The Six Sigma Manual for Small and Medium Businesses by Craig Baird

Author:Craig Baird
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Publishing
Published: 2013-07-28T00:00:00+00:00

In regards to the definition process, there are several steps that need to be followed to make everything successful for the company. The steps to define the project are important and should be followed exactly to ensure that everything goes as planned.

1. Determine what needs to be improved in the company. If sales are down because no one wants to deal with customer service, then you have to determine if you should improve the product so no one calls in with complaints or if you should improve customer service when people do call in. You could improve both and eliminate both problems at once.

2. Identify the processes that contribute to the problem and their locations. If your company suffers from poor customer service, but only in your East Coast outlets, then maybe you need to identify why those are the ones that are bringing the entire company down.

3. Dtermine the baseline performance you want for processes that need to be improved. If it is poor customer service, 32 percent satisfaction rate, on the East Coast, then you need to set a benchmark of 90 or 92 percent for the process improvement goal. This gives you a clear way to get the goal of the project, and everything in the middle is filling in the details. Think of it like this. The Six Sigma problem-solving process is like a story you are writing. You have the beginning that involves a renegade agent selling secrets to a foreign power, and the ending, which is that the man is caught. All you have to do is fill in the plot in the middle.

4. You need to look at how much the project is going to cost and the impact it will have. If your goal is to improve customer service on the East Coast from 32 percent satisfaction to 92 percent satisfaction, you should understand how much that will cost. If the cost is going to be $1.2 million to train everyone properly, but the Return on Investment will only be $700,000, then the company is losing money and the problem may have to be solved in another way.

5. Writing out the problem statement is important because it shows you understand the problem and it helps others understand the problem.

6. After writing out the problem statement, you need to write out the objective statement. This will help put down a clear line of where you want to go from your current situation to where you eventually want to be.

7. To solve the problem, you need to start the project, and to start the project, you need to be able to have the people you need to solve it. This step is all about getting the right people for the right job. Back in the 1950s, NASA had the problem of losing the space race to the Russians; they set the goal of going to the Moon. That was their problem and their end solution, but they needed the right team of men to get there.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.