Page 136 - Design for Six Sigma a Roadmap for Product Development

Design for Six Sigma Deployment 111

subsystems. Later, when DFSS becomes the way of doing business,
program-level DFSS deployment becomes the norm and the issue of
synchronization with PMS eventually diminishes. Actually, the PMS is
crafted to reflect the DFSS learning experience that the company
gained over the years of experience.
3. DFSS project sources. The successful deployment of the DFSS
initiative within a company is tied to projects derived from the com-
pany’s scorecards. In Six Sigma terminology a scorecard is a unified
approach to visualize how companies gauge their performance inter-
nally and externally. In other words, scorecards are tools used to mea-
sure the health of the company. The scorecard usually takes the form of
a series of linked worksheets bridging customer requirements with
product and process performance at all stages of the product, process,
or service development. The reader may conclude that to satisfy such a
prerequisite indicates the existence of an active measurement system
for internal and external metrics in the scorecard. The measurement
system should pass a gauge R&R (repeatability and reproducibility)
study in all used metrics.
4. Establishment of deployment structure. A premier deployment
objective can be that black belts are used as a taskforce to improve cus-
tomer satisfaction, company image, and other strategic long-term
objectives of the deploying company. To achieve such objectives, the
deploying division should establish a deployment structure formed
from deployment directors, and master black belts (MBBs) with
defined roles and responsibilities, long-term and short-term planning.
The structure can take the form of a council with definite recurring
schedule. We suggest using DFSS to design the DFSS deployment
process and strategy. The deployment team should

■ Develop a green belt structure of support to the black belts in every
department.
■ Ensure that the scope of each project is under control and that the
project selection criteria are focused on the company’s objectives
such as quality, cost, customer satisfiers, and delivery drivers.
■ Hand off (match) the appropriately scoped projects to black belts.
■ Support projects with key upfront documentation such as charters
or contracts with financial analysis highlighting savings and other
benefits, efficiency improvements, customer impact, project ratio-
nale, and other factors. Such documentation will be reviewed and
agreed on by primary stakeholders (deployment champions, design
owners, black belts, and finance).
■ Allocate black belt resources optimally across many divisions of the
company targeting high-impact projects first, and create a long-term