultures operating systems and profits on the company globally. (Hong;, 2011) Samsung is known for its rapid growth in 1990s o become a major player in manufacturing of electronic equipment’s and had revenues of almost $ 64 billion and net profit of $ 8.6 billion.('Samsung Does Six Sigma: A Case study on supply chain management,' 2007) Even after the adoption of Six sigma approach Samsung was not happy with all the defects that could be eradicated from its systems which lead to the development of that would enhance the new global opportunities ('Samsung Does Six Sigma: A Case study on supply chain management,' 2007). Idea revolved around four elements namely

1 Discipline: Six Sigma uses a structured process of Define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC) for products or processes which provide the discipline to deal with operational vulnerabilities and variability in business operations (Hammer, 2002). This element mainly helps in formulizing the various approaches to SCM projects and ensures that the projects are defined properly and implemented or executed as per the decided method. Analytical approach helps in steering the improvement projects to be carried effectively.

2 Results: Sustaining results is one of the key challenges that are faced by the companies in future. Six Sigma uses the control phase in DMAIC methodology to maintain and record the sustainability of the results that were achieved in the past and makes sure that these results form a base for the further improvement in on-going projects in Samsung. Six Sigma supplemented by Samsung’s own centralized system of capturing and recording all its projects beyond its completion to ensure sustainability.

3 Framework: At Samsung people are the centre of potential improvement of SCM Projects as there is a constant shortage of well qualified and talented people in the company. Integrated six sigma and human resources proved successful as it help in developing and training people as per the company requirements and providing a constant source of resource to the SCM projects. Six sigma’s coloured belt systems helped in differentiating the level expertise and managing people.

4 Data: Six Sigma was seen as the methodology which would, by its nature heightened usage of quantitative analysis (Brefogle, 1999) The data from operation was abundant but was not used to correctly. Appropriate use of the same helped in uncovering the flaws in operations according to the SCM perspective.

Based on the above key elements company put together the methodology and combines the SCM and Six Sigma providing all necessary means of training and developing supply chain to lead SCM innovations. Samsung’s SCM six sigma comprised of two building blocks, first to develop a team that could research on various global companies and their six sigma approaches ( This team was called as SCM business team – SBT) and second design principle derived by the team for proper implementation of the methodology in different stages.(Hong Mo Yang, 2007) SBT researched on various companies like GE, DuPont, Honeywell and derived various conclusion from the study to be applied to the methodology. From the conclusion Samsung realised that 75 per cent of the SCM project would require redesigning and rest 25 per cent needed process improvement and finally devised DMAEV (Design, Measure, Analyse, Enable, Verify) methodology incorporating five design concepts (Process, operation rule and policy, organization role and responsibility, performance measure and system) process modelling and value chain map techniques and SCM related investment value analysis methods (Hong Mo Yang, 2007). After the successful implementation of SCM Six Sigma at Samsung the efforts and investment have turned out to be fruitful.

Another case study is on the application of Six Sigma in Newcastle University Library to enable self service for issuing and return of books. Newcastle is one of the leading universities in UK in the field of education and a leader in implementing technology at the university premises. Newcastle university was an early adopter of computer systems in library, file handing system in 1970 (Gray;, 1973) and various technologically advanced system to enable staffs and students to issue and return books themselves (Stafford, 1996; A Morris, 2001). Newcastle university decided to upgrade and install the self service units to enable to develop circulation and increase choice of users, as well as maintaining its competitiveness by investing in modern technology by introducing one unit at Walton library (medical and dental library), one unit at Law library by 1998 and four units at the main library by 2000 which is a considerable investment in service (Morrow, 2006). Newcastle university decided to take this project as it with possible improvements in availability of human resources for various tasks, customer satisfaction and indeed to demonstrate the return on investment done. The complete project was based on DMAIC methodology which is a standardized system used by Six Sigma. The project was developed and implemented with the help of 3M company to set an example that Six Sigma could be implemented in libraries and can be beneficial. The Define phase consisted on defining the problem statement which in this case was to increase the use of self issue at Robinson library maintaining the user satisfaction at the current level (Morrow, 2006). Once the problem was define next step was to set up a team 3M Six Sigma Experts which will liaison with the library staff to carry out the project determining the project length to six months. The measurement phase required the team to break the process into steps and transferring it to cause and effect diagram to understand the root causes on the rate of self issue. The analyse phase used FMEA to prioritize the book issuing process and identify the possible actions. Improve stage helped in putting together all the recommendations to increase the library’s self issue statistics to the agreed 67 per cent (Morrow, 2006). With all the improvement done control phase looked at sustaining the improvements giving the library a reference document to help maintain the fixes put in place and self issues figures at around the target agreed. Six sigma helped in improving the reliability of self issue giving various resolutions by focussing on the problem instead of assumption about the problem thus increasing the self issue percentage, providing a robust method of addressing problem accurately and speedily in systematic way.(Morrow, 2006)