six sigma overview
Today's business organizations are faced with keen competition,
due largely to rapid technical advances and to the globalization
of the economy. This competitive climate has only been strengthened
by the tremendous growth in the use of web-based business strategies.
Despite the rapid pace of technical and business model innovation,
the changing economic landscape, and recent financial upheavals,
the ground rules for establishing a solid, profitable, world-class
business have not changed. It is the inefficiency and ineffectiveness
of organizations which most often hamper their progression to
world-class status. In recent years most organizations have been
recognizing the need to improve how they conduct business. International
organizations like Allied Signal, General Electric, and others
have found significant benefits in incorporating a Six Sigma management
philosophy.
Six Sigma in the Press
"We could have had Six Sigma quality, but if we hired 26
statisticians to be leaders of this and put them in a room, it
wouldn't have happened. We had to take the best and brightest
and put them there, so the whole organization says, "They
took Mary or Joe off this key assignment and they put them in
quality. They must mean it." And then you have to back it
up with the reward system. We had only blackbelts getting stock
options, every mechanism has to feed it." "Is it more
bureaucratic at times? Probably. But whats the end result? More
new products than anyone else, the highest quality with highest
shares… an operating margin that continues to expand in a
brutal economy. If Six Sigma were choking the company, you wouldn't
have these products and all this market expansion."
Conversation with Jack Welch
Wall St. Journal
September 5, 2001
"I've got a real focus on the sales force that can run the
company, get the sales force totally engaged in Six Sigma…"
"The fact is…people get trained on Six Sigma, trained
in quality, they have a better life." "Customers ought
to be involved in the Six Sigma programs. "
Jeffrey Immelt, CEO G.E.
Wall St. Journal
Sept.5th 2001
"Six Sigma is the most important initiative we have ever
undertaken"
Jack Welch
Chairman and CEO General Electric
1996
"If you haven't heard of Six Sigma, chances are you will
be exposed to it in the near future. Either your company will…
attempt full scale implementation, or one of your company's competitors
will implement Six Sigma and send financial shock waves to your
company."
Paul Arnold, Editor
MRO Magazine
June/July, 1999
"Also atop Mr. McNerney's, (Chairman and C.E.O. of 3M),
agenda is Six Sigma…"
"I've (McNerney) seen first hand how Six Sigma can energize
an organization, how it can lower costs, increase sales
and cash flow, and satisfy customers by truly producing
higher quality products and faster response", Mr. McNerney
said at the shareholders meeting last month.
June 6th, 2001
Wall Street Journal
"…We will move immediately to re-establish productivity
and growth as our driving principles. We will also revitalize
our Six Sigma Initiative across the company…."
Lawrence A. Bossidy, Honeywell Chairman and CEO
July 24th, 2001
Wall Street Journal
Consumer driven Six Sigma helped Ford has achieved 215 major
process improvements resulting in an extra $52 Million for the
company's bottom-line.
June 22nd, 2001
Long Beach Press
Telegram
"…Jeffrey Immelt expects profit growth of about 15%
…and to extend the Six Sigma quality program…"
September 15th
Wall Street Journal
