If it is, how can

we revive it?
 SIX SIGMA

by J. Bruce Weeks

THERE ARE REPORTS from the field

about the death of Six Sigma.1 The word is that it
has been overused, has not brought its expected
benefits and that newer methods, such as the In 50 Words
Or Less
theory of constraints and systems thinking, are
replacing it.
A 2007 study from the consulting firm QualPro
showed that 53 of 58 large companies that use Six
Sigma have trailed the S&P 500 since they imple-
mented it.2
The quality profession needs to examine the
underlying root causes so we can repair the dam-
age being done to Six Sigma’s reputation.

23
 Diagnosing the problem
Six Sigma can fail for a variety of reasons:
Lack of leadership strategy and commitment.
Not enough leaders truly understand that Six Sigma
is not an overnight savior. It takes time and work to
achieve outstanding results.3, 4
Too many leaders bought into what was called the
“latest and greatest fad” in business process fixes,
rolled out a Six Sigma program, trained everyone and
now have up to 80% of their people working on projects
to improve processes. This sort of Six Sigma under-
5
taking can often take valuable resources away from
launching new products and satisfying customers—
core processes required to stay in business and make
money year after year. In fact, companies must provide
customer satisfaction as job No. 1.
Many Six Sigma implementations were not integrat-
ed into the goals and objectives of companies, and Six
Sigma simply became one of the goals and objectives.6
The Six Sigma rollout wasn’t customer focused7 or tied
to the overall strategic plan for business-aligned cost
reductions.
Six Sigma tends to be applied to everything with this
kind of an implementation plan. This dilutes the effort,
Wiremold corporate level
performance measures / TABLE 1
Objective Goal Measure
N/A
Notes:
24
and it is exactly what happened at Sun Microsystems.8
The results take too long and are of poor quality, yield-
ing low return on investment (ROI).9
Six Sigma Black Belts (BB) end up focusing on
small projects that have little risk and can be imple-
mented very quickly, so any results achieved are mi-
nor at best.10 A stigma grows around a program that
takes so much resource application for so little gain.
Sun eventually abandoned Six Sigma in most of its
departments.11
Another problem occurs when leaders declare vic-
tory after using Six Sigma to solve one problem or
one set of problems. The organization then decides to
move on to the next “latest and greatest thing,” usually
lean.12, 13
The company leaders then launch a new initiative
and their attentions are distracted from Six Sigma.14
Enthusiasm wanes, no measures have been installed to
keep the Six Sigma team on track, and empowerment
of the BBs never happens. It is all over too quickly.
Incorrect accounting methods. Most companies
also suffer from using the wrong measures to deter-
mine Six Sigma results. Activity-based costing (ABC)
and resource-consumption accounting (RCA) practic-
es do not lend themselves to determining the value of
a particular activity or resource to the revenue stream
or customer satisfaction.15
These organizations track only what it cost to do
an activity or use a resource in aggregate, not by indi-
vidual activity or whether the activity contributed to
customer satisfaction.16 Poor management decisions
result during cost cutting; layoffs cause loss of valu-
able company knowledge and wholesale elimination
of plants because their performance is considered
poor.
Because both accounting methods focus on cost,
they miss the value created by Six Sigma projects.
They also report the value far too late to be of real
use. That leaves them improving the nonvalue-added
processes.17
Poor cultural integration. This results in proj-
ects that become randomly selected on a “that sounds
good” basis. The leaders do not establish strategic
goals and objectives that embrace Six Sigma, but in-
stead merely add Six Sigma as a goal.18,19 Six Sigma
projects are launched on their own perceived merits
but have no company strategy to tie into except the Six
Sigma goal itself.

To build a better process, an organization
must use tools from all the quality toolboxes,
including lean, Six Sigma and total quality management.
Local instead of global thinking. There is also
a tendency to optimize local processes without think-
ing about the global impacts. Because projects tend to
be handed out, they also tend to come with suggested
root causes based on the leaders’ perceptions. This
takes empowerment away from Black Belts to really
dig in and determine a root cause.
Because the leader’s perception of the answer al-
ready exists, there is a tendency for team members to
be assigned to the BB before the real root cause has
been determined. Without a true root cause, it cannot
be known which subject matter experts will be need-
ed.20 The team then struggles because it doesn’t have
the right people to solve the problem after it’s been
taken to an actionable level. 21
Human issues. Companies often don’t plan Six Sig-
ma initiatives well. It’s rolled out with lots of fanfare in
fancy presentations to employees. Then the real work
of training the Green Belts (GB) and BBs starts.
The rest of the organization does not hear anything
more about it for a few weeks—or months. The ini-
tial shine has been tarnished. Employees are asking,
“Where are these big improvements I heard about?”
and saying, “No one has asked me about what I think
should be done!”
The company’s culture has not been changed. GBs
and BBs are not supported fully in their roles as change
agents. Often, they have other jobs that demand their
time and take away from their ability to continually
scout for bottom-line opportunities. Lacking leader-
ship commitment, Six Sigma will eventually stall. 22
All of this leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
Leaders don’t get the returns they expected, BBs aren’t
empowered or are unable to realize their full potential,
and the other Six Sigma team members wonder why
they are spending time doing things that result in no
real gain.
Even worse, the control systems that may have
been installed are ignored, and everything goes back
to business as usual.
SIX SIGMA
The cure
There is a better way, often using methods that have
worked at other organizations.
Leadership commitment and strategy. To make
Six Sigma a useful tool again, first an organization
needs to create strategic business goals and objectives
that embrace Six Sigma thinking instead of trying to
add it as a separate goal or objective. All goals and ob-
jectives must be customer focused and provide value.
Key critical-to-quality drivers—such as cost, new
product introductions and market share—must be de-
termined based on those goals and objectives. The real
key to making this work is to realize that what is mea-
sured will be worked on.23
Be careful what measurements you choose to moni-
tor the improvements and what you tie bonuses to. If
you aren’t careful, you will get exactly what you asked
for at the sacrifice of almost everything else.
A better approach would be to take a lesson from
3M, which trained most of its staff and launched Six
Sigma projects everywhere.24 When George Buckley
came on board as the new CEO nearly five years later,
he quickly realized that an overemphasis on Six Sigma
had completely stifled creativity within an organization
built on innovation.
“While process excellence demands precision, con-
sistency, and repetition, innovation calls for variation,
failure, and serendipity,” said Brian Hindo, corporate
strategies editor at BusinessWeek in an article about
the 3M experience.25
Hindo explained that Buckley set up a format in
which workers could seek funding from several sourc-
es, and the company allowed employees to use 15%
of their time to pursue independent projects. This ap-
proach encourages risk taking.
Compare this with 3M’s initial launch of Six Sigma,
when employees were required to have a minimum
number of Six Sigma projects per year and routinely
complete charts on commercial potential, market size
and manufacturing concerns. Data-driven decisions
25
 created an environment in which “incremental work
took precedence over blue-sky research.”26
In another example of total commitment to keep Six
Sigma efforts at the forefront, General Electric (GE)
ensured it got top-down commitment by linking 40% of
each top management bonus to successful implemen-
tation of Six Sigma goals.
This was in addition to requiring all exempt employ-
ees to train intensively in Six Sigma methods and com-
plete a project. Further, becoming a GB was a minimum
requirement for promotion of any employee. Driving
27
Six Sigma from the top down by linking remuneration
to its success ensures it will be used effectively.
Accounting methods. A better financial reporting
system needs to be added to capture the improvements
early. Financial measures using ABC and RCA account-
ing will most likely be useful only for overall company
health (macro level) and should not be used to track
process improvement (micro level).
Most financial measures are too slow and too aggre-
gated to determine those micro-level improvements.
ABC and RCA accounting systems both track costs
that are effects, not causes.28
It may be better to take a lesson from lean in this
instance. For example, the Wiremold Co. measures at
the production cell level.29
Wiremold posts charts and graphs with trend analy-
ses at the cells and uses measurements shown in Table
1 (p. 24). None of these measurements are financial.
All are customer focused, operations driven and reflect
global rather than local optima.30 Table 1 shows a per-
fect combination of value-to-the-customer determina-
tion and, ultimately, value to the organization.
Cultural integration. At GE, all Six Sigma proj-
ects are tied to a strategic business goal as a prerequi-
site.31 This ensures the organization is working on the
right projects. And with the executive bonuses tied in,
employees will get the time they need to actually work
on projects.
When an organization has goals and objectives with
appropriate measures that can quickly and accurately
reveal the results of improvement efforts, it must de-
termine a project-selection process. All improvement
projects must then meet several criteria:
32
26
include risk tolerance, productivity enhancements,
added profits and revenue, and cost avoidance.33
With these criteria and a clear understanding of
resource availability, the executive team can make in-
formed decisions about which projects move forward
now and which will be placed in the parking lot for
potential implementation later.34 Organizations should
work on the 4% of problems that cause 50% of the is-
sues.35 Give the BBs projects that state the objective,
not a ready-made answer.
The addition of lean to the Six Sigma processes to
create lean Six Sigma (LSS) makes so much sense that
not doing it seems unimaginable. This combination of
two methods to reduce waste first, eliminate defects and
improve the remaining necessary processes is powerful.
It is also important to continuously set new goals
and objectives as LSS begins to deliver results. Today’s
110% is tomorrow’s 95%. This will avoid complacency
that tends to set in after a goal has been achieved, par-
ticularly if it was a difficult project.36 Don’t forget to
provide recognition for those who secured that hard-
fought victory.
Local vs. global optima. A better example of link-
ing local to global optima is found again at Wiremold.
Wiremold’s measurements at the production cell
level are shown in Table 2. Referring to Table 1, the
production cell-level measures derive directly from
the company-level measurements. The measurements
are how the strategic goals and objectives are decided
on and are nearly immediate, while a cost-accounting
measurement would be at least one month late.
Again, these factory-floor measurements have no
direct financial data connection because costs are ef-
fects, not causes. Wiremold looks at causes daily, and
each worker can see the effect of his or her work and
react immediately if things seem to be going astray.
Measurements of this type can be easily automated.37
Human issues. All employees need to know about
an LSS initiative, but not all need full GB or BB train-
ing. It’s OK if most are White Belts or Yellow Belts.
You don’t need 80% of your people working on 20% of
the organization’s problems. Stay focused on what the
company does that makes money.
Reward and recognize improvement teams.
Company functions, newsletters and other house or-
gans should proudly announce the benefits achieved
and directly recognize team members and leaders.
 SIX SIGMA

Team outings or a line item in the company yearly re-

ports are also good recognition methods that will build
Wiremold’s performance measures
team morale and engage the organization more com-
at the production cell level / TABLE 2
pletely. Performance dimension Performance measures
But recognition needs to be even more than that.
When an employee makes it to BB and does a good job,
the company needs to find a way to provide advance-
takt
ment opportunities. Being a Black Belt cannot be the
end of the line.
If a company is truly dedicated to LSS, a separate
department might be created to actively seek out
improvement projects without the encumbrances of
other tasks more directly related to the product or
service.
This can provide enterprisewide leadership of LSS
and will give the company a total focus on LSS and
the ability to truly seek LSS opportunities, develop
well-thought-out projects for the executive team
to prioritize, assemble its teams and implement the
improvement.38 Further, there would be a place for
rewarding the successful LSS BB or Master BB with
supervisory positions.

Revive Six Sigma

Six Sigma alone is not enough anymore because you
“would not want to drive process performance to a Six
Sigma level—3.4 defects per one million opportuni-
ties—for a fat and sloppy process with all sorts of un- Management Accounting Quarterly

necessary redo loops.”39 Only if we eliminate the waste

first can we truly improve the processes under study.
But here we need to be careful yet again. Toyota has
been in the news a lot lately for what some call an overly
strict adherence to lean thinking. Lean is being blamed
for the issues and recalls Toyota has experienced.
You can’t build a house with only a carpenter’s
toolbox; among others, you need concrete tools and
electrician’s tools. Similarly, to build a better process,
an organization must use tools from all the quality
toolboxes, including lean, Six Sigma and total quality
management. And the tool used must be appropriate
to the situation.
With changes to an organization’s way of thinking, an
LSS effort can now be a part of a normative business
system for the long haul.40 Select key drivers that are
customer focused and have clear key success factors.
An organization will be managing to value, not cost. That
way, financial reporting will be consistent and timely,
and global goals and objectives will be supported.41
By following these guidelines, we can revive a valu-
able tool set that will be used at the right time and in
the right place to be of great benefit to organizations
and their customers. QP
REFERENCES
1. Guy W. Wallace, “The Death of Six Sigma? Overview of the Enterprise
Process Performance Improvement Model,” http://eppicinc.files.wordpress.
com/2010/07/the-enterprise-process-performance-improvement-model.
pdf.
2. Ken Hunt, “The Big Idea: Six Stigma,” Globe and Mail, Sept. 27, 2007, www.
theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/article778851.ece.
3. Thomas Pyzdek, “10 Reasons Why Six Sigma is Fading,” www.
sixsigmatraining.org/introduction-to-six-sigma/10-reasons-why-six-sigma-
is-fading.html.
4. Naresh Shahani, “Sustaining Six Sigma Efforts,” www.bmgi.com/
enewsletter/sept/article2.html.
5. Jay Arthur, “The Process Paradox,” www.qimacros.com/
sixsigmaezines/200411process-paradox.html.
6. Six Sigma Qualtec, “Implementing Six Sigma to Build Lasting Change,”
www.ssqi.com.
7. Stephen C. Schoonover, “Six Sigma Leadership: The Key to Sustaining
Contemporary Programs,” www.schoonover.com/pdf/PDF_SixSigma_
KeySustain_Quality_Programs.pdf, http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/abstract.
aspx?docid=157421.
8. Dan Nenni, “Sun Microsystems Autopsy Part II: Death by Six Sigma,”

27
SIX SIGMA
http://danielnenni.com/2009/09/23/sun-microsystems-autopsy-part-ii-
death-by-six-sigma.
9. Arthur, “The Process Paradox,” see reference 5.
10. Ibid.
11. Sun Sigma, http://thenetworkisthecomputer.com/site/?tag=sun-sigma.
12. Pyzdek, “10 Reasons Why Six Sigma is Fading,” see reference 2.
13. Six Sigma Qualtec, “Implementing Six Sigma to Build Lasting Change,”
see reference 6.
14. Shahani, “Sustaining Six Sigma Efforts,” see reference 4.
15. Pyzdek, “10 Reasons Why Six Sigma is Fading,” see reference 2.
16. Lawrence P. Grasso, “Are ABC and RCA Accounting Systems Compatible
With Lean Management?” Management Accounting Quarterly, Fall 2005,
www.maskell.com/lean_accounting/subpages/lean_accounting/
components/ABCandRCA.pdf.
17. Wallace, “The Death of Six Sigma,” see reference 1.
18. Praveen Gupta, “Strategies for Sustaining Six Sigma,” Quality Digest, www.
qualitydigest.com/inside/six-sigma-column/strategies-sustaining-six-sigma#.
19. Brian Hindo, “At 3M, A Struggle Between Efficiency and Creativity,” Bloom-
berg BusinessWeek, June 11, 2007, www.businessweek.com/magazine/
content/07_24/b4038406.htm.
20. Arthur, “The Process Paradox,” see reference 5.
21. Ibid.
22. Gupta, “Strategies for Sustaining Six Sigma,” see reference 18.
23. Six Sigma Qualtec, “Implementing Six Sigma to Build Lasting Change,” see
reference 4.
24. Hindo, “At 3M, A Struggle Between Efficiency and Creativity,” see reference
19.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. N. Nayab, “The Story of Six Sigma and GE,” www.brighthub.com/office/
project-management/articles/69148.aspx#ixzz16e7alsvx.
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28. Lawrence P. Grasso, “Are ABC and RCA Accounting Systems Compatible
With Lean Management?” see reference 16.
29. Ibid.
30. Tripp Babbitt, “Redux: Rethinking Lean (Six Sigma) Service,” Quality Digest,
www.qualitydigest.com/inside/six-sigma-article/redux-rethinking-lean-six-
sigma-service.html.
31. Steve Minter, “Six Sigma’s Growing Pains,” IndustryWeek, April 15, 2009,
www.industryweek.com/articles/six_sigmas_growing_pains_18904.
aspx?page=1.
32. Shahani, “Sustaining Six Sigma Efforts,” see reference 4.
33. Schoonover, “Six Sigma Leadership: The Key to Sustaining Contemporary
Programs,” see reference 7.
34. Shahani, “Sustaining Six Sigma Efforts,” see reference 4.
35. Arthur, “The Process Paradox,” see reference 5.
36. Tony Jacowski, “Sustaining Six Sigma Quality Levels,” http://ezinearticles.
com/?expert=tony_jacowski.
37. Ibid.
38. Shahani, “Sustaining Six Sigma Efforts,” see reference 4.
39. Wallace, “The Death of Six Sigma? Overview of the Enterprise Process
Performance Improvement Model,” see reference 1.
40. Schoonover, “Six Sigma Leadership,” see reference 7.
41. Babbitt, “Redux: Rethinking Lean (Six Sigma) Service,” see reference 30.
J. BRUCE WEEKS is senior business process improve-
ment coach with Quality Engineering Consultants
LLC in Charlotte, MI. He earned a master’s degree
in management from Aquinas College in Grand
Rapids, MI, and is a certified lean Six Sigma Black Belt
and project management professional. Weeks is a
member of ASQ.