General Electric (GE), through the leadership of the former CEO Jack Welch, has been at the forefront of quality management. Their discoveries gave birth to what today we call ‘Six Sigma’. Due to the brevity displayed by Art Sundry, Motorola went on a search for ways to improve its quality.īill Smith and Mikel Harry started this search. This was Art Sundry’s voice, a sales manager at that time. Suddenly, from the back of the room came a lone voice saying ‘our quality stinks!’. As expected, their responses were politically correct but the main issue was still unsolved. During the meeting, many senior executives gave reasons why they felt Motorola wasn’t doing well. The then CEO, Bob Galvin, called for a meeting to address the lingering issue. Motorola was losing market share in its key market segments – semiconductors, car radios, and television. This was the same situation Motorola faced in the early 1980s. A decision that will determine, say, your next 20 years. I guess you know how it feels when you face a tough situation that requires you to make a decision. Their success has spurred many to research further on ‘Lean thinking’. Since then, Toyota has continued to make tremendous successes in sales. The guys at Toyota, therefore, came up with well-known concepts such as Toyota Production System (TPS), Just In Time (JIT), Pull concept, and Jidoka, among others. He named this ‘flow production’.ĭuring the 1930s, Kiichiro Toyoda and some other guys working at Toyota looked at Ford’s invention and sought ways to improve on it. He was the first person to integrate an entire production process. However, Henry Ford of the well-known Ford Motor Company started Lean manufacturing in the early 1900s. Lean manufacturing can be traced to the pre-20th century. To further understand the difference, let’s look at the histories of both Lean and Six Sigma. I’m sure you now know what Lean and Six Sigma are about. Want to know more about the focus of Lean and Six Sigma? Please, visit our ‘What is Lean Six Sigma’ page to learn more. The minimum is defined thus: ‘for every one million opportunities, they shouldn’t be more than three errors.’ The goal of Six Sigma is to reduce errors to the minimum. It focuses on reducing mistakes in processes. Six Sigma is an approach that is driven by data. Having known the focus of Lean, let’s talk about Six Sigma. In essence, the focus of Lean is to eliminate any form of waste thereby increasing efficiency, speed, and productivity. In other words, anything a customer or stakeholder is not willing to pay for is considered a waste. Waste here is anything that does not add value to your product or service. Lean manufacturing (often referred to as Lean) is an approach for eliminating waste. This will give us a clue as to what Lean and Six Sigma are about. Bearing this in mind, it is important to know the focus of Lean and Six Sigma. Focus gives direction, purpose, and clarity. One characteristic of eagles is that they focus on their prey from a distance.
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