Are You Making These Mistakes With Your Six Sigma Projects?

Six Sigma principles provide high value and success to organizations that use them; but only if the implementation is well-planned. A cleverly laid Six Sigma implementation can lead to a rewarding experience and amazing benefits for the organization. Conversely, a deployment with flaws can bring up disappointing results. There are certain drawbacks seen with Six Sigma implementation when it is not done the right way. Below mentioned are the most common mistakes seen that result in significant wastage of time and resources; thus leading to failure of the entire effort of implementing Six Sigma. So, make sure you avoid them and keep your team on track.

Wrong leadership

One of the main reasons for a Six Sigma project to be successful is effective leadership. It is very important to have leaders, and that too the “right” leaders. Six Sigma projects need to be led by experienced professionals with a Six Sigmacertification in India. The Six Sigma leader has the responsibility of assigning tasks and duties to other members of the team; so if he isn't on the right track, he won't be able to keep the project on the right track too. Also, it is often seen that Six Sigma projects are being carried out without any leaders. The staff is trained and ordered to move ahead. But, without a leader, there will be no direction, and the results, if any, will only be short-lived. Therefore, a leader who offers direction, commitment, and support is very important to drive success.

Wrong strategy

The implementation of the Six Sigma strategy must be in line with the goals of the organization in order to achieve the right results. It should involve the organization’s schedule, tools to be used, and the plotted course. But, this is generally not seen. Lack of alignment is often seen which causes confusion among the key stakeholders and associates about the value of the organization and its processes.

Wrong projects

It is sometimes seen that leaders take up projects that are outside the team’s capability and expertise, or those that do not focus on the business objectives. But, it is important that the Six Sigma projects meet the standards of the business so that resources and efforts are not wasted. The projects taken up should be based on the goals of the organization, on finances, and on the customers, otherwise the set goals will not achieved. Also, it is important that you start off with small projects, and do not get greedy to take up larger projects when you aren’t ready for it. Manage and focus on a single aspect, and eliminate variations as much as possible.

Excessive training

Obviously, expert training towards Lean Six Sigma certification in India is important; but excessive training can be harmful. With too much training, the team may always look towards implementing all tools and tactics in every project, which is not required. Also, with excessive training, teams are more focused on those certification goals, and ultimately fail project execution. So, along with training, teams must equally be focused on the business goals and know how to bring benefits for the organization.

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How To Efficiently Organize Your Workplace With 5S Lean?

For Lean fanatics, 5S is a way of life; it is the way of bringing order and sense to the world around. 5S is a Lean system that is used for organizing, cleaning, developing, and sustaining an organized and efficient work environment, ultimately leading to productivity. It is the name given to a workplace organization method that uses a list of 5 Japanese words – Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, and Shitsuke. To make it adaptable by organizations worldwide, these 5 Japanese words have been replaced with English synonyms, namely Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. Therefore, 5S represents the activities that you must undertake to create a clean working environment by implementing these 5 important practices. Utilizing these 5 practices will help you organize your workspace for efficiency and effectiveness by identifying and storing the items used, maintaining the items, and sustaining the new order. After all, organization is one of the keys to an effective workplace. Let us understand in detail these 5 basic actions that are taught in professional 5S Training Program India. 

Sort

This involves removing all the unnecessary items from the working area that are not needed for the job at hand. These could include anything from tools, equipment, and machinery, to documents and containers. Therefore, sorting mans keeping only those items that are needed in your workplace.

Set in order

Now that you have only the most required things with you, you need to systematically arrange them one by one by providing a designated place to each item. You could designate locations by hanging signs from above, or labeling all the items, or marking lines on the floor. Whatever you do, you must give every item a permanent place, which can be taken to be used, and then returned to that particular place again when not in use.

Shine

You now have everything in place, with the unused items removed. This means half the work is already done, and the workplace is now clean and organized. But, this is not enough. You now need to ‘shine’ the workplace, meaning that you must clean up the area to make it look professional. Have your entire working area repaired, refurbished, fixed, and even painted, if required. Remember that working in a clean area leads to improved morale and better productivity.

Standardize

Now, the entire workplace is clean and organized. But, it is important that this procedure of organizing the area is consistently followed, and for this, it is important that the practice is standardized. So, you need to formally arrange for procedures where instructions and agreements are put in place. Also, responsibility must be assigned to specific people to see to it that these procedures are developed and followed.

Sustain

Once the procedures are standardized, every individual will be bound to follow them, which means that the process will be sustained. Such maintenance will encourage new improvements and make sure that an orderly workplace is sustained. If the procedures are not sustained, old habits of disorganization will resurface, and the efforts of putting up an organized workplace will be lost.

As you can see, these principles are very easy, but they definitely require a commitment. So, you need to make sure that everyone within your organization is encouraged to follow these procedures to commit to an orderly workplace. Although the 5S started as a procedure for the manufacturing industry, it has now spread to other working environments too. So, whatever kind of workplace you are operating in, you must also have your employees undergo a 5S Training Program India from professionals like TQMI, who have been pioneers in quality management and related principles since the past two decades.

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Lean Six Sigma Is Now More Than A Manufacturing Tool

If you are an organization looking to cut costs, you will need to consider implementing Lean Six Sigma principles within the workplace. Employees who undertake courses for Lean Six Sigmacertification in India can learn how to eliminate wastes, cut down costs, and improving production. This is because Lean Six Sigma teaches how to identify where unnecessary costly activities and process are, so that they can be eliminated from the workflow.

The Lean Six Sigma methodologies have been around for a long time – ever since Motorola introduced the concept in the early 1990s. However, when people think about Lean Six Sigma, they generally refer to its use in the manufacturing sector. Although the concept began primarily for manufacturing, it has now grown vast and wide to various service sectors too. It isn't restricted to only the manufacturing industries anymore, but people still overlook the benefits of applying Lean Six Sigma to other industries and services.

Every industry and organizations wants to be the best and beat the competition. And for this, it is important that they have the best employees, best processes, and right attitude towards change. Wasteful activities exist everywhere, and the challenge is to identify and eliminate them; and this is where Lean helps. This is why many organizations, even in the non-manufacturing sector, have adopted Lean Six Sigma processes and are becoming increasingly aware of the correct application of this methodology to reap its benefits. These include healthcare, hospitality, pharmaceuticals, technology, chemicals, financial services, legal services, media, transportation, retail, distribution, energy services, education, government services, and many more. In fact, many global well-known non-manufacturing companies, after utilizing Lean Six Sigma with their processes, have confirmed impressive results like saving billions of dollars from enormous reductions in cycle times, defects, and consumer complaints. Moreover, they also saw observed higher job satisfaction and employee engagement.

Lean Six Sigma can effectively improve almost every outcome by improving the process by which the outcome is derived through the principle of DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control). The “Define” phase of Lean Six Sigma helps to define the focus of process improvement efforts and identify the process steps in measurable terms. The “Measure” phase helps to measure the current process performance and identify the process capability. The “Analyze” phase statistically tests the various factors that contribute to process variation and defects. The “Improve” phase identifies the optimal settings for those factors to improve upon the process. And finally, the “Control” phase ensures that the new processes, once implemented, remain in place for further improvements.

Apart from DMAIC, there are many different tools and techniques taught with Lean Six Sigma, depending upon the type of problem. Let us see how these tools can prove to bring successful results. For this, we need to see how things may work for those organizations not implementing Lean Six Sigma principles. In such scenarios, whenever a problem may come up, a manager might get upset at the same, expecting it to be implemented immediately and considering that the mistake won't be repeated ever again. However, this approach can prove to be counterproductive. This is because such an approach will only instill fear within the employees of reporting a problem, and will also make only the manager responsible for providing future solutions. But, in case of implementation of Lean Six Sigma, there comes a disciplined problem solving approach by understanding the process, focusing on events, and respecting the workers.

So now, if you are still wondering how to make your work group more efficient by producing higher quality products, cutting costs, providing better customer services, or generating more revenue, remember it is Lean Six Sigma certification in India from experts like TQMI that will work!

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Six Sigma Vs. Lean Vs. Kaizen

With the emphasis completely on quality today, almost all organizations – big and small – are struggling to achieve and sustain quality systems. There has been a display of a variety of quality initiatives that have promised phenomenal results in reducing costs and increasing profits. Managers and team leaders have been flooded with different ideas over the years, with every system promising greater rewards. Out of these, many have failed, while many have succeeded like Six Sigma, Lean, and Kaizen. However, since the past many years, these three terms have lost their individual identity, and have been used interchangeably without people knowing the true meaning of these words. When people have their hands on one of these tools, they think they don't need the other because they all are one and the same thing. What they fail to realize is that every concept or tool has its own individuality and capacity to solve problems. This blog will help you learn about all these three terms separately so that you can differentiate between them and understand each one of them better.

What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a set of tools and strategies that can limit defects and variations. It is a problem-solving methodology that is driven by data and focuses on customer satisfaction. It depends upon two basic methodologies – DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) and DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify). Moreover, advanced statistical techniques like Pareto charts and root cause analysis are used to reach quantified value targets. Achieving a Six Sigmacertification in India from professionals like TQMI can help you grasp the skills of improving quality of business processes by limiting defects and variations, thus improving customer satisfaction.

What is Kaizen?

Kaizen is a Japanese term for ‘Change for the better’ which is also referred to as continuous improvement. This clearly shows that Kaizen is a journey and not a destination. Moreover, it is a mindset, and not a tool. It uses personal creativity and initiative to identify problems, and develop and implement ideas to solve them. Its philosophy believes that everything can be improved and everything can perform better and more efficiently. Another prominent feature of Kaizen is its belief that big results come from multiple small changes accumulated over time. However, Kaizen does not equal small changes; it equals everyone’s involvement in making improvements. To get into the details, Kaizen helps to identify the 3 MUs, which are Muda (wastes), Mura (variations), and Muri (strain).

What is Lean?

Lean is the methodology that is applied for waste minimization within an organization without sacrificing on productivity. It is a set of problem-solving tools that can reduce or eliminate the processes that don't add value. In this way, only valuable processes are adopted and wasteful steps are removed. Valuable processes are those that assist in improving quality and productivity. They also include those that may or may not add value for the customer, but are crucial for the continuity of a process. And, wasteful steps are those that include defects, over production, excess inventory, extra processing, unnecessary transportation, unnecessary motion, non-utilized talent, and waiting time. This means that Lean ultimately results in high quality, and thus customer satisfaction.

To sum it up, Kaizen is a continuous improvement process that standardizes processes and increases efficiency by involving everyone to eliminate waste. Lean is a process of eliminating wastes to improve process speed and quality. And, Six Sigma is a process to improve quality of the final product by eliminating the variations that lead to defects by measuring the deviation of the process from perfection. Although these processes may seem similar, they have a significant difference from one another. Now, to decide whether one is better than the other would be unwise. You can use all of these methods in their own ways within different processes and working of your organization so that you can save time and money, and boost quality and customer satisfaction.

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How To Avoid Six Sigma Mistakes

When used appropriately, Six Sigma certification in India can bring a business immense number of benefits like eliminating errors, reducing wastage, shortening cycle times, improving processes, etc. But, when deployed in the wrong way, it can also lead to disappointing business results, wearing away the company’s valuable resources and time. A Six Sigma deployment can only be successful if a well-organized process is implemented with effective time and resource management. However, there are certain common mistakes that are seen to be made by organizations while implementing Six Sigma into their processes. Go through the list mentioned below and make sure you avoid committing these mistakes at any cost!

Incorrect Six Sigma strategies

It is highly important to coordinate Six Sigma implementation with the business goals. Flawed strategies and ineffective alignment can only result in confusion, thus leading to further delays. Therefore, all Six Sigma implementation ideas and strategies should involve meticulous planning that aligns with project execution and organizational development. Additionally, the implementation of such strategies must be monitored attentively to check for any changes that need to be brought in to follow Six Sigma efforts better.

Lack of support from senior management

While emphasizing on the importance of Six Sigma into business processes at all times, there is sometimes lack of commitment and consistent support for the same from managers and leaders, which ultimately leads to devastating results! This is because they believe that good resources, intentions, efforts, and time are enough. However, this is not true. Senior leadership support needs to be always available, and must in fact seep down to every level within the organization. Strong leadership support is after all the prime solution to Six Sigma success. This is why the senior management should have regular communications with all the members of the organization, where the role of Six Sigma initiatives should be emphasized and aligned with the business goals. Moreover, the progress must be discussed at management review meetings, and Six Sigma should become a mandatory agenda for all organizational events.

Lack of teamwork

Without the efforts of each and every member of the organization put in, Six Sigma implementation cannot be successful. The advantages of Six Sigma implementation must be communicated by the senior management to all members of the organization along with the formal rules that can help to attain business goals. Also, all the business and strategic objectives must be carefully linked to the Six Sigma implementation to achieve complete support from all the members of the organization.

Neglecting business goals in the process of gaining Six Sigma training

Organizations today are seen to be striving hard to hire trained and certified Six Sigma professionals into their team. Although it is very important to hire such professionals, and also provide your regular team with specialized Six Sigma training, it is equally important to outline the right steps of implementing and executing Six Sigma within the organization. After training, there needs to adequate mentoring and support for the team to coordinate projects in the right manner. Also, there must be complete focus on the business goals so that the correct infrastructural capabilities for handling Six Sigma projects can be incorporated.

For attaining the finest Six Sigma certification in India, you can have your team learn from professionals like TQMI, who have an experience in delivering outstanding results since more than the past two decades.

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Tips For Effective Preparation Of The Six Sigma Exam

Six Sigma is a methodology and set of tools that aims to identify, scrutinize, and eliminate errors in a process. A Six Sigma process is almost 100% error-free, particularly stating 3.4 defects in one million processes. Six Sigma teams are those that contain a mixture of skills and people fulfilling the roles that are appropriate to their training level. There are five levels of Six Sigma named after the names of martial levels, namely White Belt, Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, and Master Black Belt, ranging from the least experienced to most experienced. Whichever level you stand at, you would always want to go a step higher; and for this you require proper training. To have your team undergo professional training to achieve qualified Six Sigma Certification in India, you must approach a specialist like TQMI who has been providing such guidance and qualifications to businesses since more than the past two decades. As you prepare for such certification, you must consider incorporating the following tips.

Plan up a schedule

You must first identify the key subject areas, after which you can appropriately create a study group with the same interests, and prepare a weekly schedule. You must try to cover one chapter per week and complete it before 3 weeks before the examinations. Read each chapter before your study group session and mark all the key questions and concepts. Even if you need to work hard to stick to your schedule, you must put in all efforts to achieve it. You must be very sure that you know how to use each tool and concept in every chapter so that you expertise in understanding where and when you can apply each tool. After every chapter, make it a habit to summarize the key points and topics. After completion of all chapters, combine the entire summary list from all chapters to make it a master summary that you can review before the exam.

Create an exam toolkit

Break out each phase of the DMAIC methodology, which means Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. Create an outline of the text book containing all sections and sub-sections for every chapter. Also, create a reference guide containing all terms and tools, brief descriptions, and textbook page numbers that can prove to be a very important go-to reference in order to quickly refer to and locate a topic in the textbook. Additionally, you must be very organized with your materials and know how to use them efficiently.

Exam preparation

Work with a study group to identify problems and gain understanding of both correct and incorrect answers. Next, identify your strategy before the exam. This includes going through all the questions and marking the questions to which you have answers to. Next, mark the questions you feel less confident about answering. With all this in hand, you can do an in-depth review for the marked questions. Answer all the definition type questions first. Then, group all the questions according to the phases of DMAIC by writing the phase next to the question.

Although preparing for and giving the Six Sigma examination is a challenge, but with proper preparation and a great support system, you can achieve a rewarding and hard-earned LeanSix Sigma Certification in India!

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What Is A Project Charter And Why Is It So Important?

One of the most important tools of Six Sigma tricks that can help solve problems is the Project Charter, which is an official written document that describes what the project is about, and outlines all the details. In fact, it is the first step of a Lean Six Sigma project that takes place in the Define phase of DMAIC. However, it can be regularly reviewed and revised throughout the project. TQMI is who you can approach to achieve the most professional training and authorized LeanSix Sigma Certification in India, which includes a course of diagnosis that also coaches about the Project Charter for a couple of high priority projects.

A Project Charter basically comprises of elements like business case, problem statement, goal statement, scope statement, timeline, and team members. It is the Charter that can make or break a project. With the necessary resources and boundaries, it can turn the project into a complete success. While, on the other hand, it can also reduce team focus, motivation, and effectiveness; thus breaking the success of the project. If you are looking for a successful Project Charter, here are the areas you need to include and focus upon.

Project title

This may not sound useful to you, but it is advisable to name a project with a descriptive title to allow others to quickly view and select your project based on the keywords and phrases.

Start date

This is the date the project began, or that on which the project leader formally started working on the project.

Anticipated end date

This is the date on which the project is likely to end, which is decided upon by the mentor or leader. The duration between the start and end date will provide the leader and team to manage the project completion based upon the business conditions, work-load, holiday schedules, etc.

Project timeframe

You need to be specific about the timeframe of the project, and along with that also mention the major milestones between that timeframe.

Project importance

It is very important to understand and make all those involved in the project to understand the process that you are improving upon and the importance of spending time on that improvement, so that better results are achieved.

Goal statement

What is the goal of your project? What results are you expecting by the end of the project completion? How much improvement are you targeting? All these answers need to be jotted down in the goal statement. You need to set challenging yet realistic goals. Also, your goals should be specific, measurable, and time bound.

Measurables

How you will measure the effectiveness of the project is of prime importance. Specify all the elements that you may be using to measure, but make sure that they are within the scope of your project.

Team members

This is one of the most important areas of focus that lists out all the roles and the people who will be filling all the roles. The main roles may include project sponsor, project leader, subject matter experts, stakeholders, and team members.

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