For most companies, Six Sigma is the best method to reduce costs and be competitive in the market. Six Sigma doesn't always work for everyone. There are some downsides that do exist to Six Sigma. However, research has shown that firms who successfully implement Six Sigma typically perform better in the following categories: return on investment, return on sales, employment growth, stock growth, and value growth.

The employees are the deciding factor in the Six Sigma process. Obtaining a Six Sigma environment can be easy depending upon how well your company is training its individuals and how well the Black Belts and Champions are at portraying a positive attitude about Six Sigma. Management must be willing to change in order for Six Sigma to make a change.

One of the greatest advantages to Six Sigma is that all the measured improvements will be achieved through statistical ratios that can be converted into financial results. When you have financial results, the greater your chance is to obtain new shareholders. Many shareholders even require that Six Sigma be implemented at your company before they will hold stock in the company.

The Cons of Six Sigma

If Six Sigma is going to be successful, it has to be accepted by everyone at all the different levels. If someone is not excited about Six Sigma and does not buy in, then the Six Sigma Methodology will lead to failure. In some instances, Six Sigma's effectiveness has not been measured or is not able to be measured. Due to the inability of certain measurements, it is unclear if Six Sigma is actually helpful.

Many organizations use Six Sigma as a way to protect themselves from liability. For example, if a company produces a specific product that is low in quality or can cause harm to the customer, the organization will use the defense that quality is at the forefront in order to be viewed in a positive manner. It is unclear if organizations are implementing Six Sigma for its methodology or simply to covers its liability.

With the organization pressure on managers to implement Six Sigma, many feel completed to take on projects that do not have a high potential payoff. A lot of time is wasted on projects that have low potential. The cost to implement Six Sigma is substantial. Training all the people require ten of thousands of hours of the companies money and millions of dollars are spent on direct and indirect costs.

Six Sigma can cause bureaucratic problems if Black Belts begin stepping on the toes of management. Problems can occur when the focus of the company is on the number of trained Black Belts and Green Belts instead of on the bottom line savings.

The goal of Six Sigma is to reduce defects to 3.4 failures per million opportunities. Depending upon the type of organization you are, you may never be able to meet this expectation. In a service processes, a defect can include anything that does not meet the customers requirements. It is illogical to assume that every product that is created will be completely identical and the vast majority of your customers will have problems with it.

The tools used to implement Six Sigma and not powerful. The American Society for Quality Black Belt curriculum reveals that the topics taught in the training programs are simple statistical methods and statistical process-control techniques. These methods actually yield about 10 percent of the total process in a project.

Having high quality data available, especially in processes where no data is available to begin with can take a large portion of the project time. Finding the right selection of projects and placing them into order by priority is based on pure subjective judgment and is considered one of the critical success factors of Six Sigma.

Research has shown that the skills and expertise of the Black Belts and Green Belts are inconsistent across companies and are dependant on the certification body. Black Belts often believe they know all the practical aspects of advanced quality improvement methods when they have just a brief knowledge.

There is an overselling of Six Sigma by consulting firms. Many consulting firms claim they have expertise in Six Sigma, when in fact they have little knowledge of the tools and techniques used in Six Sigma.

The Pros of Six Sigma

As you are aware, Six Sigma is simply a business strategy that seeks to identify and eliminate errors, defects, and failures in the business process by focusing on the inputs and outputs that are critical to customers. Six Sigma is a measure of quality that wants to obtain the complete or near elimination of defects by using statistical methods. Though there are cons to Six Sigma, there are numerous Pros to Six Sigma as well.

Six Sigma places a clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable financial returns to the company. A Six Sigma project will be approved only if the bottom-line impact is clearly defined and identified.

The philosophy of Six Sigma is to create strong leaders. In order for Six Sigma to be successful, you must have a strong, passionate leader and support from each member involved in the organization. Six Sigma also focuses on problem solving and integrates basic human elements such as: culture change, belt system infrastructure, customer focus, etc.

Six Sigma also includes process elements of improvement such as: process management, measurement system analysis, statistical analysis of process data, etc. The tools and techniques used in a Six Sigma process are disciplined and used to fix problems in a sequential form. Each technique and tool in the Six Sigma process has a different role to play: when, why, where and how. The tools are properly applied to each individual situation and they will be the different between success and failure.

There are different levels of responsibility in the Six Sigma process: Sponsors, Leaders, Champions, Master Black Belts, Experts, Black Belts, Green Belts, and White Belts. Each person is responsible for different aspects in the Six Sigma process that help to lead, deploy and implement the program.

Six Sigma stresses the importance of data and decision making based on facts instead of personal opinions. Individuals are forces to put measures in place and these measurements will be part of the cultural change. Six Sigma also encourages people to brainstorm and think outside the box. Statistical thinking reduces the chance for errors and defects to be made.

The Future of Six Sigma

Those companies who have implemented Six Sigma and have yielded results will continue to advocate for Six Sigma. As long as projects yield measurable results in monetary format, Six Sigma will continue to be around. If bottom-line results begin to fade or completely disappear, then Six Sigma could fall from its current state.

Black Belts are the stronghold of the Six Sigma methodology. Because Black Belts take on so much responsibility, they are at a higher risk to cause problems within the company. It is unknown what classifies an individual as a good Black Belt or a poor Black Belt. Individuals vary across the different industries and a great deal of their success will depend upon their training and certification.

The senior managers in an organization need to understand that Six Sigma is not a "solve all" solution for their problems. While Six Sigma does provide an effective means for implementing and creating statistical thinking, there are still other variations in the process.

All the work in Six Sigma consists of interconnected processes and understanding the data is key to identifying the variations in the different processes. There are reasons why Six Sigma has a better track record than Business Process Re-Engineering and Total Quality Management. Six Sigma has been around since the mid-late 1980's and it doesn't like it will dwindle off in the near future.

Becoming Successful with Six Sigma

Every industry will have different tools to measure the success of their Six Sigma implementation.

Some of the following tips will help you decide what tools you need to use to measure the results of your Six Sigma program:

• Leadership involvement and support
• Techniques to promote a cultural change
• Choosing the best people for the Six Sigma process
• Delivering proper training to all the people involved
• Setting measurable goals and objectives
• Establishing clear roles and responsibilities
• Paying attention to each phase in the Six Sigma process
• Include project tracking and reporting procedures
• Stress the importance of accountability

Many cases of failed Six Sigma come from poor communication, lack of leadership support, inadequate training and mentoring, poorly defined projects, and failure to recognize the human side of change.

Six Sigma takes time to implement, it will not happen overnight. Six Sigma requires strategic vision, diligence, patience, hard work, and effective leadership. Your company will need to make a total commitment to Six Sigma in order to achieve long-term success. Changing the culture and developing experience will go a long way in properly implementing and maintaining your Six Sigma process.