Six Sigma @ General Electric Company
The most natural place to start a discussion on the Six Sigma qualityimprovement process is the definition taken from the General Electricswebsite, company that, as we know, applied this process to the highestdegree. As such, Six Sigma is NOT "a secret society, a slogan or acliche", but "a highly disciplined process that helps us focus ondeveloping and delivering near-perfect products and services"[1]. In anever growing and more dynamic business environment as the companies arecompeting in today, the customer plays a center role. As a company, yousell products or services. Making sure that you have a targeted market ora potential one, a defined set of customers to whom you can sell theseproducts is a must. However, because of a dynamic business environment,this must is often not enough. You must make sure not only that you canretain the present customer base, but also that you can gain new customersin time and expand your business. In this plot, the customer, as I said,plays a center role. This is because the growing competition allows him tomove along to another company if he is not satisfied with the servicesoffered by your own. Running along our train of thought, this means that
Previously, the uppermanagement was usually content with simply approving external consultantsfor different actions within the company, however, with Six Sigma, theexecutives need to first create what is known as a Process ManagementSystem. The function covers +/- 6 sigmas from the process mean,hence the name of the process. Thus, the Six Sigma process is highly effective in a company "focusedon customer satisfaction"[2] by offering a method and tools "foridentification and improvement of both internal and external processproblems to better meet customers' needs by identifying the variations inyour organization's processes that might influence the customer's point ofview negatively"[3]. Most of the success is attributed to the Six Sigmamethodology. As we can see, the main difference between the two processes is related tothe area of applicability: while the former regards existing processes thatunderperform, the latter is designed for new products or processes thatneed to be build according to Six Sigma levels. The Six Sigma DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve,Control and is "an improvement system for existing processes falling belowspecification and looking for incremental improvement"[8]. Most of them are short phrases, like "Improve customersatisfaction", "Increase profit margins", etc. Can befound on the Internet at http://www. Starting from Jack Welch's statement, according towhich he only took three important decisions for GE and Six Sigma was oneof them, GE has been subsequently named by Fortune Magazine "Most AdmiredCompany in America" and "The World's Most Respected Company" for all theyears since 1998. These arethe two poles of the Six Sigma: customer satisfaction and product quality. com/sixsigma/[2] Plaster, Marianne. Let us have a look at each in part.
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