There are many who strongly believe that only large multinational companies can afford to implement Six Sigma. However, this is a misconception. Small or mid-sized companies too can successfully implement this business management strategy as long as they are open to change. It will involve only a few aspects of your business and your company must be able to tolerate variation. In addition, you must be ready to face failures that may result from this change. In addition, there are some other prerequisites for implementing this management strategy. Apart from having a tolerance for change you must be ready to divert your spare resources into change-related activities. The question that now arises is who can take advantage of this business management strategy. Anybody, ranging from companies manufacturing electronic products to those dealing with transportation. The following tips will help you to implement Six Sigma in your organization. But before that you need to understand what is Six Sigma and how will it help your business.
What is Six Sigma?
This is a technology that focuses on solving your business related problems and helps in reducing waste and cost as well as improves customer satisfaction. With the help of statistics and data, this methodology points out those aspects which can decrease waste involved in your business process dramatically and thus increase customer satisfaction and profit. Now you know what is Six Sigma and how it will help you. So the next question is why you need to involve your employees in this technology? Simply because your employees are your best resources and by involving them in this improvement project you are actually improving their skills. This, in turn, will act as a motivational factor and will increase their commitment to the organizational success.
Where to implement Six Sigma?
As said earlier, this is a problem-solving technology. Thereby, you need to implement this in those areas that need improvement. So make a list of your present business related problems according to their priority. Depending on your day-to-day operations point out the most repetitive processes. Also list down those which you think are affecting your products/ services adversely. This will help you to target areas where you can implement this management strategy.
How to Start?
Once you have identified the scope of implementing this strategy, you need to create Six Sigma expertise within the organization. This will require training your existing employees or hiring a certified Six Sigma consultant. Since such training includes certain amount of expenditure, it is better to select a hand few who, in turn, will train the others. While selecting these employees make sure that they posses strong leadership skills and must have the ability to work on cross-functional projects.
What are the costs involved?
Apart from the cost of training your employees, you will also need to invest in educational resources like books and software. But there are certain ways that will help you to cut down your cost. You can take advantage of online training and consulting to save both your money and time. In addition, there are several websites and forums that offer free support where you can get help from Six Sigma professionals.
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Help answer the question about business management
Is Santa Clara University good school for major in business management?Hello I am a Junior at High school in sacramento. i am planning on going to Santa Clara University. I am wanting to major in Business management. For Business management…. would getting an MBA a good thing and will it be helpful later on for getting a job?
I am still confused on this: For majoring business management, what is better? Getting a bachelor degree or getting MBA? please help~
So the bottom line is that I would like a clear explaination of what MBA exactly is and if it will be helpful to have later on if business management.
Yes, it can be easily applied to the service industry. It is all about process improvements. In my Black Belt classes, over half of our case studies involved transactional processes.
I am not a big believer in 'Lean'… The DMADDD model to me is a better way to go if you want to decrease cycle times. Of course, a lot of it is just differences in terminology.
When you are creating new processes, you use the DMADV method (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, verify), instead of the typical DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control). There are a number of books for both Six Sigma and DFSS (Design For Six Sigma) which should get you on your way.
I like the author Pyzdek, but there are a ton of books and authors out there- search Amazon or go to your local bookstore.
This is excellent presentation for executive MBA students. I really enjoyed this video
Yup, the stimulus money went to paying off Democrat contributors, and to further the Obama agendas. To really stimulate the economy, a strong suggestion was put forth where state and federal taxes would be suspended for 6 months to a year (cheaper than the plan initiated). This would give tax payers a 25 to 35 percent income increase, and that would certainly increase spending and investments. But of course the Democrats wouldn't hear of such a plan. That would put control in the American public, and not in the Democrat Party. And since the stimulus wasn't really to help the economy anyway, it was never even discussed.
TTH- OK, managed to find this question. The website that tells you about the requirements to get PMP Certified is http://www.pmi.org
Its really not that expensive to get certified- it was less than $500 if I remember right (it was a couple of years ago that I got mine). It only gets expensive if you take a training class for the test- which I admit, I did take, and that cost more like $1600. Luckily for me, my employer covered the cost, it doesnt sound like you are that fortunate.
Anyway, to meet the PM requirements, you dont necessarily have to have been the PM for an overall project. You mention running an IT consulting business- I would suspect if you look back at your experience there, you are very likely to find the PM hours you need. Did you manage Developers through a development process? Even if you didnt have a formal methodology that you used- that counts as PM time. Did you perhaps manage (even just your own work) for an integration project or something like that? Again- those hours count. Just take all those one-offs where you managed pieces of projects, even if it was just informally, and see if you can add them up.
If it doesnt come up to enough, there are two other alternatives. The first is to go for the CAPM before the PMP. The requriements are quite a bit less for the CAPM, and the test to get that cert is a lot easier. Its not as widely recognized as the PMP, but it does essentially tell companies that you are an entry-level PM. The second alternative is that they recently started up a Program Manager certification through PMI as well. If you cant find the hours for the PMP, I would again suspect that your experience in owning a consulting business might qualify you to take the Program Management certification.
It takes a good bit of time to properly fill out the application, as you really have to think back to all the little bits of work you've done in past years, and say "well, it was only a week's worth of work, but I was managing a small piece of a project during those 40 hours, so it should count", and then documenting those hours.
Its amazing the doors that having your PMP will open. It doesnt have to be limited to technology (IT), there are plenty of other non-IT jobs that need PMP's as well. You can go pretty much anywhere you want with it.