Six Sigma Essays (Examples)

It was thought that the Six Sigma concept was simply "too powerful to fail," a misconception on which the whole misfortune of the Six Sigma programs is based. The human factor is often not taken into consideration. Elements such as empowerment, communication and recognition play an important role in determining the success of the Six Sigma methodology, according to the result of the study.
Implementation in sectors like finance and sales were unsuccessful, due to the very nature of the concept, which was developed and is still mainly applied in manufacturing organizations (especially mass-manufacturing). The very basis of Six Sigma, the defect measure approach was simply ineffective in other areas of the economy. The opinion which rises from the literature review above coincides with the result of the study conducted by McAdam and Lafferty: outside a mass manufacturing environment, the Six Sigma methodology is unsuccessful.

The data gathered from this…

Sigma
Define Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a management frame that in the past 15 years has developed from a center on process improvement with statistical tools to an inclusive structure for managing a business.

The significance that the Six Sigma procedure has on improving business performance is spectacular and well recognized. Leading global companies including Motorola, General Electric, Allied Signal and Citibank have enlightened the world how Six Sigma programs have enhanced customer approval and helped them initiate new products quicker, influence their market position and save millions in operating costs.

Six Sigma has transformed the DNA at GE. According to GE manager, "it is now the approach we work in everything we do and in each product we aim." (Evans, J.. And W.M. Lindsay, 1993)

Six Sigma focuses on founding world class business performance bench marks and on providing an organizational configuration and road-map by which these can…

Sigma
'Lean Six Sigma Systems' is a strategy that was employed by big industries like Motorola because of the exorbitant costs involved in the black belt strategies and the large organizations were able to afford it rather than in small industries. However now all the sections of the industry is leaning to 'Six Sigma' and there are developments both for the big and the medium industries that can be used and combined to make the process cost effective. The problem is that many companies lack the plan for the good and bad times, especially when the going is good the leadership does not care about quality, cost or efficiency. When the profits shrink there is fighting rather than leadership. Thus cost management is accorded better status than any other plan. (Gupta, 2004) Therefore the quality controls systems ought to be given priority from the beginning to avoid a cost spiral.…

Sigma
The organization in question is American Express (NYSE: AXP), which is a credit card firm. The majority of the company's business is in issuing consumer credit cards, which are used to purchase a wide variety of goods and services. According to the company's latest annual report, it is also engaged in network services, merchant acquisition and processing, fee services, travel-related services, expense management products and stored value/prepaid products. The company operates globally, but the bulk of its revenues come from developed markets and in particular North America. The company had revenues of $32.8 billion in 2015, down from 2014 levels, and net income of $5.163 billion, also down from prior years. The company's OE and OA both declined in 2015 relative to the two prior years (2015 Annual eport).

Six Sigma Analysis & ecommendation

Six Sigma is a management technique that is primarily used to improve on processes, either…

rules for evaluating an investigator's research endeavor are closely guarded by a code of research ethics to which the writing and investigation must adhere; namely objectivity, subject knowledge, and professionalism. The article authored by Henderson and Evans and the subject of review is the six-sigma statistical process employed to evaluate manufacturing quality improvement.
The article was carefully scrutinized with respect to adhering to proper research formatting. A definitive evaluation was presented in terms of identifying a proper research question, need and problem, proper data analysis, and the effectiveness summary conclusions drawn. Unfortunately the article critiqued is not a true research endeavor as the authors failed to adhere to the stringent rules of conducting research investigations. The totality of the information presented is simply a reporting of what is currently taking place in a large corporation with respect to quality improvement.

Introduction

The structure of a research report is simple. It…

Wipro Technologies and Six Sigma
Wipro Technologies is a successful global services provider that primarily delivers the technology and relative mechanism to those companies that are IT-oriented and use IT as the primary mode for satisfying their clientele. Wipro has 40 'Centres of Excellence' that induce solutions around specified requirements of the producers and manufacturers. Wipro provides unmatched business value to clients through a mix of development excellence, quality structures and repair delivery innovation. Wipro may be the World's first CMMi Level 5 licensed software organization and also the first outdoors American company that was able to get the IEEE Software Process Award for its performance and services (Sharma et al., 2008).

Wipro has probably the most advanced and intricate Six Sigma structures in the market making certain that 91% from the projects are finished in a timely manner, which is a much higher percentage than the approximate completion rates…

It aids the six sigma team to look at and find out the probable causes of the problem at hand, recognize the root cause and get rid of it.
FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis): This is a six sigma tool which deals with Murphy's Law which says that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. This tool takes into deliberation all the possible breakdowns that can take place and find answers for these troubles.

Pareto Analysis: The Pareto graph is a six sigma Black Belts best friend. It is the most effectual method to examine and attribute data as also to find a fast win solution to the difficulty at hand. According to this principle eighty percent of the output in a business organization comes from twenty percent of the inputs (Six Sigma Tools Explained, 2011).

Six Sigma has been put into practice by thousands of company's world wide.…

Predictable business processes are often difficult to establish in the SME environment.
For one six sigma integration often requires logistics integration which historically has been one of the more prevalent challenges SMEs face in managing processes (Bigras & Gelinas, 2004: p. 263). SMEs must often change operational and organizational styles to conform to six sigma strategies and replace traditional ways of doing business with more integrated systems to help synchronize transactions (Bigras & Gelinas, 2004: p. 263). This is particularly challenging for small industries where replacement of management methods or integrated practices is not feasible in most situations.

Why Cost Likely to Big Deterrent for SME's When Financial and H esources Limited

Cost is often a large deterrent for SMEs desiring six-sigma implementation. Large enterprises often have no trouble delegating the resources necessary to promote successful implementation. For years human resource management and financial resources have often been highlighted as…

Question 2

BSC has been criticized for being essentially backward-looking, and thus fails to set goals for the future that can truly push the organization forward. The contention that more than 70 per cent of Balance Scorecard implementations fail should be taken with something of a grain of 'salt' given that this may be due in part to faulty human processes, although a Six Sigma advocate might stress that reducing human error should be a goal of any performance management system, and this illustrates the failure of BSC.

The fundamental failure of BSC is in its lack of creativity -- its focus on financial performance encourages short-term 'tweaking' and a focus on quarterly or annual results, rather than upon long-term performance improvements. Although the approach has been reformed to give strategic advice, the focus on metrics and statistics can tend to deemphasize unexpected shifts in the environment, such as changes…

Management Comparison
A Comparison of Six Sigma to Lean Manufacturing, Strategic Quality Management, and Total Quality Management

There are a plethora of management strategies and perspectives that are being employed in operations and supply chain management in the modern business environment. Among the various theories being implemented, Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, Strategic Quality Management, and Total Quality Management are among the most popular. This paper will compare and contrast some of the different points associated with these models to provide an introduction into the different strategies as well as look at some of the research that has been conducted in these areas.

Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, Strategic Quality Management and Total Quality Management Discussion

Six Sigma has gained a significant amount of attention in industry however comparatively little research has been conducted on the conceptual definition and underlying theory associated with this model (Schroeder, Linderman, Liedtke, & Choo, 2008). In…

Net). Over time Six Sigma will act as a catalyst for aligning the many processes, systems and strategies in the company to the customers that they rely on to survive. This transformation is exactly what the CEO of CommLab India is after when he ends the article with his quote about being market-driven (P-USA.Net). By market-driven, he is saying that his company needs to get the customer at the center of all their activity first, and then build out from that point, aligning each process to be more efficient from the customers' perspective. The six summarized benefits of Six Sigma shown in the article are meant to inform the reader as to the value, both short- and long-term, of pursuing a rigorous Six Sigma design and process methodology. In reality the work will magnify the strengths of CommLab India while alleviating many of the weaknesses, basically rooting out inefficiency processes…

It is a comprehensive approach that certainly includes the optimization of operational processes emphasized in the Six Sigma framework, but operational processes represent only one small component part of the much broader focus of TQM. If there is a disadvantage to TQM, it would be in connection with the types of businesses or industries in which the standardization and optimization of operational processes is extremely important. In principle, those types of organizations and operations would benefit from the Six Sigma approach whereas industries and organizations in which operational processes are merely one component of a much broader set of variables would likely benefit more from the TQM approach (obbins & Judge, 2009).
The ISO 9000 approach to business management is one of the most successful modern business management systems, largely because it offers some of the advantages of Six Sigma and of TQM but with fewer potential negative consequences (George…

Commitment from top level management is of utmost significance. In order to successfully implement six-sigma, the management must commit to it so that it can influence others and gain their support as well. Employees must be completely convinced that Six-sigma initiative is for real and needs to be taken seriously. Top management can tie rewards with performance based on six-sigma just like GE CEO Jack Welch did when the company first implemented six-sigma in 1996. When it appeared that people might not take it seriously, Welch informed employees that their promotion in the organization would be dependent on how quickly they mastered Six-Sigma (Harry, 2006). This had an immediate impact on people's attitude towards the new initiative. The same kind of conviction needs to be displayed by our executives in order to get the desired results out of this program.

eference

Mikel Harry, Six Sigma: The…

To maintain the improvements, it is necessary to rewrite the SOPs, and ensure that the staff are properly trained in the new techniques. One of the key elements to Six Sigma is that not only should the company improve processes, but that those improvements should be replicable. The only way that is possible is if each person involved in the process is aware that the process has changed, and is capable of executing the new process. DMAIC Phase 5 is control, which is the means by which the new process is made replicable.
There are a couple of key steps in the control phase to ensure that the method is standardized. The first is documentation. It is critical that the new process is properly documented, including all key aspects of the process. The documentation allows for the improvements to be recorded. But having great documentation is not enough -- it…

Six Sigma at Starbucks
Starbucks is a coffee-making giant in the retail sector that has experienced tremendous growth and profitability since inception. The company's success to an extent that its renowned as one of the leading coffeehouses across the globe is attributable to its relatively effective business operations and processes. Starbucks Coffeehouse has a huge customer base that has contributed to a significant market share and competitive advantage. This coffeehouse targets customers from all walks of life and provide coffee products for a wide range of customers based on their needs and preferences. However, the firm's major customers are urban and affluent populations, especially on-the-go white-collar professionals who want to take coffee to their workplaces (Bowman, 2016). This target population is Starbucks' favorite customer given that the firm considers its major customers to be educated professionals with an average income of $90,000. Additionally, Starbucks targets customers who are looking to…

Sigma has often become the associated trademark for all processes involving a managerial approach towards increasing the efficiency of an organization. More and more, Six Sigma has become a tool that management can use in the aviation industry for the same purpose of streamlining operations and activity in order to drive a reduction in costs and an increased efficiency, with the final objective of maximizing profits. At the same time, Six Sigma proposes the increase in quality of the products delivered to the final consumer.
There are several distinct areas of the aviation industry that the Six Sigma methodology can target. On one hand, there is the turnaround time that airplanes spend in repair. There are two costs that such an activity incurs. The first is the cost of the actual repair. It is obvious that if the repair time is longer, then the costs are also increased due to…

The Improve Phase of the DMAIC process is also essential for managing the piloting and testing of the Six Sigma solutions discovered. It is also essential during the new product development process for measuring and quantifying the unique value proposition of the product or service being produced as well. The final phase, Control, is essential in both a Six Sigma and new product introduction process as well (Pestorius, 2007).
Conclusion

The DMAIC process aligns very well to the new product development and introduction process and is used extensively for that purpose in applying Six Sigma to marketing. Six Sigma can change an entire company's culture and make the many processes synchronized and in unison in making new product introductions more profitable and capable of gaining market share as a result.

eferences

Brian Cocolicchio (2007). Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way. Quality Progress, 40(9), 79. Link: http://www.sixsigmaselling.com/six_sigma_selling/2006/07/about_sales_and.html

Fundin, a.P., &…

Logistics & Transportation Managers Benefit
From the Use of Lean Six Sigma

Given the continual economic turbulence and uncertainty surrounding nearly every industry, the need for stabilizing, securing and growing supply chains has become critically important for the long-term viability of many manufacturing and services-based industries. Lean Six Sigma continues to gain widespread adoption as enterprises look to better manage their supply chains by reducing risk, costs and increasing speed, accuracy and responsiveness to customers' rapidly changing demands (Huehn-Brown, Murray, 2010). The DMAIC Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) methodology that is foundational to Lean Six Sigma continues to be relied on for bringing the Voice of the Customer (VoC) into new product development initiatives, manufacturing, customer service and order process re-engineering initiatives as well (Found, Harrison, 2012). Lean Six Sigma is critically important for any enterprise looking to streamline its processes and gain greater levels of customer-driven improvements into…

Movements
There has been much debate and consideration extended towards the major quality and process movements of the last several generations. This is true both in the United States and around the world. Some of the more common ones, and indeed the ones that will be covered in this report, include Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma and Business Process eengineering (BP). There are also other movements and methods such as CMM, ITIL and ISO 9000. However, the three mentioned prior will be the focus. While no single process method is perfect and usable in all situations, they are all quite impressive in their own rights when chosen and wielded correctly.

Six Sigma is perhaps one of the more notorious and well-known process improvement techniques in the United States and perhaps around the world as well. It was created in 1986 by Motorola Corporation. The clearest and brightest example of a…

organizations can adhere to simple frameworks structured with a purpose of attaining continuous improvement in its operations or its supply chain. These structured approaches aid and facilitate different aspects such as decision-making, problem solving, as also process enhancement. This paper discusses the existing interrelations between organizations that utilize structured frameworks for improvement together with their operational performance through case studies
General Motors Company

General Motors Company is a multinational company involved in designing, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of vehicles, vehicular parts, and accessories. The headquarters of the company is situated in Detroit, Michigan. The company founded in the year 1908, is 108 years old today. It is centered in the automotive industry and is one of the major renowned companies in more than thirty nations and operating with about thirteen brands. The business units of General Motors include General Motors Financial, General Motors International Operations, General Motors North America, General…

The second step is the measurement process. e must define the defect we are measuring. This will involve analyzing why some our of submissions to the FDA are rejected -- we are making errors at some point in the process. e must then collect data on our current practices. This will give us an indication not just with regard to the type of errors but how often they occur.

Now that we have a data collection in place for the past, we must use that in the future to track our progress. As we implement changes to address the defects in our approval process, we must track how those changes impact the outputs, for example in terms of rejections and in terms of time elapsed before regulatory approval is granted.

Lastly, the measurement process demands that we set a baseline. For example, we understand that there will always be some…

Quality Management System and Continuous Improvement
Six Sigma Strategy for Continuous Improvement

Implementing Six Sigma

Lean Strategy for Continuous Improvement

Lean and Sig Sigma Interrelated

Industrial application of lean / six sigma

Lean / Six Sigma in Service Industry

Lean / Six Sigma in Manufacturing Industry

Lean / Six Sigma in Construction Industry

Lean / Six Sigma in Mining Industry

Effectiveness of the Lean / Six Sigma in the Industry

Population and Sampling

In the business management strategy, quality plays a major role for global organizations that seeks market competitive position through achieving customer satisfaction more successfully, advancing on internal business processes and reducing cost. The process of globalization is shrinking the market place, creating new avenues for business and confronting them with more challenges and international competition. Under such scenario customer expectations are growing as they can find variety and easy substitute of product and service whereas the products…

Sigma methodology to help lower patient length of stay while simultaneously improving financial and patient health outcomes. This paper first discusses the theoretical basis for this, outlining the Six Sigma methodology. Its history in health care and its use specifically to lower patient length of stay are both covered in the literature review section. The next section looks at the different measures that should be used to guide the Six Sigma process. Measurement is essential to Six Sigma, so it is critical that measures used are relevant to the problem at hand, and that the organization has means by which to measure the variables in question. A number of variables are proposed, and where there are challenges with their measurement some solutions are also offered.
Introduction

One of the challenges for hospital administrators is to improve both the efficiency of their facilities while simultaneously improving patient outcomes. There are certainly…

In the case of scratches and thickness variations, the super plastic outperforms the regular- perhaps because it is more heat resistant. There is also clearly more variation in the superplastic errors than the regular, with only bubbles being the unacceptable problem for the old system.
Based on the results from the data, we need a bit more information to provide a complete analysis of the situation. We do not have data that tells us what the total runs were on the items so that we can calculate error percentage and we do not know if each error results in the same degree of cost to the company. If we assume that on an average error basis, then we can generally say that the new plastic resulted in about 25% more errors per four-week period than the old plastic. With this preliminary data, we would conclude that it is more cost…

Sigma
This best-selling book by Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder has been held in high esteem for more than twenty years. Indeed the reputation earned by Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the orld's Top Corporations has for the most part been excellent, especially in the corporate industry. The authors are highly qualified to write a book about Six Sigma since they basically founded the organization. Mikel Harry is known as a high-powered consultant to businesses, and before writing the book with Schroeder served in the U.S. Marine Corps (as an infantry platoon leader and company commander) and was instrumental in founding Motorola's Six Sigma Research Institute. In fact Harry is given credit for founding the Six Sigma strategy for implementation. Schroeder, meanwhile, is a partner with Harry in setting up Six Sigma; he too worked at Motorola, and he and Harry work as consultants with corporations around the…

The results retrieved by Victor, Boynton and Stephens-Jang point out to a necessity to find a balance between standardized work and continuous learning process. They also indicate that employees who have managed to find this balance reveal higher levels of on-the-job satisfaction, as well as lower levels of stress.
A crucial approach to total quality management is taken by Mohamed Zairi (2002), who looks at quality management in the context of the current threats. He argues for instance the growing threats of competition, as promoted by the intensifying forces of globalization, or the necessity for any organization to operate in accordance with the growing concerns for environmental well-being. In this context, Zairi points out not only to the necessity of TQM for organizational survival, but even more so for the importance of sustainable models of TQM that maintain organizational competitiveness. The basic idea is that of the ongoing necessity for…

One of the most difficult cultural changes many companies confront when they use Six Sigma techniques is staying focused on customer requirements vs. just producing products as quickly and inexpensively as possible.
Of all TQM approaches mentioned in this paper, Six Sigma requires that organization adopt a customer-based culture that strives to continually align to customers' needs. While the topic of organizational barriers to change is outside the scope of this paper, it is clear that overcoming resistance to change is one of the biggest impediments to getting Six Sigma projects started in organizations. Six Sigma also requires organizations to concentrate on reducing all sources of variation in producing products. By reducing variation so that each unit of a product matches customers' expectations, a higher level customer satisfaction is inevitably earned. To minimize variation in a products' manufacturing quality, it also requires that companies have a strong level of teamwork…

"More to the point," another authority advises, "the objective of a PMO is to establish the procedures, processes, and standards that lead to a Center of Excellence -- not so much for itself as for the projects and organization it supports" (Pohlman, 2002, cited in Thorn, 2003, p. 48).
In this regard, Thorn points out that there are three basic approaches that can be used to establish a PMO to help facilitate the integration of Six Sigma or other management techniques with the CMM:

Project epository -- The PMO serves as the primary source of information on project methodology and standards. It assumes, rightly or wrongly, that the organization has established and follows a cohesive set of tools for project design, management, and reporting. Often a first step in establishing the idea of consolidating or sharing management practices, it still falls short, both in direct project oversight and as a…

Sigma and Motorola
Why the Pervasive Adoption of Six Sigma Is Needed

The value of Six Sigma has been readily and thoroughly proven throughout all manufacturing industries and continues to be the foundation of supply chain, sourcing, production and post-sales support performance improvements. Each of these areas of manufacturing are easily quantified and provide ample evidence of the value of Six Sigma for reducing costs, time constraints and improving profitability (Davies, 2004). Yet the areas of services and the more intricate and complex aspects of healthcare, customer services deliver online and from call centers, and the use of Six Sigma in measuring professional services and educational performance are less commonplace but even more valuable. These non-manufacturing scenarios often have more complex cost structures associated with them, greater variability in cost management and a lack of consistency in implementation, all of which make them exceptionally difficult to manage to budgets (Antony,…

When dealing with customers, all interactions cannot be standardized. Similarly, the requirements of customers can differ significantly based on the type of product and the extent of usage of the product by the customer. Short- and long-term training courses are often used to increase worker knowledge of the product or the services being sold to the customer. As product life cycles become shorter, the training needs of the individuals dealing with the customer are also higher. It is observed often, especially with call center-based customer service, that the "interaction between the agent and the customer is divided into "talk, wrap and idle time" is suggestive of task individualization and specialization." (Mulholland, 2002) in this environment, it is difficult to explicitly state if all the needs of the customer have been satisfied based on the format on which the worker is trained.

As with any other quality improvement process in an…

5 million" (Heuvel, J., Does, R. & Verver, J. 2005. PP. 8). A second example, "Mount Carmel Health System, a three-hospital system in Columbus, Ohio reported a financial return of $3.1 million; while a third hospital, Charleston Area Medical Center, a 919-bed three-campus in West Virginia, achieved $841,000 in savings on supply chain management by using Six Sigma" (Heuvel, J., Does, R. & Verver, J. 2005. PP. 3). Cost saving in the health care sector is critical, as since 2001 "premiums have increased by 113%, placing increasing cost burdens on employers and workers" (Kaiser Edu.org. 2012. PP. 1). Six Sigma provides "a measurement- based strategy" (i Six Sigma.com. N.D. PP. 1) which care organizations can utilize across a variety of platforms.
Specific Methodologies

Health care providers can look to Six Sigma as a process model which can be targeted to specific functional area, departments, or core competencies. Methodologies are designed…

Healthcare: Six Sigma in Healthcare
In a competitive marketplace, success is dictated by one's ability to ensure that their customers are kept satisfied through zero-defect products and services. Six Sigma is a customer-driven management methodology that helps organizations realize this, and consequently, meet the expectations of their customers by reducing process variation. The program was developed by Motorola Inc., but is widely-associated with General Electric, and most firms have adopted it over the years based on the observed success of the latter. Well, the results have been varied -- for some, positive, and for others, not as expected; but why is this so? Tennant (2001) points out that the effective "application of Six Sigma requires an eclectic source of knowledge and skills, as well as a sound understanding of customer-centered process management" (p. xii). Towards this end, this text seeks to give insight into what Six Sigma really is, how…

3. The Six Sigma tools are basically concepts and tools used to improve the outcomes of the business operations. Their subjectivity derives from two sources: the person applying the tools and the subjectivity of the tools. First of all, the individual is implementing the tool; therefore he is likely to be subjective in judging the tool, implementing it and analyzing the results. Secondly, the tool itself is subjective as it is centered on improving a certain shortage, disregarding other problems. In other words, a Six Sigma tool can be implemented to resolve a particular problem, but the means of resolving this problem might not generate the desired overall effect upon the company.

Six Sigma tries to replace subjectivity with objectivity and intuition with data wherever possible. While this is appropriate for some operations -- like administration, logistics, and manufacturing -- it's detrimental to exploratory research and design, which depend on…

Unlike primary data that are time-consuming, the secondary data is less time consuming, and a research could collect secondary data to answer the research questions as well as achieving research objectives. Boslaug (2007) argues that the economy is the major advantage of secondary data. Since data have already been collected by another researcher, a researcher does not need to devote his/her resources to collect the data. More importantly, the saving of time is another major advantage of secondary data. Since the data has already been collected and analyzed, the research only needs to collect the data for his or her research study. Boslaug (2007) further points out that secondary data are characterized with the informed expertise, which may not be available with primary data.
Despite the advantages that this research derives from secondary data, there are still disadvantages associated with secondary data. The secondary data may not be suitable to…

ine the organization is not large enough, they may be unable to differentiate between these two categories when they actually occur.
The special cause problem will need to be dealt with at the moment and then the organization move on. The common cause, on the other hand, w ill have to be looked into more at depth to ensure that its repetition does not occur.

Limited resources of the small organization can also be problematic since the organization needs the suitable software, population sample, expense, employees, and so forth with which t implement the system (Patel 2004, pg. 12 )

However, since ix tigma is, in essence, more of a management system than a technical one it can as easily be applied to the small organizations as to the larger ones-w ith modification. Thomas and Barton (2004), in fact, showed one instance of a small organization (150 employees) successfully implementing…

Jack Welsh, former chief executive officer at General Electric stated that the Six Sigma was "the most challenging and potentially rewarding initiative we have ever undertaken at General Electric." His beliefs are supported by the financial results. The annual report for the fiscal year ended on the 31st of December 1997 pointed out an increase in operating revenues larger than $300 million. The subsequent reports also reveal significant increases in income for the following years (Breyfogle, 2003).

5. Conclusions

The highly competitive business environment of today forces entrepreneurs to implement a wide series of strategies which help them achieve differentiation and customer loyalty. A rather useful means of achieving this is through the implementation of the Six Sigma model. The concept was first used by Motorola and since then, it has proved its application in numerous fields and for the benefits of numerous organizations and their stakeholders.

The theoretical model…

There are a variety of techniques utilized for quality improvement, each with its own characteristic role in the completion of the procedure as a whole (Methods for Quality Improvement, 2010).
Product improvement is one of the major methods used. The proposal behind this is that the more goods that are improved, the better they will sell. As time progresses, so do significant features of customer approval. Consumers anticipate the essential alterations to be made and will keep making purchases from a particular corporation if their offers change right along with everything else. Enhancements are therefore made to goods that facilitate them to be prepared with the latest features and basics that will help them persist to sell (Methods for Quality Improvement, 2010).

Process improvement is an additional significant aspect of quality improvement. This technique covers the procedures utilized to carry out everyday business operations. This can be everything from the…

internal environment seems to be an environment where the competitive forces that form between the employees within a company and that relate to the individual need to be promoted and rise above the others (with all the ugly details this implies) are subordinated to obtaining the best working environment possible. It is also an internal environment where the company's added value comes, in great part, from the connections and correlations that are formed between the employees and, indeed, through the value of the human resource.
As for the external environment, the demographic factor first comes to mind once we have had a look over the statistics. 52.2% of the Rochester population is female and this may mean that the "social" policy that the company is promoting is likely to pay off, as women are known for their more social inclinations.

On the other hand, the educational factor can also provide…

Quality, cost-competitiveness, customer service and first-to-market are all essential determinants to global commercial success. All sectors of the economic market are obliged to reduce costs and production times while increasing profits and market share. Ambitious organizations are turning to systems management programs such as Six Sigma or Total Quality Management to develop and maintain exceptional standards across the whole of an organization. This includes all aspects of production and manufacturing processes, as well as marketing, sales and distribution, financial considerations, employee motivation and customer service. Finally, product development in the form of a perennial portfolio of projects helps to ensure the viability of a company.
The incorporation of systems management programs has become integral to the renaissance and future of an organization. Often, enterprises will combine qualities from several methodologies such as integration aspects of Six Sigma with Project Management; the very topic of consideration for this essay that examines…

Efforts should be made to meet these needs and strive harder to excess those expectations. Second principle is the proper leadership within an organization. Good leaders develop unity of purpose and direction of any organization, Leaders should make an effort to create such an environment within an organization that every member works hard to meet the goals. Third principle suggests the involvement of every member of an organization. Their abilities and full involvement will enable the organization to reach high. Fourth principle involves the activities and resource management as a process. Fifth principle says about the systematic approach to management which involves proper identification, management and understanding of interrelated processes for the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization. Sixth principle states that continuous improvement should be the primary objective. Seventh principle involves the proper decision-making which should be based on the collected data and information. Last principle is about the…

Operations at Apple Inc.
Statistical technique to measure the quality characteristics of Apple Inc.

Six-sigma was created in the 1980s at Motorola as a strategy to measure and enhance high-volume processing procedures. Its overall objective was to measure and dispose of waste by endeavoring to accomplish nearly perfect outcomes. The term six sigma refers to a statistical technique of measuring quality with a maximum of 3.4 imperfections out of a million. Various organizations like General Electric, Ford, and Apple Inc. have used six-sigma in their operations and have been able to save billions of dollars (Hubbard, 2009).

Six-Sigma is a statistically conscious strategy-to-process change that uses many tools to guarantee success. These tools include total quality management, statistical process control, and experimental designs. It may be facilitated with other vital activities and frameworks like a new item improvement, planning of material requirements and controls of just-in-time inventory. Initially, Six-sigma was…

Management and Theory
Leadership and coaching go hand in many ways because to coach is to lead, and to lead is to coach others. Indeed, leaders and coaches, whatever the title is really theoretical mentoring within the context of a particular organization or activity. For centuries, scholars and philosophers alike have been trying to find a specific and complete definition for coaching and leadership, but have not had much success. True, leadership is, in part, decision making at the nth level; while coaching takes that decision making and often compartmentalizes it into split-second action. In the era of gloablization, theoretical decision making this has become even more critical now that there are so many divergent cultural opportunities that require new skills, approaches, and even that allow coaching to occur not just in the physical environment, but in the virtual as well, with no regard for geographic or political boundaries (Drucker,…

Organizations that fail to address these issues in the development of Six Sigma methodologies will waste both time and resources on failed attempts to improve quality in the organization. In the end, the organization must be able to build the right culture that supports Six Sigma methodologies while still allowing for growth, development and innovation.
eferences

Antony, J., Foutris, F., Banuelas, ., & Thomas, a. (2004). Using Six Sigma. Manufacturing Engineer, 83(1), 10-12.

Benes, J. (2006). eady for Six Sigma? American Machinist, 150(7), 54-56.

Brue, G. (2005). Will the eal Six Sigma Please Stand Up? Adhesives & Sealants Industry, 12(2), 34-35.

Can process management programs actually discourage innovation? (2006). Hydrocarbon Processing, 85(1), 23-25.

Jones, S. (2004). Understanding Six Sigma. Quality, 43(3), 24-24.

Lee, . (2004). ISSSP Session: Innovation and Six Sigma Go Hand in Hand. Six Sigma. Accessed November 10, 2007 at http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c040617a.asp.

McClusky, . (2000). The rise, fall and…

Quality Control
Balanced Scorecard

The balanced scorecard was developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton and serves as a useful tool for designing strategies along different types of important objectives in any organization. Other business models were deemed too narrow and they wanted something more comprehensive to translate vision and strategy into objectives and measures across four balanced perspectives: the financial perspective, customer perspective, internal process perspective, and the learning and growth perspective. Each perspective is important to look at individually, however when the four approaches are "balanced" then the organization is in the best position to create value for all stakeholders.

According to its founders, Robert Kaplan and David Norton, it consists of four major performance measures- Financial, Customer, Internal Business Processes, Learning and Growth (Kaplan & Norton, 2007). The financial measure gives an idea of the past performance of a company, whereas measures like customer satisfaction and learning…

It is important to ensure that the team for any specific task comprises members who are knowledgeable and posses the required skills needed to carry out the task. Teams should also try to work across organizational boundaries/levels and break down internal barriers and deal with people and issues directly and avoid hidden agendas from both within the group and from external sources.

Prior to selecting team members, the purpose and the reasons for creating the HPWT should be clear to the entire management members deciding on the team creation. Teams without a definite goal and aim, will drift and fail, since no goal and objective is set or a final objective identified. Getting together individuals possessing special skills, talents or expertise in order to build a team is critical. Important skills for a team include: "technical expertise," "problem solving," "decision making," and "interpersonal skills." (Thompson, Aranda, Robbins, & Swenson, 2000)…

Quality Management Analysis and ecommendations for ubicon Group -- a Travelcom Company
It is common for quality management symptoms and problems to appear when two or more organizations are integrated together, as is the case of the business units within the ubicon Group. It is imperative however in assessing support services using quality management frameworks and techniques to not focus too closely on the symptoms and not see the greater strategic challenges and roadblocks standing in the way of greater levels of customer service quality (Sepic, McNabb, 1994). The intent of this analysis is to explain how ubicon Group can use the frameworks of Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, lean principles and balanced scorecards (BSC) to attain a higher level of performance and customer satisfaction. Treating the symptoms will only get the customer service team so far. A key underlying assumption of this analysis is that the fundamental nature…

Leasing Company
For a company to be effective in its production, it has to have employees. Their employment terms depend on the decision of the company. In any case a company has temporary employees then goes ahead and lays them off; employees might file a case with the unemployment office so that they can get benefits. If this happen, the unemployment tax rate will be high for the next 3 years. Meaning that the company has to pay high unemployment taxes. hen a leasing company is used for getting employees, and lays them off, then the leasing company will get stuck with the tax rate which is high but not you. The benefits that are supposed to be given to the employees are going to be provided for from the leasing company.

Main difference becomes the tax rate for unemployment taxes. It is either one has the high tax rate…

Alex is facing and evaluate different tools to arrive at the solutions. Moreover, the paper evaluates the newer tools such as lean, six sigma, and the internet to arrive at the solution the problem that Alex is facing. The paper provides the overview of the problems that Alex ogo is asked to solve within three months.
The focus of this paper centers on Alex ogo, a plant manager of the Uniware, a division of Unico. Alex's meeting with his boss, Bill Peach, reveals that the company is facing challenges and Alex is given an ultimatum of three months to improve the performances of the plants. However, Alex is unable to use available outside tools such as surveys and consultant because of the limited time. With narrow channel to follow, Alex remembered Jonah whom he knew in its previous workplace. With the current company's situation, Alex decided to have a conversation…

KC but my friends and family call me Mary. I was born in the Philippines, on the island of Luzon in 1965. I lived in Philippines for roughly 22 years and then moved to Los Angeles, in 1992. My first few years in the United States were difficult. I had to come up with different strategies to get over my homesickness and to make it in the land of opportunity. The adjustment to American culture, clothes, language, and food were the most significant challenges of my life, but I overcame those them. Today, I have two children and they blessed me with four grandchildren whom I adore. Living alone in strange world made me who I am today. After all, I believed that our determination/dedication dictates our future.
After long years of school, I completed a baccalaureate degree in nursing few years ago. I have had been in practice for…

Rather than attempting to increase the diversification of product offerings, management at Best Buy have found small and subtle ways to adjust the retail experience, making stores (or more specifically, certain areas of each store) more tailored to specific classes and types of consumers. Sales staff have also been trained to use different language styles and sales efforts when dealing with different consumers, again tailoring each individual consumer's experience to their own personal needs and preferred methods of conducting business. By simply presenting and describing the largely technological offerings available at Best Buy stores in different manners to different consumers, sales have increased and the store's profitability has risen, as well. The continued success of the company depends on its ability to continue this process of incremental innovation, adjusting and developing as new consumer trends come to the fore.
Encouraging managers and employees to become intrapreneurs, making profitable incremental innovations…

These vary by the type of managers and leaders there are in a given company. At Dell, transformational leaders are prevalent given the approach Michael Dell takes of allowing risk-taking, greater autonomy and support for decentralized decision making throughout the company (Dell Investor elations, 2013).
Explain different supplier relationship practices you think will be an advantage to the company, providing examples.

There are many different approaches Dell takes in creating and sustaining their supplier relationships. There are supplier relationships for commodity-oriented products to entirely different ones for high-value products like microprocessors. Dell has been able to unify all of these using a common set of analytics and metrics of performance, creating a consistent approach to managing their diverse supply chain based on profitability contribution by supplier, not just price (Weisendanger, 1993).

Explain the different customer focus practices you think will be an advantage to the company including examples.

Dell is…

Emotional Intelligence
Read the case study-Finding the Emotional Intelligence

hat are the differences between leaders and managers? Can anyone be a leader? hich would you prefer to work for and why?

Leaders are typically thought to be more visionary, inspiring, and often humble while managers are frequently assumed to be more administrative and organized. Each role has value to the organization and can move the organization towards the achievement of its strategic goals in the right circumstances. Management is aimed at monitoring, controlling, and motivating employees through economic incentives and other exchange incentives (Bass, 1985).

Share an example from your work or school experience with working through the five stages of team development.

Figure 1-5 Stages (UIC, N.d.)

One of the classes in business I had last semester had a group project. The groups were formed by the professor and many of the people in my group did not know…

Like many tools, it is dependent upon two things: 1) How it is used, and 2) the quality of the data. Six-Sigma was originally designed for use by Motorola in the early 1980s. It was put in place in order to not only uncover, but to solve, certain manufacturing processes that were not working appropriately. It improved the company by defining a clearly focus on measurable issues that could be quantified and linked to profitability. It also increased an emphasis on management's commitment to utilizing the strategic planning system to actually implement a cause-effect relationship within the manufacturing model.
However, when all the bells and whistles come off, and all the statistical data and measurement are broken down, the model is really a quality improvement template. It is not designed for any subjectivity and often fails to take into account that margin of error is different on divergent products and…

Office PO
Steps organizations would take to establish a Project Management Office (PMO), of Project Office (PO)

Five basic steps that organizations use when establishing a Project Management Office or Project Office

knowing what is to be accomplished

While figuring ways of introducing a project office, it is necessary to consider the essence of knowing the objectives and goals of the project. Tentative issues and concerns should be on elaborating all the intentions of the project in order to let them be part of the office experiences. Part of the activities within accomplishments of the project objectives is rationales of creating the office. For instance, if a project intends to change the culture within an organization, such an intention will be achieved when an office is opened with the sole purpose of dealing with all the issues concerned with change of culture (Hurt & Thomas, 2009, p.59).

Step 2: Get…

The age of the family physician or the nurse that saw a family through their life cycle is no more, creating a more impersonal and less psychologically well-informed healthcare system.
Q8. Perhaps the most important factor contributing to employee stability is that of a pleasant work environment. Collegial relationships between employees, managers that actually listen to staff members, and humane working conditions (i.e., not constantly scheduling nurses to work nights and back-to-back shifts) are essential. Workers should also be fairly compensated, given the work that they do and the education demanded by their position. In the case of high-demand and highly-skilled professionals like nurses, salaries and benefits must acknowledge the competitive nature of the field and the fact that many institutions are offering attractive packages to enhance retention. Factors that work against retention and contribute to high turnover include insensitive management, a highly competitive and backbiting working environment, long and…

Improvement of Human esource Management in a espiratory Care Center
When individuals play as a team they tend to achieve greater clinical and organizational outcomes in a healthcare institution like the respiratory care center. Clinical and financial improvements have been reported in cases where there has been teamwork between the healthcare team. Whenever there is an organizational breakdown, the departments in any organization can conspire to sabotage each other and this hampers the progress of any care giving institution (Hoff 2004).

Overall patient care is achieved whenever there is total cooperation and teamwork between the workers, this is because each worker works with only one sole aim and that is to meet the needs of the patient. In such a case the main goal is to achieve an improved respiratory care. Teamwork exist in two levels in any respiratory care center, the first instance is when there is cooperation between…

Healthcare Management
Did America justly fulfill its manifest destiny? Explain your opinion.

America did fulfill its destiny. This occurred with the country uniting as one nation embracing these ideas of personal freedom and equality. While at the same time, it went from a series of small backward colonies to becoming a world power. These objectives were realized over the course of American history. (Kennedy, 2012)

The biggest reasons for the westward expansion were based upon the desire to obtain land and have access to various natural resources (i.e. gold, silver, coal and oil). This was a part of America's expansion into becoming a new nation that embraced the ideas of personal freedom. A classic example of this peaceful expansion occurred with the purchase of Alaska from ussia in 1867. To this day, it is continuing to contribute economically and militarily. (Kennedy, 2012)

However, the westward expansion often involved the use…

Normally, the designer's direct involvement into the user-research process is noted to be limited. There is however a need for a close collaboration between the researchers and the designers so that the quality attributes that are desired by the clients are adequately included into the final product (Donnelly, 2000).

It is therefore clear that for the user's perceptions of quality to be adequately captured and incorporated into the design and production stages of a given product, usability research must be thoroughly conducted and the results clearly communicated by the researchers to the design team. Ford Motors's application of a user-centric approach to the production of its products makes it very crucial for the company to actively be connected to the latest thoughts and perceptions that its clients may harbor.

The successful the initiative

It is important that the success of the TQM initiative to be gauged so as to highlight…

The basic techniques of actuaries are being utilized through qualitative research. This is when they will analyze different journals to identify the underlying trends. The solution is that this information can be used in future research to identify the strengths and weaknesses for conducting an international marketing campaign. (Leonidour, 2010, pp. 491 -- 518)
In the third article, Friday-Stroud (2007) is discussing the possibility of combining different management theories into one. This is accomplished by focusing on integrating the managerial decision making process and sigma six models into one single strategy. The basic method that was used was conceptual research. This is when actuaries created an 8 step model that could be utilized to develop a theoretical understanding of the challenges facing a firm. However, these ideas have not been tested and will require further study to determine their effectiveness. This solution is providing everyone with a basic foundation for…

There is also the need to make sure the funds are actually leading to the socially-driven and philanthropic goals being achieved as well. Where for-profit organizations commonly use balanced Scorecards for measuring their effectiveness relative to financial and operational goals, not-for-profit organizations need them even more to measure and report back on the progress to attaining greater social good (Weinstein, Bukovinsky, 2009). Arguably the increased pressure on not-for-profits to show not just a return on their investment in terms of social welfare but also show the funds were spent judiciously and without waste accentuates, intensifies the need for tighter reporting. As a result, there is the need to ensure a very high level of transparency and accountability in now the funds and resources of a not-for-profit are used. For all of these factors and the need for auditability of not-for-profit organizations' financial statements and ongoing activities, balanced scorecards are indispensible.…