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TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT, VOL. 13, NO. 2, 2002, 233 - 239

Widening the Six Sigma concept: An approach to improve organizational learning HaÊ kan Wiklund1 & Pia Sandvik Wiklund2

È stersund, Sweden and LuleaÊ University of Technology, S-971 Mid Sweden University, S-831 25 O È stersund, Sweden (also former Director 87 LuleaÊ, Sweden & 2Mid Sweden University, S-831 25 O of Quality at Solectron Sweden AB) 1

abstract Six Sigma has been established as an approach to improving organizational performance, and many manufacturing companies have reported on their successive work with Six Sigma programmes. Often, the focus of Six Sigma is put on only reducing defects and improving process capability. This paper discusses Six Sigma as a company-wide approach for organizational improvement incorporating organizational learning. Six Sigma programmes have been studied and the fundamental principles of organizational learning have been applied in order to improve the longterm implementation of the programmes. The paper also discusses factors associated with manufacturing work organization and leadership that are essential for improving organizational learning and for stimulating the competence development and motivation among personnel.

Introduction In recent years, an increasing number of manufacturing organizations have used diþ erent types of quality programmes in order to improve internal and external customer satisfaction. By focusing on the performance measures, the companies have received knowledge of the processes. If the knowledge is used properly improved goods and services and lower costs of rejection will be attained. Process improvement has often been accomplished through an integrated approach, using problem-solving techniques such as total quality management (TQM) tools and classic statistical analysis (Wiklund & Sandvik Wiklund, 1999a, b). Aspects related to the knowledge transformation where important approaches such as training and practice in the personal working situation have been discussed frequently (Wiklund & Sandvik Wiklund, 1999a). Another aspect is how the company should change and act when disseminating methods and support quality improvement, where the structure of the company, strategies and education performance and content are considered essential factors for a successful implementation. An interesting question is how an improvement programme should be designed to support changed attitudes and result in changed behaviour and learning, which is a central necessity, among others, in such an implementation process. È stersund, Sweden and LuleaÊ University of Correspondence: H. Wiklund, Mid Sweden University, S-831 25 O Technology, S-971 87 LuleaÊ, Sweden. Tel: + 46 63 165985; Fax + 46 63 16 55 00, E-mail: Hakan.Wiklund@ ter.mh.se ISSN 0954-4127 print/ISSN 1360-0613 online/02/020233-07 DOI: 10.1080/09544120120102469

© 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd

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H. WIKLUND & P. SANDVIK WIKLUND

Six Sigma as an improvement programme has received considerable attention in the literature during the last few years (e.g. Bergman & Kroslid, 2000; Breyfogle, 1999; Harry, 1994, 1998; Hellsten & KlefsjoÈ, 2000, Hoerl, 1998; KlefsjoÈ et al., 2001). Motorola launched Six Sigma in 1987 and was also the ® rst to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) in 1988. Today, companies like Motorola, Texas Instruments, ABB, Allied Signal, General Electric (GE) and 3M have been striving to achieve Six Sigma quality, and as a result they have become known internationally as best-in-class companies (e.g. Fuller, 2000; Sanders & Hild, 2000). Although many success stories have been reported in the literature, the ultimate objective is to understand Six Sigma and place it in an appropriate context to reap the bene® ts. Wellknown statistician and quality consultant Ron Snee (2000) has indicated that ``Six Sigma should be a strategic approach that works across all processes, products, company functions and industries’’ and Bajaria (1999, 2000) reinforces this idea as a `nuts and bolts’ pointcounterpoint discussion of each of 14 key Six Sigma ideas. In these papers by Bajaria an examination is made of the heads and tails of the Six Sigma concept and some warnings are also given against limitations and misuses. The technical aim of Six Sigma is to keep the distance between the process average and the nearest tolerance limit to at least six standard deviations and thus reduce variability in products and processes in order to prevent defects. The original motivation for Six Sigma at Motorola was centred on manufacturing improvement, and this was also how Six Sigma was introduced in many other organizations. To meet this aim, Six Sigma methods have been based heavily on the use of statistical methods to understand product and process performance. During the last few years, however, the central theme has begun to broaden from focusing principally on the manufacturing ® eld to encompassing all business operations, especially those that aþ ect the customer (Hahn et al., 2000). Still, the focus of Six Sigma is of a rather technical nature and there is a need to discuss Six Sigma in an even broader organizational perspective. For example, the understanding of variation has been pointed out as an important aspect in the implementation of Six Sigma (Bergman & Kroslid, 2000). Six Sigma has also been discussed as a metaphor for excellence and managerial thoughts, rather than a purely statistical concept (Yilmaz & Chatterjee, 2000). In their paper, Six Sigma quality thinking is discussed as a means for what they call `robust management’ ; one that is able to confront the challenges of a highly competitive and variable environment. This argument suggests the necessity of a systems view of an organization beyond its individual departments or processes, and the true appreciation of inherent variability in the system. The content in the Six Sigma concept still varies between companies and between authors. Despite the many reported success stories concerning Six Sigma programmes, there are some central implementation aspects that need to be discussed. The question is how to get more peopleÐ not just Black Belts and other formalized problem-solversÐ to overcome mental barriers and to use statistical methods in their daily work. In this paper, Six Sigma is discussed as an approach for organizational improvement where aspects related to method dissemination and organizational learning are highlighted. The traditional roles of formal quality experts, such as Black Belts, Master Black Belts, Champions, etc. are discussed. The reason is that an exclusive use of these types of `quality experts’ can tend to focus more on organizational learning disciplines such as `personal mastery’ rather than on `team learning’ and on `systems view’ (Senge, 1990). È stersund (former A part of the ® eldwork was conducted at Solectron Sweden AB in O Ericsson Network Core Products AB). The Solectron Corporation received the MBNQA in 1991 and 1997.

WIDENING THE SIXTH SIGMA CONCEPT

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Figure 1. Three important components in Six Sigma.

Six Sigma as a concept for organizational improvement Six Sigma has been established as an improvement approach that seeks to ® nd and eliminate causes of mistakes or defects in a business process by focusing on outputs that are of critical importance to customers. As a result, process performance should be enhanced, customer satisfaction should be improved and the bottom line should be impacted through cost savings and increased revenue. According to Snee (2000), Six Sigma should be a strategic approach that works across all processes, products, company functions and industries. The important components of Six Sigma are presented in Fig. 1. This approach consists of several methods, all well known in the quality ® eld, for example hypothesis tests, design of experiments, quality function deployment, regression analysis, statistical process control, etc. Some of the central features that should characterize a successive Six Sigma process have been described by Hahn et al. (2000) as: ·

·

·

·

·

It is a top-down, rather than a bottom-up, approach; see, e.g. Allied Signal and GE. Champions are appointed from the ranks of the leaders in each business. They are responsible for ensuring the successful implementation of Six Sigma in their own areas of in¯ uence. Both at the business and project level, Six Sigma leadership is, traditionally, the responsibility of Master Black Belts and Black Belts. These are full-time responsibilities and include the setting of quality objectives for the business and monitoring progress towards these objectives, selection of Six Sigma projects, and mentoring and project teams. Implementation is the responsibility of the project team members. They receive Green Belt training from the Master Black Belts or the Black Belts. It is a highly disciplined approach that typically involves the four stages, measure, analyse, improve and control, with an up-front stage (de® ne) sometimes added (DMAIC), see Fig. 2. It is a highly data-oriented approach. As a consequence, implementation of the DMAIC concepts is heavily based on statistical tools and the statistical design of experiments (DoE). It involves training everyone in the company in DMAIC, or modi® ed concepts and tools.

Six Sigma represents a systematic approach when reducing defects that aþ ect what is important to the customer and positively impact the bottom line. The programme includes qualitative, statistical and instructional devices for observing process variables and their relationships as

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Figure 2. The diþ erent phases in the DMAIC model.

well as managing their character. In fact, by introducing Six Sigma programmes, many companies have experienced (see Wiklund & Sandvik Wiklund, 2000): · · · · · · · ·

cost savings; improved customer satisfaction; lower frequency of defects; eý cient sharing of best practices; shorter cycle times; increased productivity; improved supplier participation; a common language and metrics for quality.

Roles of Black Belts and Master Black Belts Quality engineers and statisticians play a major role in the deployment of the Six Sigma philosophy. In their role as Black Belts they should provide leadership for the teams working on the projects as well as doing a portion of the project work. Some of the more experienced professionals should serve as Master Black Belts and provide guidance to Black Belts as well as Champions. These professionals should also be called on to be members of Black Belt-led teams and provide the expertise needed to complete the project successfully. Black Belts usually work full time with the Six Sigma programme. At, for example, Solectron, they receive a 4-month special education in quality engineering and industrial statistics. They are also responsible for the Green Belt education, which is focused on statistical tools and on other problem-solving tools and is oþ ered to several categories of employees. A person with a Master Black Belt is also responsible of co-ordinating and supervising the Black Belts.

Aspects on organizational learning Without organizational learning there can be no continuous improvement. One of the most important stages in the quality planning process is the implementation stage, and so also in Six Sigma. Education, training and participation are factors that are critical in such a process (e.g. James, 1996). Everyone’s commitment to the Six Sigma programme should be the natural driving force for managers at all company levels. As pointed out in Senge et al. (1994), however, neither training nor team training will be successful unless reinforced by the regular follow-up of an ongoing, systematic change in how work is conducted. Sandvik


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Figure 3. The organizational learning cycle (left) by Dixon (1994) and the plan-do-study-act cycle by Deming (1993).

Wiklund and Karlsson (1997) also discuss this, and they state that lack of quality learning causes insuý cient implementation of quality methods. They de® ne quality learning as the learning necessary for a permanent change in the way of working that is adequate for quality achievements, including both knowledge and ideology. In the literature, it has been argued that learning teams need practice ® elds, ways to practise together so they can develop their collective learning skills (Henry et al., 1995; Senge, 1990). When considering organizational learning, the experiential learning model proposed by Dixon (1994) can be used, see Fig. 3. The continuous ¯ ow of cross-functional information and knowledge is an important driving force that supports the plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle (Deming, 1993) and the work with improving the organizational learning. This is generally how the information is integrated and collectively interpreted in the company. Thereafter, necessary actions should be taken to ful® l the needs identi® ed in the interpretation stage. Here, information networks can be a method to transport information and knowledge throughout the company, as considered by Mayo and Lank (1995). Process consultation (see Argyris, 1970) is the primary strategy of organizational development. The most important qualities of a process consultant are described in Porras and Silvers (1991) through four main sets of characteristics: interpersonal competence, theory-based problem-solving capabilities, the ability to create learning experiences and the awareness of one’ s own assumptions and models. While an expert consultant is highly competent in the current subject area and is the problem-solver, in process consultancy in contrast to expert consultancy, it is the client him/herself who makes the decisions. Hence, necessary conditions for learning in accordance to Kolb’s learning cycle are created (Kolb, 1976). Except for the statistics, this viewpoint has much in common with W. Edwards Deming’s `Profound Knowledge’ , which is composed of the four interrelated parts: appreciation for a system, knowledge about variation, theory of knowledge and psychology. Profound Knowledge has been known as a system of knowledge of importance for the understanding of the application of a new economic system (Deming, 1993).

Introducing Soft Sigma in the Six Sigma programme In this paper Soft Sigma is regarded as a complement to DMAIC and the statistical methods and includes all aspects that deal with learning and implementation of Six Sigma, i.e. knowledge in behaviour science. The overall goal of introducing Soft Sigma is to improve the outcome of a Six Sigma programme by increasing organizational learning. This is achieved by having Black Belts and Master Black Belts that have more of Deming’s Profound

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Knowledge, thus theory of knowledge and psychology. Their roles as internal consultants and facilitators have to be very clear and understandable. The relationship between organizational learning and how these types of quality experts act in the projects is clear. They can act as either expert consultants or as process consultants. Depending on their role in the projects, they can either focus on the process improvement itself or on the implementation of methods needed for continuous improvement. The expert consultants act as problem-owners and problem-solvers. Focus is on the process problem and the employees are not usually involved in the problem-solving parts. Expert consultants are often looked upon as authorities in their role as quality experts. They generally work alone and reach good results on a short-term basis, and the big organizational long-term savings seldom appear, as the organizational learning is very limited. The process consultants act as facilitators and support the implementation of Six Sigma methods. They focus on the employees and their training and active problem-solving to support the improvement work. The aim is to create long-term opportunities for implementing Six Sigma methods and Profound Knowledge among personnel and thereby support individual and organizational learning. See also parallels to Senge’s `team learning’ (Senge, 1990). È stersund, consists of The strategy of introducing Soft Sigma at Solectron Sweden AB, O some important elements. First, the Black Belt training should cover themes such as leadership, change management, learning aspects and supervision together with parts that increase self-knowledge. Second, the infrastructure should include expertise not only in È sterstatistics and ® nance, but also in behaviour science. The infrastructure at Solectron, O sund, has one part-time ® nance person, one part-time statistician and one full-time Soft Sigma person (behaviour scientist). The ® nance person should facilitate the follow-up of savings, and the statistician should supervise the Black Belts and Master Black Belts in statistics and quality engineering. Finally, the Soft Sigma person should help the Black Belts and Master Black Belts to develop and understand their roles as internal consultants and facilitators. As mentioned earlier, the ambition is to get them to act as process consultants. The full-time resources for this indicate how important Solectron regards this role to be. The È stersund, is presented in Fig. 4. infrastructure of Solectron, O

È stersund. Figure 4. The Six Sigma infrastructure at Solectron, O


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Concluding remarks Six Sigma is a very powerful programme for improving organizational performance. There is much evidence of the success of the programme. This paper has presented how Six Sigma can be extended to gain even more. The approach presented has been implemented at È stersund and has shown very good results in terms of improved organizational Solectron in O learning and thus fast and eý cient implementation of Six Sigma. Today, not only the Black Belts connected to the Six Sigma centre but also employees on the shop-¯ oor use DMAIC and the incorporated statistical methods. References Argyris, C. (1970) Intervention Theory and Method: A Behavioural Science View (Reading, MA, AddisonWesley). Bajaria, H.J. (1999) Six Sigma quality: beyond hype, paper available at www.multiface.com Bajaria, H.J. (2000). Six Sigma quality: points and counterpoints, Quality Australia, 15, pp. 15- 17. Bergman, B. & Kroslid, D. (2000) Six SigmaÐ a revival of the Profound Knowledge of variation, Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Building People and Organizational Excellence (Aarhus, Denmark), pp. 260- 266. Breyfogle, F.W. (1999) Implementing Six Sigma: Smarter Solutions using Statistical Methods (New York, John Wiley). Deming, W.E. (1993) The New Economics, for Industry, Government, Education (Cambridge, MA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Dixon, N. (1994) The Organizational Learning Cycle (Maidenhead, McGraw-Hill). Fuller, H.T. (2000) Observations about the success and evaluation of Six Sigma at Seagate, Quality Engineering , 12, pp. 311- 315. Hahn, G.J., Doganaksoy, N. & Hoerl, R. (2000) The evolution of Six Sigma, Quality Engineering, 12, pp. 317- 326. Harry, M.J. (1994) The Vision of Six Sigma, Roadmap for a Breakthrough (Phoenix, AZ, Sigma). Harry, M.J. (1998) Six Sigma: a breakthrough strategy for pro® tability, Quality Progress, May, pp. 60- 64. Hellsten, U. & KlefsjoÈ , B. (2000) TQM as a management system consisting of values, techniques and tools, The TQM Magazine, 12, pp. 238- 244. Henry, C., Arthur, M.B. & Jones, A.M. (1995) Strategy through PeopleÐ Adaption and Learning in the SmallMedium Sized Enterprise (London, Routledge). Hoerl, R.W. (1998) Six Sigma and the future of the quality profession, Quality Progress, June, pp. 35- 42. James, P. (1996) Total Quality Management (London, Prentice Hall). KlefsjoÈ , B., Wiklund, H. & Edgeman, R. (2001) Six Sigma seen as a methodology for total quality management, Measuring Business Excellence, 5, pp. 31- 35. Kolb, D.A. (1976) Management and the learning process, California Management Review, 18, pp. 21- 31. Mayo, A. & Lank, E. (1995) The Power of Learning (MalmoÈ, Liber-Hermods). Porras, J.I. & Silvers, R.C. (1991) Organization development and transformation, Annual Revue of Psychology, 42, pp. 51- 78. Sanders, D. & Hild, C. (2000) A discussion of strategies for Six Sigma implementation, Quality Engineering, 12, pp. 303- 309. Sandvik Wiklund, P. & Karlsson, S. (1997) Critical aspects on quality method implementation, Total Quality Management, 8, pp. 55- 66. Senge, P.M. (1990) The Fifth DisciplineÐ The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York, Doubleday). Senge, P., Roberts, C., Ross, R.B., Smith, B.J. & Kleiner, A. (1994) The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (London, Nicholas Brealey). Snee, R.D. (2000) Impact of Six Sigma on quality engineering, Quality Engineering, 12, pp. ix- xiv. Wiklund, H. & Sandvik Wiklund, P. (1999a) A collaboration concept for TQM implementation in small and medium sized enterprises, International Journal of Applied Quality Management, 2, pp. 101- 115. Wiklund, H. & Sandvik Wiklund, P. (1999b) Student focused design and improvement of university courses, Managing Service Quality, 9, pp. 434- 443. Wiklund, H. & Sandvik Wiklund, P (2000) Learning and service quality improvement in a manufacturing organization. In: B. Edvardsson, S.W. Brown, R. Johnston & E.E Scheuing (Eds) Service Quality in the New Economy: Interdisciplinary and International Dimensions (New York, International Service Quality Association Inc.), pp. 118- 124. Yilmaz, M.R. & Chatterjee, S. (2000) Six Sigma beyond manufacturingÐ a concept for robust management, Quality Management Journal, 7, pp. 67- 78.